From Bigfoot Catcher to Director of Strategic Accounts: My B2B Marketing Journey

Summary

Hi, I’m Jeff Cleasby, Director of Strategic Accounts at INFUSE.
As a man who has lived through ups and downs when it comes to marketing and sales, I know formulas provide much-needed guidance when you need a simple, step-by-step breakdown for success.

And while yes, I do present a formula in this article, it is more in fact a roadmap. Told through a story of how I and INFUSE grew together in search of the perfect method to engage leads and boost ROI.

It all starts with my childhood and what happened since when it comes to demand generation, RevOps, account based marketing, and more, all up until the Great Resignation.

#1 Finding your ICP (Bigfoot?)

When I was nine years old, I already knew my dream job. I was going to be a Bigfoot catcher—and I wouldn’t stop there: I would hunt down other mythical beasts, including Yeti up in the Himalayas and Nessie down in the Scottish Loch Ness. All this with my trusty rod and a can of worms.

I already envisioned myself in the spotlight, cover of Life magazine, the works…

But I think the real lesson to take from this childhood tale is how insightful lil Jeff was. Based on one target, I developed a further list of monsters to hunt— and I still use that mindset today when creating an Ideal Client Profile (ICP) for INFUSE.

So, I invite you as a B2B professional to craft your own ICP with the same whimsy of a child when treasure hunting. An account that is 100% aligned with your ideal target should make you jump with glee (or at the very least, have you smiling while you sit on your home office chair).

#2 The B2B journey: Progressing from lead to demand generation, and finally RevOps

I believe at INFUSE I’ve had some very unique, life-changing experiences in marketing and sales that have impacted my career for the better.

The company itself is completing what I consider the “roadmap” all B2B businesses should go along as they discover the problems their clients face, and how as a marketing/demand generation service, they can resolve those problems better than competitors.

#1 The lead generation kick-off

So, we started off as a small business in 2012, focusing on lead generation and in the upcoming years, we discovered that what our clients really needed was demand generation (check out the difference between lead and demand gen here).

Our transition from lead generation to demand generation was quick, as we noticed the problems our clients faced were because of how they managed their marketing campaigns and data. By the following year (2013), we were already partnering up with other companies in the US to expand our product portfolio.

#2 The demand generation foundation for further growth

With a shift to a demand generation focus, we advanced to the second step of this B2B journey, by forming the first Client Success team in the industry by 2015.

To this day it is the largest team at INFUSE (we assign not one, but two client success experts to every campaign, to make sure client campaigns are monitored every step of the way). Also, by having experts in different time zones, we can adapt campaigns rapidly to improve performance and surpass clients’ expected goals.

Victoria Albert, our VP of Marketing, joined in 2020 to further progress this demand generation transformation. This included how we identify our ICPs, as well as structuring new automation processes and expanding our marketing and sales team to increase our outreach.

This outreach was the foundation for the next stage.

#3 Growth Marketing during the pandemic: How to grow (and help) in times of crisis?

With the demand generation foundation well-structured, we were foot on the pedal to advance company growth.

In 2020, despite the pandemic and all its challenges, we kept a growth marketing mindset, by not cutting the budgets, making new hires, and launching campaigns to generate long-term demand among our target accounts.

This included the launch of our 100 free leads program, which delivered 100 leads free-of-charge to small and medium-sized businesses. In total, 25,000 nurture-ready leads were delivered in North America, Europe, and the APAC region.

The program provided long-term support for lead generation, including competitive intelligence, nurturing materials, and a free analysis at the end of the campaign for the businesses to identify the key traits of the leads that converted (buyer personas, firmographic data, geolocation, etc.).

The result of this campaign was not only to help struggling businesses stay afloat, but also an ROI of more than 12,000% from the supported companies that later joined our portfolio as loyal clients.

#4 Moving forward with RevOps

Currently, INFUSE is undergoing a RevOps transformation, which I personally view as the “total alignment” of client success with marketing and sales teams.

It also entails a revenue-first perspective throughout team members, with campaigns focused on what will generate revenue first and foremost, with client success as the anchor for that vision. After all, client needs should be the first priority for any business looking to succeed.

Learn more about RevOps trends in our roundup of B2B expert opinions. There are plenty of insights for businesses considering this transformation with their marketing and sales professionals.

#3 Trial Balloons: Finding a home for your product

If you aren’t familiar with the term, trial balloons are test campaigns used to gauge the audience’s interest in a product.

We had to leverage this tactic at the start of 2021, when INFUSE launched a new product which our product teams asked us to “find a home for.”

The new offering was the Lead Quality Grader, which checks your lead database sight-unseen (compliant with privacy laws) to detect duplicates, missing data, and incorrect emails.

To find the ICP, we decided to conduct 100 trial balloon campaigns, consisting of mini email nurtures with a span of 4-6 weeks.

Before launching these nurtures, we had some hypotheses on our minds as to who would be the ICP for the Lead Quality Grader. Our thinking was—who cares most about data quality? And to who does it have the biggest consequences?

At first the team predicted that the healthcare industry could be where we find our ICP, or even the marketing teams within traditional industries. However, at the end of the cadences, we discovered that marketing agencies were our ideal target— as the quality of the data they needed for the campaigns they launched on behalf of their clients was their top concern.

So, with those results from the trial balloons, we doubled down on agencies and won 69% of opportunities from April to December 2021.

My takeaway here is, don’t be afraid of your product—test the waters and find its ideal client.

#4 Targeting accounts amid the Great Resignation: How to maintain lists up-to-date?

From 2020 to 2021, we had an 817% increase of inbound leads at INFUSE. This isn’t meant to be a brag, but rather to illustrate a point I’m making here.

When you have so many leads coming in, it is important to make sure your database is continuously updated, especially for Account Based Marketing (ABM).

Take that huge uptick as an example (817%)—after passing all inbound leads through our qualification criteria, only half remained. And when the leads were vetted for the sales team once again, a further 10-20% were disqualified for not meeting the ABM target list criteria.

In other words, no matter how large your flux of inbound leads, you will lose plenty if you use qualification criteria aligned with your ICP. And that is a good thing. It is better to focus on fewer (more likely to convert) accounts rather than your whole pipeline and overwork your sales team chasing unqualified leads.

How the Great Resignation impacts ABM

With the Great Resignation ongoing since the pandemic started, decision makers have been jumping from company to company like never before.

Is your ABM list reflecting this? You might be putting in the effort of building a cadence for a target account, only to see them moving to another company a few days before launching it. Or even, you may automate cadences and have the emails bounce back because their corporate address has been deactivated.

So, as a best practice, update your ABM list every three months (at least) to make sure the emails and job titles of your leads are still correct. You can use BuyerWatch to maintain your list updated, a tool which notifies you when buyers (or current users) switch jobs.

Let’s wrap up: My key takeaways

After reflecting on this B2B marketing journey, here are some key takeaways
I hope you will ponder on for the rest of your workday:

Find your ICP (and test it) before anything else

Your Ideal Client Profile is the foundation upon which you should build your product, as well as how you present it to your target audience.

Without a well-researched ICP, your company is destined to fail. So, before you do anything regarding marketing/sales, be sure to find your ICP.

Also, testing is crucial. If we hadn’t implemented as many cadences for our Lead Quality Grader, we would have never identified marketing agencies as an ICP and been able to double down our efforts.

Be laser-focused: You can’t be everything for everyone

Don’t waste resources trying to cater to everyone. Make sure your solutions are custom-tailored for your ICP to meet their demands best, rather than trying to fulfill the desires of several target audiences.

Having multiple buyer personas is one thing, but trying to reach out to your whole industry as a “target audience” is another, and simply won’t work. So, make sure you know who you need and develop an understanding of your target accounts in the utmost detail, down to their demographics, psychographics, and firmographics—to be laser-focused in your approach.

Create your own roadmap

Here I presented INFUSE’s four-step roadmap towards growth as a B2B organization, but your company can have a different approach for success.

While inspiring yourself in the success of others is beneficial, it is also important to personalize any best practice for your company, its current standing in the marketplace, and your own experience as a professional (as well as your team’s).

So, I hope you learn from my experience and feel empowered to find your own roadmap towards B2B success and growth.

“I hope you find your Bigfoot.”

Jeff Cleasby

About the Author

Based in Chicago, Jeff Cleasby has 25 years of experience in sales and marketing and is constantly reinventing and perfecting his craft. Jeff is a lifelong learner and a storyteller, ready to take his audience on a journey in B2B demand marketing that captivates and commands respect.