Tell us about your role at IBM Cloud and the marketing technologies that your team uses.
As the worldwide leader of performance marketing for IBM Hybrid Cloud, my team and I bring subject matter expertise to our integrated marketing teams to drive more effective (conversion) and efficient (ROI) demand generation. From marketing automation and content personalization to webcasting and events across paid, owned, earned and shared channels, my team intersects the art and technology in marketing, using data every step of the way to test and learn.
What brings you to ON24 Webinar World 2018?
We have made incredible strides with our webinar program in the past year working with ON24, so I am delighted to share our learnings and success story in ‘casting’ with the attendees at Webinar World with the hope that other marketers can see what’s possible. In the same vein, I’m looking forward to learning how other B2B marketers have fueled their webinar programs so we can apply these to our own “casting” program. And of course, networking and meeting other fellow marketers who share a passion for marketing is always a highlight of any conference.
Why do you see webinars as a key component of a modern CMO’s martech stack?
I am such a champion of webinars, or “casting”, as I like to call it. Casting has come such a long way with the intersection of martech, analytics and content marketing. Casting is not only a viable format to deliver relevant stories and content across the buyers’ journey but also a way to deliver multiple touches in a single event, accelerating prospects forward in their buying journey. In addition, casting platforms can now offer incredible behavioral insights to help marketers become more impactful on the next right step. Finally, casting is a great way to extend the reach of event content to drive net new prospects and once engaged, offer targeted casting series to keep them coming back where we can create upsell/cross-sell opportunities and, ultimately, drive overall advocacy.
How do modern webinar marketing campaigns justify the churn from automation tools for the email, social media, and the new-age Account-Based Marketing?
While marketing automation does add more steps and complexity to execution, the outcome of that, when done thoughtfully and strategically, is more authentic and customer-centric webcast campaigns. Since you are able to capture deeper behavioral insights, you are then able to create more meaningful and actionable experiences for the webcast attendee.
At IBM Cloud, how do you leverage data science and AI/ML capabilities to drive webinar marketing campaigns?
The opportunities with data science, AI and Machine Learning so incredibly exciting. Our platforms are constantly analyzing responses with built-in logic that feeds into our marketing automation system so our campaigns can nurture individuals not yet ready to purchase and progress those who are ready for a conversation with a lead development representative.
Specifically, Response Scoring is a system that allows us to prioritize how to handle digital leads for seller follow up. It’s an automated statistical model that simultaneously uses hundreds of variables to predict the likelihood that a lead passed to a seller will turn into a validated sales opportunity. IBM continues to add new features to facilitate the integrated deployment of IBM Campaign with Watson-enabled modules.