Ep. 439 | Strategic Overlays and the Future of ABM

OnBase: Smashing Sales and Marketing Misalignments

Episode Summary

In this episode of Sunny Side Up, Corrine Kasman interviews Helana Zhang on her role in shaping Atlassian’s ABM strategy. Helena delves into her career from the semiconductor industry to leading Atlassian's global ABM team. Helena shares her key strategies, such as aligning marketing with sales goals and focusing on top-tier enterprise accounts. She highlights the significance of differentiating between one-to-one and one-to-few strategies, particularly for global accounts with complex structures. Helena emphasises the importance of detailed documentation and goal-setting for effective collaboration across teams and also discusses integrating events into ABM strategies and balancing operational and strategic roles.

About the Guest

Helana is a seasoned enterprise marketer and is currently the Head of Global Account-based Marketing at Atlassian. She has over a decade of experience in ABM, demand generation, and event marketing roles. Prior to Atlassian, Helana led demand gen and campaigns teams at Zuora, Optimizely, and Cisco Meraki, but began her career in the semiconductor space at Texas Instruments in Dallas. Outside of work, Helana enjoys hiking and running around Marin County and chasing around her two-year-old daughter.

Connect with Helena Zhang

Key Takeaways

- Recognise the importance of clearly defining roles within a team, as Helena does with strategists, campaign managers, and others on the ABM team.

- Marketing efforts must be closely aligned with sales goals, as seen in the strategists' role of owning pipeline numbers and aligning with sales.

- Pay attention to specific areas like top-of-funnel and executive journey marketing to reach the right audience.

- Deepen engagement with key accounts by developing in-depth strategies for top-tier enterprise accounts.

- Target CXO and Top-of-Funnel Marketing: Allocate dedicated resources to these areas, emphasising analytics and conversion rates.

- Shift from broad marketing influence metrics to detailed milestone-based assessments.

- Consider the entire journey from deal acceleration to customer loyalty and adoption.

- Coordinate with sales teams to ensure marketing efforts complement sales strategies, particularly in competitive or coexistent environments.

- Manage the trade-offs between one-to-one and one-to-few campaigns, allocating resources effectively.

- Use events as opportunities for high-touch, personalised engagement with key decision-makers.

- Document processes and playbooks diligently to ensure clarity and accountability.

- Clearly define the goals of collaboration in initial conversations with new teams.

Quote

“We really have to start to shift that narrative around ABM to focus more deeply on the milestones that we are delivering in each campaign.” – Helana Zhang

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