Case Study

The Head Scratcher

IBM, one of the most recognizable brands in the world, describes themselves as a company that “brings together all the necessary technology and services, regardless of where those solutions come from, to help clients solve the most pressing business problems.” A company delivering the highest quality to their clients expected the same from the vendor they partnered with for their ABM program.

IBM’s account-based marketing strategy included easily identifying engagement from their top accounts and giving that vital information to sales to take action on.

Why Demandbase?

When Sophia Agustina joined IBM, she already had several years of experience working with Demandbase. As she continued her career as a demand generation and ABM leader, she was excited to learn that IBM was already a Demandbase customer.

With Demandbase One already set up, Sophia advocated adding Personalization to add even more value to their goal of identifying and connecting with their top accounts. Based on her experience using the add-on in previous roles, she describes the add-on as always adding three times the value once implemented.

How’d They Do?

• Ran a successful campaign to identify their top accounts around the US Open

  The IBM team recently created a website experience around the US Open and aligned one of their ABM goals to identify their top accounts engaged with the campaign. 

  Using Demandbase, they identified over 9500+ accounts, which was 3x the number of accounts they could capture with similar campaigns in previous years. 

  Of those accounts, they identified that almost 200 were their top accounts. That was double the number from previous years with similar campaigns.

• Used intent as a signifier for sales

  Once they identified their top accounts who visited the US Open website, they sent that data to sales to take action on, along with the recommended follow-up.

  By creating a funnel to sales based on intent, they ensured that the accounts the sales team was pursuing were actively engaged with IBM, and outreach had a higher chance of success.

• Created personalized journeys

  IBM used data from Demandbase to identify new accounts on their webpage. From there, they could create personalized journeys for those accounts based on interests. 

  Sophia notes, “Demandbase adds value to our client engagement by giving us the account insights we need to personalize those experiences.” Her CMO, Karen Feldman added “These account insights are invaluable – knowing what our clients are looking for and being able to proactively tailor and personalize their experience is a true win-win for both our clients and IBM”.

Without Demandbase?

When asked what she would do if IBM didn’t have Demandbase tomorrow, she points out that they would be doing some of what Demandbase helps them do manually.

When thinking about what comes next, Sophia says, “there is so much potential for IBM as we continue to use Demandbase to help us better serve our clients.” Next on the list, she hopes to recreate the success of the US Open campaign when she works on IBM’s other significant “key events” that IBM sponsors, including the GRAMMYs, Masters, Wimbledon and other strategic partnership initiatives.