Watch or read below to learn:

• Account-based marketing in more depth
• Ways to utilize buying groups and signals in Q4
• Practical applications regarding buying groups and engagement

00:00:00 – Introductions

00:03:06 – Account Based Engagement’s Impact on Lead Goals

00:07:32 – Enablement is Buyer Activity

00:10:20 – Different Lens for Different Buying Group Members

00:12:49 – Tactics of Account-Based-Engagement for Q4

00:17:27 – Content Perspectives That Encourage the Buyer

00:21:16 – Buyer Behaviors Results After ABM Execution

00:22:46 – Difference Between Personalization And Contextualization

00:27:13 – Types of Content Emerging as Winners

00:29:59 – How Can Account-Based-Engagement Drive Revenue Goals?

00:31:43 – Is There Value In Targeting The B2B Buyer At Home?

00:37:23 – Personal and Professional Growth

00:00:00 – Introductions

Tricia Ruiz: Welcome back to the Accelerating Revenue Series. Live. This is season three. I’m your host, Tricia at Wiles Ruiz. This is a series of transparent conversations with B2B marketing practitioners that unpack the challenges of the modern-day marketer and answer the questions of how they’re overcoming them.

Today we are speaking with principal analyst Jessie Johnson from Forrester. Her focus is in demand marketing, and today our topic will be buying group signals, how can they accelerate momentum in quarter four as this is where we are right now. Jessie Johnson, thank you so much for joining us today on the Accelerating Revenue Series. Welcome.

Jessie Johnson: Thank you for having me. Happy to be here today.

Tricia Ruiz: This is going to be a great conversation. I’m thrilled as well because of the work that you do at Forrester. It is so lovely to have a conversation where you are currently always in analyzing, always in unpacking, understanding what is happening in our industry and how we can get to the specifics of how we as marketers in Quarter 4 can utilize the tools that are happening in this industry to accelerate our revenue and get the job done.

Jessie Johnson: Yes.

Tricia Ruiz: We love getting the job done. Jessie, I love the fact as well that you’ve been in the industry for about 15 years. You’ve got some sprinkles of working in high tech changes. Can you share a little bit about that before we dig in?

Jessie Johnson: Yeah. It’s like I blinked, and it’s been about 15 years now. I remember working with various technology companies back in the days when everything was on premise.

So that was really where the beginning of my career started was how do we start to not only demonstrate the value of this transformation, the move to software as a service for whatever that application may be, and then what is that path to value? Even more importantly, how do we manage some of those changes when it comes to your people, your process and your technology in order to make that transformation?

So really happy to have had all of that experience and now to apply that to what we do at Forrester. It’s really an exciting time as well to be a marketer. If we think about how automation, artificial intelligence, is impacting everything that we do. Whether it’s what do we know about our buyers or how quickly and accurately can we take action on those insights. So very cool time to be a marketer.

Tricia Ruiz: Very cool. I love it because it is, It’s such an exciting space. It’s always something new around the corner. Even the fact of account based marketing, which we’ll get into today, and account-based engagement. This leads us to our first question, right? That the way that we do account-based marketing, how we interact and engage. Can you talk about that impact on marketers, lead goals of account-based engagement?

00:03:06 – Account Based Engagement’s Impact on Lead Goals

Jessie Johnson: Absolutely. And the first thing is to stop counting leads. Just take a moment and let that sink in a little bit. But if we look at it, where did we come from? So as B2B marketers, we’re trained both on the demand and the ABM side.

We’ve become so focused on lead conversion and counting those leads from different delivery channels. Oftentimes, we’re competing for source credit or attribution, and we’re creating silos. By those lead lens views that really limit our ability to engage and enable both at the buyer and the opportunity level.

So, the reality is that there’s always been a group of people that’s involved in that B2B purchase decision, not an individual lead. So, we need to, thing one, is to stop accounting those leads as a measure of success, and instead focus on understanding the buying group as a whole. So, there’s that team of individuals that’s working together inside of that organization or inside of that account to research, evaluate, and make their purchase decisions.

A lead in the traditional sense really indicates that there’s a need within the organization. So, leading to account matching is going to be your first step in engaging the buyer at that account level. Identifying other members of the buying group. And understanding the role that individual lead plays within that broader decision-making team.

So, they might be the end user, the influencer, the champion, the decision maker. Those are the dynamics that we really need to investigate and understand in order to drive that engagement that we’re looking for.

Tricia Ruiz: I’m very curious about what you just talked us through, which is amazing. So, you gave us it step by step, right?

Stop counting leads and look at that buying group, the research evaluation, and the personal decisions. Specifically in Quarter 4, though we understand as marketers that certain decisions have to be made. And in your company, every organization is different. Know who those people of authority are.

You know who those actual, the decisions made something changes. And we actually go this direction to complete X, Y & Z. Have you seen anything specific in the terms of the buying group when you get to the end of the year that the messaging to one specific member, one specific role, if it, is it the ratifier, is it the champion, the influencer, that really makes that change? Because you are in the fourth quarter and we are counting down the days, right? We all feel that pressure. Have you seen anything that we can be focusing on specifically and making sure that, okay, it’s the buying group as a whole, but also, in Q4 it’s this member that really holds the key? Do you have that answer?

Jessie Johnson: Yeah, it’s this member that we really need to get to move on their journey because everybody else is waiting for them to consume a piece of information or to buy in on a certain capability that’s either required or as if they’re in the evaluation phase, maybe they’re looking at the depth of those capabilities, really need to cross that decision gate so that we can accelerate that deal that might be in the pipeline from a seller’s point of view.

From the buyer’s point of view, what is that next bit of information, that information requirement that they need. So, what is the one thing that will help us get there? And I would say really, it’s not one single tactic that’s going to do it or one single message. It’s going to be the contextualization of those tactics and messages based on what we already know about that buyer and that opportunity.

And even more so as we’re uncovering those buying group dynamics, making sure that we’re incorporating that into techniques like personalization. If we see that the champion of the buying group registers for an event, maybe tailor the messaging a little bit and try and get your influencer to attend that event as well.

So, making sure that we’re moving that buying group together with the tactics that, that we do have. If we’re in a scenario at the end of the year where we’ve got a little bit of extra budget, we want to throw it into a display ad campaign or maybe syndicate some content, whatever that scenario is.

00:07:32 – Enablement is Buyer Activity

Jessie Johnson: The other part of this enablement bit is really the way that we think of enablement. We’re driving responses, we’re driving clicks, we’re driving towards those actions that light up our dashboards. All of those clicks, all that activity is really a way to better understand the buyer. So, if we can better understand the content that they’re interested in, the current state and the conditions surrounding that buying group and that purchase decision, that helps us better tailor the messaging, but even more so if we think about say we’re doing syndication or a display ad campaign, something we’re thrown a little bit of budget at. The thing to keep in mind is to give that buyer, that audience a path. So, we’re not just showing them a nice, beautiful message in a display ad, we’re giving them somewhere to go and something of immediate value.

As a result of that interaction, we’re giving them a little bit of proof point around the ROI of the solution that they’re evaluating. We’re showing how a similar customer has solved that challenge and even more so it’s not just view the ad, go to the landing page and click. What content can we recommend that’s related and naturally extends the content of that initial click.

Tricia Ruiz: Yeah. I love how beautifully complex, complicated, all these things go together, right? Because you’re talking so much about the structure, the foundation of what you’re building in the first place. And I do love the concept of, instead of just giving pretty messaging and pretty words that you are giving them somewhere to go, but also following up with immediate action.

And that action and that messaging doesn’t have to be labeled as urgent. It’s just, hey, you’re just literally walking down and opening the next door and saying, this is your next door. You get to walk down, which is wonderful and laying that foundation for it with understanding who you’re speaking with and moving that buying group.

Jessie Johnson: Absolutely. And it’s, I love that word beautifully complex. It absolutely is. We’re not able to prescribe this journey for any individual buyer anymore, even if we were in that lead view of the world. It’s really a non-linear journey that the buyer needs to lead themselves. Let the buyer lead. Make sure that we can anticipate what their needs are and meet them where they are in their decision process and enable them to take that next.

Tricia Ruiz: I do like that. Let the buyer lead the dance. I know that you are a fan as well of the live music and the arts. Absolutely. And I’ve some passion for that as well. So, anything that can take my brain into the real world and say, this is what we see, so bring it into this beautifully complex world of b2b. It is beautiful.

00:10:20 – Different Lens for Different Buying Group Members

Tricia Ruiz: For those of you joining us, we are talking with Jessie Johnson today. She’s a principal analyst at Forrester, focused in demand market. We’d love to know your comments. If you’ve got any questions, please feel free to put them in the chat and we actually see one right now. We’ve got a question from Terry Arnold, what recommendations do you have for changing the lens when you interact with different members of the buying group?

I’ll give you a second, Jessie, to take a look at that. As we were talking a little bit earlier about those different members by buying group, the different roles that they play, and what step they might be at.

Jessie Johnson: And thank you for that question, Terry. That really is a good one. We’ve talked about buying groups and the role that somebody might play, such as Champion, Ratifier, End User, Influencer, Decision Maker.

In addition to that, we also have the buyer persona. So, are we working with a CIO persona? Are we working with somebody that’s more on the financial side of things? So, keeping in mind not just the role that somebody might play in that buying group, but also the Marketing 101, what have we always thought about when it comes to reaching and engaging our buyers.

Based on their persona, that archetype, what do we know about their needs, their desires, their interaction preferences? We refer to this as watering holes. Where do they spend their time? Where are they most active both on and offline? And how can we meet them where they are and then enable that next step in the journey?

So, in terms of that lens, when you think about audiences really thinking. That buyer persona in the classical sense, and then adding onto that or really focusing in on the role that persona plays in the decision process in addition to who they are as a person and a professional.

Tricia Ruiz: Awesome. Thanks for that question, Terry. And looking at it from that different lens, you get to look at the archetype, but also look at the role. I love how those move together. It’s a big old circle of everybody having their needs, having what are their challenges. Where are they looking at content? Where are they being spoken to, which is awesome?

And so now that we’ve understood the people kind of the place, let’s get to the things, those tactics, right? What tactics of account-based engagement should we heavily focus on, in your opinion, in quarter four to meet some of these goals that have not been yet met by marketers?

00:12:49 – Tactics of Account-Based-Engagement for Q4

Jessie Johnson: Yeah, that’s a great question as well.

So again, if we think about not just driving for that engagement, but that enablement, what do we really need in order to enable our buyers? It’s that understanding of the information that they require to cross the decision gate. So, think about the tactic level, and I should say too for us at Forrester, we think of the tactic as being your delivery mechanism plus your content.

So, you combine those and then you have a tactic. So, when we think about how do we optimize that tactic mix, the goal is to really start with your content. Not your delivery channels. So, start with your content and take a look at your buyer personas, the role that they’re playing in that buying group, making that decision as a team, and then where they are in their purchasing journey.

So, what stage of the decision process are they in? So, when we think about the tactics, The key is e to have all of that content mapped out based on those audience needs, and then that stage from there, we can determine based on the delivery mechanisms that might align best with that persona. So, this individual is very active in email and every once in a while, they open a direct mail piece or, whatever your preferences are telling you.

That’s where we can take the content that we know is going to meet that. And then calibrate or format that content into the delivery mechanism that’s going to meet those interaction preferences. So, we’re dealing both with information needs and then how people prefer to engage and interact online.

If we’re thinking at the end of Q4, if there’s budget, absolutely. Take a look at your campaigns, your programs and market. See what messaging is performing well and what we can boost with that extra budget. Myself, I’m a bit of an organic girl by background. I’ve worked for a few startups and have had the experience.

I had 70% of my budget taken away one time and my goal number did not change. So, I got really good with organic.

Tricia Ruiz: I’m so sorry!

Jessie Johnson: I was very sorry too! I’m still feeling that pain.

Tricia Ruiz: Oh, the day you found out. Come on Jessie. The day you found out that 70 was gone. Holy cow.

Jessie Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. And then the question, how is this going to impact, the goals as a quarter, it’s not.

So just thinking about how can we be scrappy with what we have, those organic channels, how can we optimize our content even more so for search? How can we start a really compelling conversation in social spaces? So that we’re driving engagement there with that targeted audience. How can we amplify what we’re doing via channels that we own?

If we have a great nurture program, for example certainly using email as part of that, I would imagine thinking about that as a multi-channel program. So those are all, it’s not that there’s not a cost of execution, but that’s a really good example of up-level. What you already own, being the content, and then doing what you can to spread that as far as possible.

And it also sets you up well for going into the new year, especially that content mapping piece. So, what comes next? We’re always talking about that next best action.

Tricia Ruiz: Oh yes. Always talking about what comes next. I feel like, especially in my position, having these conversations, I’m already like, 2022 is here because it feels like it’s right around the corner because it is. You did say something that I want to ask a question around with understanding for you at Forrester saying that tactics are, it’s the delivery mechanism, but it’s also the content itself. And the reality that companies when we are in quarter four and making, if it is, halfway through right now, making it a pivot and a shift. The reality that content has to come from somewhere, but also the operationalizing of it. The mechanism of how it’s delivered. Do you have any advice to the different sides of content and or marketing ops in this space of quarter four of who could lead the charge? Is it working together? Is it a, looking at the results of what you said of where you can boost because those two pieces in a marketing department if you have a big marketing ops team or a big content team they have very different roles, but they have to work together?

00:17:27 – Content Perspectives That Encourage the Buyer

Jessie Johnson: 100%. And that’s a, that’s actually one of the key challenges is because of the extent of alignment that’s required there across multiple teams.

It’s not just getting the content mapped correctly to those audiences and goals, but it’s also how do we activate that content based on the buying signals that we’re detecting at any given point in time or any of the other rules that we might have in play within our programs that say, we’re going to treat this buyer this way.

And once this certain action has been taken or attained, that gives us a signal that we want to, push the buyer down a different path of nurture messaging. So, the ability to kind of sense and respond in real-time as we figure out how do we deliver the best content and when, which sounds wonderful.

How do we actually make this happen? So, two things to keep in mind from the content perspective. So, if we think about the types of content that performs really well, typically across buyers and stages, we might think of things like analyst reports, white papers, case studies and things of that nature.

So those are typically all very long form pieces of content. So, the goal there is to approach that with this kind of notion of primary and derivative assets, in mind. So, you have your primary content asset, maybe your white paper as a derivative asset. You might have maybe there’s a podcast that’s related to that white paper, or maybe there’s a few blog articles that are taking some of the key points and starting to distill that messaging that actually points back to that primary as asset.

So, keeping in mind ith the primary and derivative approach. Cutting those assets and extending their shelf life in terms of that activation. The other side is content modularity. If we think about personalizing our content, tailoring our content whatever the name is that we want to use there, that requires the ability to almost separate out chunks of any given message. So, we’ll use an email as an example. We might have paragraphs of text that are dynamic in nature. Those are content modules that we can then use rules to serve up to certain audiences under certain conditions. But it’s much easier to have that level of modularity, in mind from a planning perspective than it is to come back and think, oh, I want to, personalize the delivery of this white paper across all of my different audience segments inside of my nurture program.

Now I have to go back and cut it. Versus working with an asset that was planned for that kind of audience adaptation during activation.

Tricia Ruiz: Because we do, we need to make sure that we are adapted to these audiences, especially when we actually take a look. We can plan and plan as much as we want, but the year will unfold, and tell us, did your plan work or did it not? Are you able to look at things that did work and take that differently, and where is that adaptation having to be around your content?

That’s fantastic. We have got another question in the chat, Jessie, if you’re open to it. They say what is your opinion? In your opinion, excuse me, how would ABM strategy result in 2022, keeping in mind that buyer behavior will come when it comes to those buyer behavior strategies?

00:21:16 – Buyer Behaviors Results After ABM Execution

Jessie Johnson: Yeah, another excellent question.

And we’ve been talking for some time about this idea of the consumerization, of the B2B buyer. So, expectations are through the roof. We’re not sitting here waiting to receive all of our emails at 9:00 AM on a Tuesday morning. I, if I’m reviewing a product or a solution on a website, I want to continue that conversation.

So doing things like listening to that buyer behavior, those signals that are left inside a website session, and then using those signals as input to, continue that conversation with not just consistent messaging, but taking that conversation to the next level in that initial interaction. For example, we covered 101 stuff.

We’re going to continue that conversation into a 102-level stuff with that next interaction. So, when we think about how do we meet our buyers, where they are, enable them to take that next step with all of those things that we know, it puts us on the right path to realizing our own revenue by enabling those buyers.

It’s really keeping in mind again, letting that buyer lead the dance, but delivering more of a contextual experience that has something of immediate value for each of those interactions.

00:22:46 – Difference Between Personalization And Contextualization

Jessie Johnson: What’s the difference between personalization and contextualization? It’s a bit of a continuum. If we think about a contextual interaction in b2b, it’s going to take into consideration everything from a personalization standpoint: audience, content, delivery, measurement, as we ladder up to contextualization, that’s where we’re starting to include the building blocks of the buying groups. So, we consider the context in addition to how can we personalize the message based on something like the persona level. So, too, to summarize that I would say listen to your buyers.

According to our, one of our recent studies, the state of demand and ABM tactic survey of 2021. I want to say it’s around 50%. Please don’t quote me on that, I don’t have it in front of me. But the question was, how are you using your website to better understand and enable your buyers? And an average of 50% of marketers, thing one, was to better understand buyers.

So how do we best cater to that buying behavior? The expectations of the modern B2B buyer, it’s to listen. They’re telling us something all the time with each interaction. It might not be a conversation like this but in that website session, just an easy example, they’re leaving a lot of signals behind.

So, if we can listen to those, interpret the ones that are going to matter most for the buyer, for our use case those are the things that are really going to help us perform and be there for our buyers as an equal partner, not just somebody that’s trying to sell at the buyer.

Tricia Ruiz: Absolutely. And I love that partnership comes into play there. It’s something that’s so important, I think. We all experience, we all interact with different companies, different industries, and we see it together. It’s how can we be partners. I do love what you said though about the difference between contextualization and personalization and taking that broader view of that might be your missing piece in Quarter Four.

If you are getting very personal and you’re getting that results from your audience, your metrics, that delivery method, but taking that, that one step back and saying, hey, what has been happening? What are those signals? And look, there’s some data up here that’s speaking about what this buying group is doing inside the personalization.

Let’s go down this route and make sure that we’re connecting with that buyer and listening to them well.

Jessie Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. And also, what have we learned by doing that? If we think about moving into 2022, or even at the program and tactic level, what have we learned with our previous efforts that we can then incorporate into this new program plan or these new learnings about a key audience that we can start to incorporate even into content planning or even from a readiness perspective. Do we have the data that we need to engage this audience? So, it’s a really good way to learn about the buyer to better enable them in the moment, but to also create a bit of a feedback loop internally that has all kinds of intelligence, what works and what doesn’t.

That way you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel with every program or campaign effort. And it’s a, a lot of good knowledge that you can start to, to build up and socialize internally.

Tricia Ruiz: Fantastic. I love that you’re bringing in 2022, right? The future of what you’re looking at into the now.

It’s great. You just said it. It’s what have we learned that you can learn in the moment to make these decisions, but also how are we planning for the next. So that’s wonderful. Jessie. As a quick reminder for those of you joining us, this is the Accelerating Revenue Series with Jessie Johnson as our guest today.

She is a principal analyst at Forrester. We see some more questions coming in the chat. If you have them, please put them down as we’d love to have a conversation with you and engage, since we’re talking about these buying groups and these signals that we see in quarter four and how they can accelerate that momentum so we can also be prepared for this quarter.

For the next. I love it. We have a few questions in the chat. I almost want to give you the opportunity, Jessie, to just take a little look-see for yourself, if you’ve got one that you want to answer specifically as we have, we can go a couple different directions with our conversation, and we’ve got a few questions as well to get to.

00:27:13 – Types of Content Emerging as Winners

Jessie Johnson: Yeah. And I’ll take Carolyn’s for sure. So, what types of content are emerging as winners? That’s a really good question. It comes back to that idea of enablement and partnership. There’s no one content type or format as we think about the preferences of that buyer persona. It comes down to the messaging itself.

So are we able to provide, for example, the proof. That our buyers are looking for. Are we able to show success in a similar industry, similar role, that type of thing? Even more so if we think about, what are some of the words that could characterize the messaging in general. It’s not a salesy message, in the way that it maybe was in the past. Click here, buy now immediately. It’s nothing like that. It really is, this is how we can help you, how we can enable you, we can empathize with your current situation. Really messaging that that serves the buyer rather than sells at or in the general direction of the buyer and hope, hope that something sticks.

Tricia Ruiz: Absolutely. And that messaging too. I think that we all experience that. We sometimes love it, and we say, you’re solving my problem right now. Yes. Sell me. Sell me. And then other times we’re like, No I have so many other things I have to do, and I need you to help me along the way.

I remember having that conversation actually recently and I was like, I’m aware this is quarter four and this is going to be a long journey for us, but please help educate me so I can put this into my plan for next year, so I can put this into what we can make sure that we’re utilizing and continue to grow as a company and continue to utilize the tools that are out there to make sure that we’re connecting with our customers in the correct way.

Jessie Johnson: Absolutely. And you hit on another thing that’s pretty important too. It’s, thinking about those Q4 goals, your buyer doesn’t care about your goals. They care about their goals. So that’s really the point of alignment. How many times do we see this time of year? You can tell when a salesperson needs to close by the end of the quarter.

Tricia Ruiz: So, we’re talking about it.

Jessie Johnson: Exactly. Exactly. But let’s not, when it comes to that buyer messaging, maybe not the thing that we should lead with.

Tricia Ruiz: Absolutely. All right. We’ve got a couple more questions here. Let’s go back Jessie as well in our conversation. Enterprise level marketers use account based engagement as part of their strategies, but can you speak to how it drives revenue to lead those lead goals?

How can you improve your strategies as well through the end of Q4? Maybe button up some of those that have fallen apart. What are some areas to look at to, to close the loop as you say?

00:29:59 – How Can Account-Based-Engagement Drive Revenue Goals?

Jessie Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. I would say ask that big question. So, what, as you’re reviewing those dashboards, as you’re looking at your metrics, great.

We may have, a killer response rate on, some given tactic, but, if our objective was truly through the Demand or ABM lens versus measuring that against something like reputation program objectives, where it’s a little bit different, we really are measuring through a demand lens.

There’s that question. So, what did we move the buyer forward? Were we able to identify and connect with another member of the buying group as a result of that interaction? Did we help the buyer fill an information gap? If so, how can we confirm and measure that so that, it’s not just, oh, that content was read, but it actually helped them move the needle in their decision process.

Tricia Ruiz: I like it and it’s a good question to make sure that we’re asking. So, what I do love to ask those what, how and why questions because they do get to the bottom of the actions that we’re taking. They do get to, understand the results of whatever tactics and strategies that we’re walking forward in. I love it.

We have one more question from the chat that I do want to get to, but it’s a little bit off there in the western field about the future. But Marissa, she’s talking about the value of being able to target B2B buyers at home using CTV or other at home, such as programmatic display, do you see that B2B pivoting in consumerization of our messaging?

How do you see that playing out into next year, 2022?

00:31:43 – Is There Value In Targeting The B2B Buyer At Home?

Jessie Johnson: That is another great question. There are so many good questions here today. Love it. I think this is an interesting one because I think we’re going to, blur the line a little bit between brand and demand objectives for something like programmatic display.

That being said it’s always that idea and we get this question too on social, like thinking about scrolling through Instagram. When am I going to want to hear from a software company? So, a lot of that is going to come down to brand. And really what’s happening in the moment of that interaction.

It’s one thing if I’m actively scrolling on my phone and I get targeted by an ad. It’s another thing if I’m just watching TV and then some kind of an ad comes out, it’s, very clear that it’s targeted based on who I am. But is it hitting? In the right context and at the right moment to have that interaction.

If I’m trying to think of what I’m doing around my house while the TV is on, am I really receptive to that? I don’t know. So, I think it does have a future if it’s done well. And again, coming back to that idea of each of those interactions being an extension or a path to. So, if we put this in a demand lens versus, a reputation or brand type of effort with those display.

Making sure that we’re not doing it just because we can. There’s so many tactics out there that, I think still tend to fall under that bucket. But making sure that, if we’re thinking about the experience of the ad itself, it is compelling. It’s going to make me put down the dog food bowl and, feed them later because I’m getting sucked into this ad.

So always thinking about that experience, in whatever type of media that you’re using, but then also the audience. So, what are they doing as they’re consuming that content? And does it align or is it a jarring experience? We don’t want to have those kind of. Whoa, what is this type of moment?

And I can say I’ve had a few of those in my own social media feeds Oh, this is a little bit out of time and place. Yeah.

Tricia Ruiz: But I love that you’re asking that question and you’re answering with it. Don’t do it just because you can. Don’t do the action, don’t do the marketing action just because you can.

Personally, as well, I call myself a user in this wonderful space we live in, and I sometimes recognize that I’ve gotten personalized ads through my Instagram. And the ones that I take action on are ones that are appropriate for me to take action very quickly for something to do later, like an event, very honestly.

, if it makes me register for an event, I’m like, oh yeah, I should do that. And it’s not during my workday with all the other things that I have to do during my day job, but I’m seeing it during my time off during, whenever I’m interacting with this platform, it makes me remember, oh yeah, I got to do something for work.

I can sign up now. I can get to it later. And it’s a, it’s the perfect kind. Interjection to say, hey, your work world exists as we know it does, but it doesn’t pull me out. And I think that studying that more and understanding the results of what that kind of content is going to be, that’s where we’re going to find that answer that you’re talking about as well.

Because you’re so right. We are encroaching into this very interesting space of taking it away from what we’re just using in our work world into our personal worlds and blending those two lines. I’m very curious to see what’s going to happen next year, Jessie.

Jessie Johnson: I am as well. And just as a side note, doing it because we can, another area that we’re seeing some great success and some kind of, you need to, improve your user experience, chat bots and virtual assistance.

So how many times have we been to a website where we’re getting inundated with these invitations to chat? Clearly, not enough time has passed. No, I don’t want to talk to you right now because I’m looking at your content. I just landed on the site or in scenarios where, and this is interesting too from an account-based perspective.

I visited a website that I’ve been on, for the better part of my evaluation phase during a purchase decision. And with each visit, you’re not recognizing. You’re not recognizing that I’m aligned to this strategic account or whatever the scenario is. So that’s an opportunity too. If we think about the account-based engagement play.

If we do have a chat bot or a virtual assistant in the mix, listen for those buying signals, retain the history of those buying signals so that we can connect them. And then recognize those visitors and give them, a little bit more of that white glove service through your website.

Tricia Ruiz: I love it. The information’s out there. We just got to do the work to get to it. Yes, we have to do it. Jessie, this has been fantastic. We’ve got one more question for you, and I will take just one moment to say, for those of you joining us, thank you. This has been a great conversation with Jessie today. We will actually not be back next week on the ninth, but we’ll be back on November 16th.

We’re taking one week. So, we will see you back on November 16th, on Tuesday, 11:00 AM Eastern for another episode of the Accelerating Revenue Series, which will be a fun one, and I’m excited to see you guys there.

00:37:23 – Personal and Professional Growth

Tricia Ruiz: So, Jessie, Thanks for joining us today. I feel like I’ve learned a lot. I’ve taken three pages of notes. We’ve got our last question about learning, because here at True Influence Learning is happiness. So, for you, Jessie, what have you learned in this past year that has changed the way that? Make decisions in your personal or professional life.

Jessie Johnson: What a loaded and wonderful question. And I really like learning as happiness. Absolutely. I would say that both on the personal and professional side, one thing that has really become clear is the value of time figuring out. And it’s so funny when we think of, a pandemic, everybody is at home in quarantine, we have nothing but time.

Astounding during that whole, time in quarantine for myself and my family, just how we looked at where we’re spending our time and where we’re spending our energy. Whether that’s for, for work or for school or even, just personally knowing that you need to give yourself a few minutes to check.

To, go wander around in the woods. That’s one of our checkouts that we do here. We like to go for walks out, out in nature. But yeah, it’s valuing your time but also valuing your downtime. If we don’t allow ourselves to have a little bit of that downtime we’re not going to be as effective as we could be in the time that we devote to, work, school, being a parent, whatever the scenario.

Tricia Ruiz: I love that. I personally resonate with that very much. I don’t have the kids, but I do have the young puppy and she will say, Play with me. It is time. And I have to say, all right, I’m putting everything else down. I’m doing five minutes, which means the whole difference of the day and taking that moment of saying, this is downtime, this is turn, turn everything off, turn this.

Turn the signals of what we know that the work is coming forward to. And we get to turn that off. So, I love that you see the value of time that you get to learn that this year. And also, the value of downtime. I hope that you get to frolic in the woods as far as here as winter is coming. Yeah, everyone loves a good frolic and walk in the woods.

Well, Jessie Johnson, thank you so much for joining us today. For those of you who want to get in touch, for those who want to get in touch with you, Jessie, the best way would be LinkedIn would be other spaces. How would they be able to continue this conversation if they have any more questions?

Jessie Johnson: Feel free to, to reach out on LinkedIn for sure.

I also try to watch Twitter, we can connect there. I’m happy to respond to a DM or whatever the scenario is. But thank you so much, Tricia. Great questions. I really enjoyed the conversation and to everybody that asked questions as we were going. That was really good, good questions from the group and very happy to see the content side stick a little bit.

So, thank you all for that.

Tricia Ruiz: Absolutely, Jessie, it’s been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us for Accelerating Revenue Series. I appreciate you being here.

Jessie Johnson: Thank you for having me.