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The engineering to software conglomerate, which houses LT Mutual Fund under listed arm LT Finance, had put the mutual fund business on the block earlier in a renewed attempt to find a suitable buyer

Pakistan's fiscal deficit will surge to 9% in the ongoing fiscal year, the country's de facto finance minister said on Friday, as its economy reels from the fallout of the coronavirus crisis.

Hackers linked to Iran have targeted staff at U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc in recent weeks, according to publicly-available web archives reviewed by Reuters and three cybersecurity researchers, as the company races to deploy a treatment for the COVID-19 virus.

Everyone in B2B is talking about account-based marketing. And almost everyone is practicing it in some form — around 93% of organizations, according to SiriusDecisions.

“Not many are killing it though,” says Kelvin Gee. “That's the problem. They start pilots ... then they re-launch and learn from the mistakes. That's just a natural maturation.”

This is a fundamental process in digital marketing, of course: test, assess, optimize. But in the Break Free B2B series, our goal is to help you fast-forward it by learning from the mistakes, successes, and revelations of your innovating peers in the field. And as the Senior Director of Modern Marketing Business Transformation at Oracle*, Kelvin draws from a deep well of experience at one of the powerhouse brands in enterprise technology.

Walking the walk is different from talking to talk, but it’s easy to see why companies across the spectrum are seeking to do both.

“Companies do need to be more customer-centric, deliver a better customer experience, personalize the content, align with sales, and measure themselves differently,” he observes. “I call account-based a strategic glue that pulls all that stuff together.”

In his conversation with TopRank Marketing’s Josh Nite, filmed in Arizona during B2B Marketing Exchange in February, Kelvin shares his perspectives on what it takes to actually make ABM work, and how Oracle empowers its people to thrive within this framework.

It comes down to a fairly simple and repeatable model: standardize, evangelize, train, enable.

[bctt tweet="“Standardize, Evangelize, Train, Enable,” @kgee’s model for implementing #ABM at scale in large organizations like @oracle. #BreakFreeB2B. — Kelvin Gee" username="toprank"]

During an expansive 25-minute interview, Kelvin unpacks the inner workings of enterprise ABM, from getting buy-in to rethinking attribution to developing meaningful metrics and beyond.

Break Free B2B Interview with Kelvin Gee

If you’re interested in checking out a particular portion of the discussion, you can find a quick general outline below, as well as a few excerpts that stood out to us.

• 1:00 - Kelvin's definition of modern marketing
• 1:45 - Scaling account-based marketing
• 2:15 - Strategic adaptations in the evolution of ABM
• 3:30 - How does an organization adopt a new marketing philosophy?
• 5:00 - Who should lead the charge for transformation?
• 7:15 - Metrics Oracle looks at to measure ABM success
• 8:45 - Overcoming traditional friction between sales and marketing
• 10:30 - Is there a need to redefine success and "credit" in order to achieve alignment?
• 12:15 - Operational structure: should sales and marketing converge?
• 13:30 - Challenges and opportunities in the industry
• 15:45 - Oracle's tech stack
• 17:45 - How to filter out data that matters and makes a difference
• 18:45 - What will marketing look like in five years?
• 21:15 - Humans versus robots, and their roles in marketing going forward
• 23:00 - What can marketers do to break free?

Josh: What kind of metrics does Oracle look at when measuring ABM?

Kelvin: We actually look at account engagement as an early indicator on whether your program is performing or not, because if you're not seeing an increase in engagement from a snapshot that you might have taken before the campaign started, that probably means it's not working. Either the personalization isn't there, the tactics aren't working, you're not at the right watering holes, or the orchestration might not be right.

[bctt tweet="“If you're not seeing an increase in engagement from a snapshot of before the campaign started, that probably means it's not working.” — @kgee of @oracle on measuring #ABM success. #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"]

So that's the early indicator whether it's working or not. Once you're past engagement, what truly matters to sales, of course, is conversations. They want conversations with these target accounts, so that's what we really looked at and that's really measured by a target account pipeline, or "TAP," as we call it. But when you look at growth in that pipeline, regardless of crediting who sources that pipeline, whether it's marketing or sales, we don't care because it's a team sport. And you can see that growth. Again, you compare this with a snapshot you've taken of those target accounts before the campaign begins, you will see success, and that's how you measure some of those programs.

Josh: I know that Oracle is a data corporation, and you live and die by data. Can you give me a little peek into what your tech stack looks like?

Kelvin: Yeah, I'll give you some broad strokes but obviously we drink our own champagne, right? So Eloqua is our marketing automation platform and our analytics engine is all on Oracle analytics, but the important thing to understand is: We believe that data is the future of B2B marketing. Because we're not gonna have less data, we'll probably have more data in the future, so if you believe that and you also believe that most organizations — especially enterprise organizations — have data silos, and if the goal is to deliver a better customer experience, you’ve got to break down those data silos.

[bctt tweet="“We believe that data is the future of B2B marketing. If the goal is to deliver a better customer experience, you’ve got to break down those data silos.” — @kgee of @oracle on #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"]

So I always used the Marie Kondo analogy, right? Where she goes into your house and then she tells you to, you know, pile all your clothes from all your different closets onto your bed. And she tells you that for a reason, because only when you see all the piles of clothes on your bed does the light bulb go off and you say, "Oh my God I’ve got a lot of clothes." It's the same thing with your data. Once you consolidate all your data silos onto one bed, so to speak, in this case a customer intelligence platform or customer data platform or whatever you want to use, once you combine all that data, that's when you start to see all the insights of your customers. And for us, we think the future of B2B resides in a data lake of some sort. And that data lake is your single source of truth and when an account surges or rises, it'll rise simultaneously in your marketing automation platform and/or your CRM, and so that's really the important construct that we think is going to be more representative of a better customer experience in the future.

Josh: What can marketers do to break free?

Kelvin: I’ve always believed that all marketers should have empathy. I think empathy is a super important value that we all need to possess, because we all talk about customer-centricity, how we need to be more customer-centric blah, blah, blah. But what drives customer-centricity is empathy so, I always try to train all of my marketers, especially the young ones who are just coming out of college and learning that they have to develop the empathy muscle. And actually, I do this little "E" test in my workshops, and that is, I ask them to draw a capital-E on their forehead and then I watch them, and they struggle for a few seconds, because they realize there are two ways to control that "E" — they could draw it where it's facing the right way for them, but backward to the person facing them, or it's the other way, where it's backward for them but rightward-facing for the partner. And I asked how many people in the room draw one way or the other and it's usually a 50/50 mix, sometimes I'm surprised by 80/20 drawing it the right way, the right way being that it's rightward-facing for your partner. So I call this "E" test for a reason, because the E stands for 'empathy' because you've taken the time to think about the other person and make sure they see it the right way. So that's just a quick little parlor trick to show the importance of empathy in the world of marketing.

Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Break Free B2B interviews. Here are a few interviews to whet your appetite:

• Break Free B2B Marketing: Gary Gerber on Scaling ABM without Losing Focus
• Break Free B2B Series: Jon Miller on How ABM Can Help Marketers Keep Their ‘Ship’ Together
• Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing

* Disclosure: Oracle is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post Break Free B2B Marketing: Oracle’s Kelvin Gee on Winning with Enterprise ABM appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

A campaign in Mexico City to get residents to wear face masks is now reinforced with a new secret weapon: clowns. They're telling metro riders, 'Wear a face mask -- don't be a clown!' as they spray riders' hands with disinfectant. Gavino Garay has more.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

A campaign in Mexico City to get residents to wear face masks is now reinforced with a new secret weapon: clowns. They're telling metro riders, 'Wear a face mask -- don't be a clown!' as they spray riders' hands with disinfectant. Gavino Garay has more.

Sources tell Reuters the White House will soon propose an international agreement governing mining and commerce on the moon, aiming to attract like-minded space-faring countries to update a 1967 agreement on space law.

It might be hard to imagine but space is getting crowded. ‘Space junk’ is becoming a dangerous hazard for orbiting satellites, and now some countries are joining forces to tackle it.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

The Lucky Devil Lounge in Portland, Oregon has found an unusual way to stay afloat in uncertain times - home food delivery courtesy of its exotic dancers.

One of Bangladesh's largest drugmakers, Beximco Pharmaceuticals, will start production this month of the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which has shown promise in fighting the new coronavirus, a senior company executive said on Tuesday.

Indian troops killed four militants in gun battles in Kashmir on Wednesday, including the commander of the biggest separatist group fighting New Delhi, a police official said, triggering clashes across the disputed region that left dozens injured.

Pakistan's cabinet has declined to include a religious sect that rights group says suffers widespread persecution in a newly formed commission for minorities, after opposition from conservatives in the government, officials said on Thursday.

More than a third of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Afghan capital have been among doctors and other healthcare staff, two senior health officials said on Thursday, in a sign that the war-torn country is struggling to deal with the pandemic.

Young German climate-strikers on Friday (April 24) got creative with their social distancing, set up hundreds of cardboard cutouts to represent protesters taking part in the Fridays for Future demonstration.

One has been promoting environmental regulation for decades, while the other is bent on dismantling such policies. It makes for clear battle lines in the upcoming presidential election.

Sorry. A short dip in carbon emissions won’t save the planet after all. Things may even get worse, say the experts.

Wall Street's indexes climbed Thursday, with the Nasdaq erasing losses for 2020, following a clutch of upbeat earnings reports led by PayPal. Fred Katayama reports.

As Thailand's capital cautiously reopens many restaurants shuttered over coronavirus fears, the feline "employees" of the Caturday Cafe are back at work.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

A campaign in Mexico City to get residents to wear face masks is now reinforced with a new secret weapon: clowns. They're telling metro riders, 'Wear a face mask -- don't be a clown!' as they spray riders' hands with disinfectant. Gavino Garay has more.

Thousands of cyclists took over streets in the center of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana on Friday evening to protest against the government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa and the restrictions it has imposed to fight the coronavirus.

Thousands of cyclists took over streets in the center of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana on Friday evening to protest against the government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa and the restrictions it has imposed to fight the coronavirus.

Can creative sparks fly through plexiglass? Is the water cooler chat a thing of the past?

As Thailand's capital cautiously reopens many restaurants shuttered over coronavirus fears, the feline "employees" of the Caturday Cafe are back at work.

Some residents frustrated over a strict coronavirus lockdown in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat, hurled stones and were met with teargas in clashes with paramilitary forces on Friday.

Villagers placed the bodies of three victims of a deadly gas leak from an LG Polymers plant in Andhra Pradesh at the gates of the site on Saturday, and demanded the factory be shut down immediately and its top management arrested.

Microsoft Corp. said on Friday it would create its first datacentre region in Italy under a $1.5 billion investment plan as the U.S. company expands its cloud computing services to more locations across the world.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is close to signing off on a new rule that would allow U.S. companies to work with China's Huawei Technologies on setting standards for next generation 5G networks, people familiar with the matter said.

Tesla Inc "must not reopen" its vehicle factory in the San Francisco Bay area as local lockdown measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus remain in effect, the local county health department said on Friday.

Hackers linked to Iran have targeted staff at U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc in recent weeks, according to publicly-available web archives reviewed by Reuters and three cybersecurity researchers, as the company races to deploy a treatment for the COVID-19 virus.

Kingsoft Cloud will debut on Nasdaq, testing appetite for Chinese shares a month after the Luckin Coffee scandal. Data demand is booming in China amid Covid-19, and Kingsoft is a strong rival to market leader Alibaba. Robyn Mak explains why New York might like this listing.

Some residents frustrated over a strict coronavirus lockdown in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat, hurled stones and were met with teargas in clashes with paramilitary forces on Friday.

Villagers placed the bodies of three victims of a deadly gas leak from an LG Polymers plant in Andhra Pradesh at the gates of the site on Saturday, and demanded the factory be shut down immediately and its top management arrested.

Chinese regulators have approved Novartis' Mayzent to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis in adults, the Swiss drug maker said in a statement on Saturday.

Barcelona's women's team were officially declared champions of Spain's Liga Iberdrola on Friday after the national soccer federation's executive committee agreed to end all non-professional competitions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Playing against India behind closed doors in the much-anticipated test series at the end of the year might end up being an advantage for the home side, according to Australia batsman Usman Khawaja.

England's Jason Roy is ready to play in empty stadiums if the post-coronavirus situation demands so, said the opener who got a taste of it in his last outing.

Alexander Albon won a virtual Formula One thriller, against a field that included England cricketers Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad, around Brazil's Interlagos circuit on Sunday to deny Charles Leclerc an esports hat-trick.

The British government is looking at the option of restarting sports leagues behind closed doors, foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Tuesday.

Playing against India behind closed doors in the much-anticipated test series at the end of the year might end up being an advantage for the home side, according to Australia batsman Usman Khawaja.

Villagers placed the bodies of three victims of a deadly gas leak from an LG Polymers plant in Andhra Pradesh at the gates of the site on Saturday, and demanded the factory be shut down immediately and its top management arrested.

People pre-book vehicles during Navratri, while some take deliveries on Navratri, most prefer Dussehra.

Thousands of labourers from other states assembled near Bandra railways station on the last day of the 21-day lockdown to go to their native cities and villages as a rumour of special trains spread.

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has settled a total of 10.02 lakh claims, including 6.06 lakhs COVID-19 claims under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) package, in just 15 working days.

A total amount of Rs 4684.52 crore, including Rs 2367.65 crore COVID claims under PMGKY package, have been settled during the lockdown.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman insisted that the Indian National Congress and Rahul Gandhi should introspect why they "fail to play a constructive role in cleaning up the system".

Bharti Airtel and Sun Pharma were the only gainers on BSE.