A Practical Approach to Account-Based Marketing w/ Mason Cosby

The term Account Based Marketing, or ABM. has been hijacked by companies promoting platforms and tech solutions. But in essence, it's a methodology for reaching strategic accounts more effectively.

In this episode, Mason Cosby discusses the true definition of account-based marketing  and how it can be a viable strategy for smaller organizations. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on the strategy rather than the tools and technology associated with ABM. Mason shares his concept of "scrappy ABM," which involves using existing resources and tools to target strategic accounts and drive results. He also highlights the need for alignment between sales and marketing and provides insights into activation plays and the use of podcasts as an ABM tool.

Key Takeaways:

• ABM  is fundamentally a B2B growth strategy that aligns sales and marketing around a set of shared target accounts.
• Smaller organizations can implement a scrappy ABM strategy by leveraging existing resources and tools to target strategic accounts and drive results.
• Activation plays, such as close lost campaigns and missed meetings, can be effective in re-engaging target accounts and driving pipeline growth.
• Podcasts can be a powerful tool in ABM as they provide an opportunity to build one-to-one relationships with target accounts

Transcript

Account Based Marketing, or ABM, is one of those areas that gets talked about a lot. But I think it’s often misunderstood. The phrase has been hijacked by companies who want you to buy their ABM platform, and it’s now less about the strategy and more about the tools. 

 But the reality is that a lot of the ABM concepts are a really good way to go after some strategic target accounts, even without the heavy tach stack. On today’s episode, I talk with Mason Cosby about the true definition of ABM, and how a scrappy approach can pay dividends. You’ll also see, as we get deeper into the episode, we’re really talking about good marketing practices, not so much about ABM. Because ABM, at it’s heart, is just a good way to market to strategic accounts.

 [Intro Music]

Steve: 

Today I'm talking with Mason Cosby, who is a respected voice in the world of account-based marketing. He's a serial podcast host and has recently become a founder with the launch of Scrappy ABM. So today we're going to be talking about how ABM or account-based marketing can be a viable strategy even for smaller organizations. So Mason, thanks for joining me on the Marketing Mix.

Mason Cosby: 

Steve, thank you so much for having me. I'm super pumped to be here and can't wait to dig in and hopefully help a couple of people make some more money.

Steve: 

All right, that's what it's all about, right? So let's dive into it, right? So account-based marketing, honestly, is not something that I tend to think about with smaller businesses, and we'll get into that maybe later on as to why that's the case. But let's set the scene. So can you explain what account-based marketing is in general and how B2B companies typically use it?

Mason Cosby: 

Yeah, I'll give you kind of the three different definitions that I think people experience and then I'll tell you what I think it should be. So the highest level is, oh, account based marketing. If you Google it, you'll likely interact with an ABM platform of some kind. And what ABM platforms do very, very well is what is called account based advertising. So you can upload a list and then you can advertise to those people exclusively across, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Google, all your different ad networks. So people will start to read that and the base level understanding is, oh, it's ads. So that's where a lot of people start is, I'm just gonna run an ad list to people that are my target accounts and try to get them to come and buy my stuff. 

That's not ABM. That's like one very small component of ABM. That's where a lot of people kind of start in their ABM journey.

The next layer, which is where I think a lot of people are currently living, is the recognition that it is a B2B growth strategy that aligns sales and marketing around a set of shared target accounts. And I actually think that's a fantastic definition at its core. The challenge that people run into, and this is why I think you have a disdain for ABM, and I think that's why most people have a disdain for ABM, is that definition is then accompanied by...

So you need to buy the AVM platform so you can get what is called intent data. So you can get account-based advertising. So you can get email signature mark, like all these different tools. You also need to buy a data enrichment platform like a ZoomInfo, an Apollo, a SalesIntel. So you can enrich your data so you can have better contact information to go to these target accounts. Oh, and you also need a sending platform like a Sendoso, a Postal. So you can send direct mail that's gonna cost you $300 to try to send a single gift to somebody.

Oh, and by the way, all that combined is going to cost about $200,000 in just technology, not to mention the massive six month project you're going to run through that's going to require your marketing team, your sales team, your operations team, your founders, and the implementation teams of these other people. It's going to take you six to nine months and you're probably going to spend another $300,000 in just headcount. So at that point, you've invested half a million before you've hit go.

Steve: 

All right.

Mason Cosby: 

That's why people don't really like ABM. And what I am pitching with the concept of scrappy ABM is it's the same definition. The definition at its core is the same of a gross strategy that aligns sales marketing on a set of shared target accounts. That definition talks nothing about technology. It talks about target account list, shared goals between marketing and sales. So my pitch on you should run a scrappy ABM strategy is look at the existing resources and tools you have today.

Your entire goal is how do we align on who we want to go after? Like what are the, who are the contacts? Who are the companies that we say these are going to be our best fit customers, get sales and marketing on the same page about that. And then using the resources you have today, build an account based marketing program that might be email, that might be some level of advertising. It could also be one of my favorite plays is getting into the communities where my target accounts live and hanging out there.

Going onto the podcasts where I know my target accounts are listening to raise awareness for things that I think would be beneficial for them. So again, it's taking the core fundamentals and then stripping away all of the vendor pushed best practices to actually get down to how do we reach these target accounts and close our best fit customers with the tools and the resources we have today.

Steve: 

Right, absolutely. So I love the fact that you say, yeah, that's where people's disdain comes from. Because I think, sadly, it has been driven that. Now, I've been doing this a long time, let's say. So when I was first doing ABM, it was before a lot of these tech companies had started or had got into the game, right? So ABM at one point...

was the second and third thing that you talked about, right? It was about getting a targeted list, finding ways to reach out to them, and working very closely between sales and marketing, right? That's what it was. And it was nice that there were certain tools that could maybe, you could append some data. You could do a Sendoso type direct mail. I'm a big fan of, not necessarily Sendoso, I'm not pitching for them, but a big fan of that idea of using gifting as part of the process. So there's a lot of good stuff there.

Mason Cosby

Absolutely.

Steve: 

But you're right, I think now it's flipped around and it's like, oh, you've got to have this software program to do ABM for you. And it's sort of advertising dollars, concealed it in another way. So I'm a big proponent of the whole sales and marketing alignment. Even before ABM was a thing, that was something that was severely lacking. So I think you should always be looking for ways to bring that together. 

So maybe you can talk about that part of it a little bit. You know, how do you get into bringing sales and marketing, you know, working together, on the same project, same direction?

Mason Cosby

Yeah, it's a great question. And what I also want to be clear of is, did I just talk through all the ways in which technology is very expensive? Absolutely. But don't necessarily throw out the baby with the bathwater. So like, if you have the technology that you already have implemented and it's starting to show results, like I've had some clients already come to me and say like, should we get rid of 6Sense? And I'm like, well, no. Like the goal is use the tools that you have before buying new ones. If you got them, like use them. They are helpful, but don't.

go and just try to get everything before you've even started what you have today. So just want to be clear on that front.

Steve: 

I think that's a typical problem, right? I'll go back to marketing automation, right? When marketing automation was the thing that you had to have and so many companies, they didn't have good processes in place, but they went and bought a marketing automation system and figured that was going to solve it for them. And actually you've got to have the basics down. You got to know how you're doing your marketing and then you should bring in the technology to, to underpin it. And then I guess to your point, if you have the technology and it's not working for you go and fix the processes and then come back to the technology. Right? So, all right. So, fair point. I interrupted you. So, let's get back to the alignment idea.

Mason Cosby: 

The core challenge that I think we've started to see is marketing is a department of more. So we need more leads, we need more contacts, we need more engagement, we need more content. And in reality, it should be a department of quality. So we need quality content, we need quality leads, we need quality accounts, we need quality engagement.

So because marketing has become such a department of more, there's passing out, and again, it's the classic story, and this is nothing new for people that have been around for a minute. But again, you're getting 300 MQLs on a weekly basis that came from a single page visit on the website that happened to be a blog from 15 years ago. That's an MQL, like, to be clear, that's an extreme example, but at the...

Steve: 

I mean, I would argue that's not an MQL. It's just a lead, but I take your point. Yeah, actually, probably not, yeah. Yeah.

Mason Cosby: 

even argue it's a lead. But again, that's like that's so the extreme example is marketing is just passing more and more and more and more and especially in our current economic environment. That's what sales has been asking for is we need more at that. We need more opportunities. We need more people that we can call. We just need more and more and more and more. And that's why it's I think a lack of alignment. I’ss two things. One, marketing is delivering poor

Steve: 

Gotcha.

Mason Cosby: 

And two, sales is just asking for more and more and more and more. But I think it comes down to a fundamental problem that there's not an appreciation for either side. So marketing to put it bluntly, can marketing deliver pipeline next month? Probably, but it's going to come at a cost. So again, I can send out an email to my entire database and do a fire sale. Super easy. I can get your pipeline. Probably not going to be quality

Sales can probably generate pipeline two quarters from now, but is that the best use of their time? Probably not. They have different tool sets that accomplish similar goals, but there's a lack of appreciation for either side because marketing looks at sales and says, oh, they don't get it. But I don't know if you've ever been a marketer that, let me refer to that. I don't know if marketers have been sellers that look at their calendar and they have an empty week.As a seller that's terrifying.

As a seller looking at marketing, you're like, well, what are you doing? And it's, I'm trying to make sure that your pipeline is full with the right fit people, but it's going to probably take me three to six months to educate them so that when they come in, they actually close pretty quickly at a pretty good deal value. So it's a lack of appreciation for either side. So I think the core piece of our alignment is the recognition that both sides do different things that deliver different results in different timeframes.

Mason Cosby: 

The other component is, so I'm going to speak out of both sides of my mouth for a moment. Marketing also needs to recognize the benefit that nobody cares what you're doing as long as the pipeline is full. Nobody cares. So marketing, if you can help fill a pipeline right now, and again, I recognize that it's going to come at a cost or you're going to lose quality, but if you can help fill pipeline right now that converts at a decent rate, then you can go build out the longer term program. Because the other side of it is the long term doesn't get here if we don't deliver in the short term. And I think that's what we're seeing a lot of right now. So I think the core issue around a lack of alignment is two things. One, a lack of appreciation for either side. And two, marketing being so focused on the long term that we've actually missed the short term KPIs. And as a result, we constantly get this hamster wheel. Whereas if we really said...

We're going to stop focusing on long and I'm crazy to say this, but we're stop focusing on long term for like the next month and a half. And we're going to build out some clear plays that can help generate pipeline right now so we can fill our pipeline, help our sellers actually have deals to work. And then once they've got deals to work and they build out some repeatable plays that sales can then run with long term marketing can go build the brand project that will deliver revenue in 12, 18 months from now.

But it's because pipelines full right now.

Steve: 

I may have been part of the problem in the past, right? Because you know when people say to me well, what's the difference between sales and marketing, right? I have two stock phrases. One of them is well sales gets paid commission and we don't. That's a little unfair. But the real one is, that I do believe, is you know sales is the 30, 60, 90 and marketing typically is the 90 plus, right? So it's your point about filling the pipeline with the right leads, over a period of time. And I think that makes sense when you're building a marketing strategy and when you're planning, but you're right, the reality is there will be times, and I think a lot of companies are hitting that right now, where they don't have 90 days, right? They don't have that runway. So now you've got to scramble and get stuff in. Now, if you've built up your marketing team and your marketing processes over a significant amount of time, you probably have that capability already built in, right? That you can just sort of spin around and say, hey, you know, let's, let's rerun that campaign. Let's, let's, you know, spin up a webinar quickly, whatever it may be. Right. Particularly if you have a marketing team of more than one person. But I, and I think that is where the, the alignment between sales and marketing is important, right? Because marketing needs to hear very early on those complaints of, you know, my pipeline's kind of drying up. You know, my calendar is not as full to your point. My calendar is not as full as it was a couple of months ago.

You’ve got to look at those yellow flags before they become red flags, right? So getting sales and marketing working closely, I think is really key to that. 

So you talk about activation plays, right? Which I think is, you know, you would, towards the end there, you were saying about, you know, you got to get some plays in there to get it together. Tell us more about this idea of getting some activation plays going.

Mason Cosby: 

Yeah, I mean, for most of the companies that I've engaged with, even if you're a startup, you may have a data enrichment platform of some kind that you're filling your contact database somehow. Like everybody that I know, they've got contacts in their database. What I also know is most people don't do anything with them. Like they send them on their marketing newsletter and they let them sit there forever. And you know, especially there's a podcast that I helped produce called Do This Not That.

And on one of those shows, there's a guy named Andrew Kordak that talked about, like once you've actually created a contact and you've got somebody that's engaged, you know, most companies will do this, uh, like re-engagement campaign 18 months from now. And he helped run email marketing at Groupon and he saw that if they didn't buy something at Groupon within the first two weeks, they were dead. So the question becomes like, okay. I know once I've and again he knew his metrics on that front of I've got two weeks to get them to buy something through Groupon or they will like the likelihood that they will ever buy something decreases by like 90%. So he knew I have two weeks to activate this customer - and granted that's a B2C contact so I get that - in the same vein though. If somebody has somehow been created as a contact in your database.

If there's some level of a data flow, if they're doing something in your database, they're likely, they're engaged. They probably know who you are. Like the, the opportunity that they are brand aware is exponential greater if they're a contact in your database than if they're not, but we don't do anything with them. So then my thought process around an activation play is how do we identify through your data flow where somebody.

is a good opportunity to reach out to in some capacity that are they target account that then results in a meeting booked. It's not a super complex idea. Some people, if they are, have built their MQL model correctly, that's, it sounds actually pretty similar to an MQL model. The difference that I think that I take is my goal is not hundreds or thousands of MQLs. Like my goal is how do I deliver 10 to 15 high quality people to reach out to on a weekly basis for our sales team. So some common activation plays that almost every organization in B2B has are a close lost campaign. So again, looking at your existing deals, re-engaging those accounts, and actually creating some automated processes around what's the message, how do we reach out to them, what are the channels, how do we re-engage them? That's a huge opportunity.

Another one would be what I call missed meetings. So somebody came inbound, they booked a meeting. Your sales team may have reached out and tried to get the meeting on the calendar, but for whatever reason, it just never got scheduled. Huge opportunity to reengage those. 

So I've got a couple examples, but I'll pause for a moment. When I'm thinking about activation plays, it's what's the data flow within our systems? Who are those people? How do we automate the segmentation of a list and provide the right message for the right people all to sales on a weekly or monthly basis? And if they do outreach to those people, they should be able to book some meetings. And again, you've now created a system and a process that allows sales through a partnership to start sourcing their own pipeline.

You can then go off and build something bigger and better.

Steve: 

So there's a couple of things that I find interesting that, right? One of them is that you're sort of taking that, you know, how do you eat an elephant approach? Right. One bite at a time. Um, so your theory being, Hey, don't, don't dive into your database of a thousand leads and work out which ones to go to. I'm going to tell you, these are the, the handful to go after and this is how to do it. So, so I like that. The other thing that I think is critical that a lot of people miss when it is that all hands on deck pipelines drying up, I don't have meetings booked,

you do not have time to go out and find new leads, right? So, but you're right, we are all sitting on a database or God forbid a spreadsheet or something of all of these that we've gathered over the last year or two. So your idea is dive back into that. You already have the information you need, but I'm gonna give you the tools to decide, hey, these are the ones that we go after. So I think that's pretty smart. So yeah, so give us an example of how you've seen that work.

Mason Cosby: 

Yeah, so I'll give you an actual client example that was that has delivered incredibly for them. So again, it's very unique to their situation. But hopefully this example helps you start to think through what could be your situation. They have a B2C arm and a B2B arm and they're really an event company. Good old NDA. They can't share more information than that. But essentially like think about some level of I'm I want some level of an experience that I can share with friends and family or while I'm traveling.

and they have lots of locations across the US. So that's the context I can provide. When we started to dig into their data and look at on the B2C side of their business, who was booking on a weekly basis? Well, we found that there was actually a lot of company email addresses. There were a lot of managers of teams that were booking for this experience.

And so what we did is we said, Hey sales team, and it's also a really good idea for marketers ask your sales team what they're doing to currently source pipeline. So we went to the sales team. We said, Hey, we're seeing this. Like, are you guys ever doing anything with this? And their sales leader said, actually, yeah, we pull this list on a monthly basis, but it takes us about five or six hours to pull the list, to clean the list, and then to do outreach.

And it's like, awesome. How many times are you reaching out right now? And they said, we send one email once a month to this kind of contact. I was like, cool. We're going to fix that. So what we ended up doing is through HubSpot.

We created a workflow that pulled in every contact that was created, but specifically excluded any free email domain providers. And then through some optimization, we also then inevitably excluded, um, any domain that included an edu. Cause we found a lot of college students as an example. So like there's optimization through this process, but what that left us with was a pretty solid list.

And then the next level of optimization was HubSpot automatically creates a company record. If there's a, if it's an email domain. So if they had a company name associated and a company record associated, that was an additional filtering criteria. And then we then filtered it by zip codes for the sales reps territories. So then on a weekly basis, they're getting an automatically updated list through HubSpot.

of all of the contacts that work in an organization that booked using their business email on the B2C side of their business to then do one-to-one outreach that says, hey, it looks like you booked using your company email. Don't know if you know this, we have offerings that are actually around team building and communication that can help your team actually grow and bond.

Is that something like is that what you came in for on the B2C side of our business? And again, that's not the exact messaging, but that's a sentiment They're sending out each rep is sending out roughly 50 to 70 Messages on a weekly basis and we built out a full sequence for them. So it's not just one email But it's actually about a eight step sequence and included in that are different PS messages they can put in there that's all templatized so that depending on what different seasonal offers they're offering they can create different ways of engagement so that it's not just kind of the same but like it's personalized every time and they're seeing an additional three to five meetings per rep per week because of that one play because instead of it taking them five to six hours on a monthly basis to send one email. We've now created a system in which it's automated, the list segmentation, they're now sending it on a weekly basis, the personalization from an automation perspective, like they personalize the templates that are on automated email, takes them 15 minutes a week, and then it just runs in the background. So they now have essentially this ongoing system that because of the way in which their data flows, they have constant new contacts that they can reach out to,that is constantly filling their pipeline. It's a great play for them.

Steve: 

Right. It's a beautiful thing. And the other thing that I find interesting, none of what you said is account-based marketing, right? A lot of the thought process behind it is, and you're maybe getting people familiar with some of the processes that you'll need and some of the ways that you do it, right, get them comfortable. Cause you know, a lot of places they have HubSpot, let's say.

or some of the Salesforce modules, but they don't really use them because the templates aren't set up and all that. So you're getting people familiar with it. You have a reason to talk to the sales team and understand their pain points more. And you're effectively building the foundation to then move into an ABM process towards the end. And the other thing I find interesting, how many companies have you talked to that have HubSpot? They say, oh yeah, we have Hubspot. But they don't do automation, right? To your point, they send one email or, you know, they have templates that were written 12 months ago and, you know, or two years ago and still talk about COVID and work from home, whatever it may be, right? So, you know, I think it highlights the importance of marketing thinking about what they're doing, but also being aware of what the salespeople are hearing and talking about and seeing out there.

Mason Cosby

And to your point exactly, this is not ABM and I don't claim it to ever be ABM. What it is though, is it solves the greatest challenge of ABM, which is the greatest challenge and this is not just opinion, this is data backed, is sales and marketing alignment because marketing will go and spin their wheels and build out this massive campaign and all this collateral and do all this list segmentation and all these beautiful things and say sales team, I need you to go out better. And they're like, why would I do that? You're not touching my accounts. 

Steve: 

Right. You haven't built that level of trust with them and they really don't understand why you're doing it. So yeah, it gets the communication going.

Mason Cosby: 

Exactly. And it builds trust because I can, what I can tell you now from practical experience is this client has now come back and their sales team is now saying to their marketing team and saying to me, this is awesome. How do we do more of this? 

So because we started by something that was pretty simple, it took us probably two weeks to set up in its entirety, the delivered and it proved value for the sales team that the marketing team can actually deliver some freaking pipeline.

And as a result, we're now working more closely with them. I speak to their sales team as much as I speak to their marketing team now.

Steve: 

Yeah, and it's the whole philosophy of quick wins, right? Prove to them that you know what you're doing and then it opens the door to future things. 

So on the trail of ABM, so we've now done this, we've built the credibility, we started some things going. What would be a typical next step for scrappy ABM, to use your phrase, where a small company without a ton of resources, without a big tech stack, could start doing some ABM tactics?

Mason Cosby: 

It's a great question. So what I, what I love about starting with the activation play is you also, generally speaking, you nail the handoff from marketing to sales. Because in order for the activation play to be successful, like you have the, have to have the operations around the list segmentation to then actually provide a list to sales. So depending on the activation play that you build, if it is something in which you can actually start to drive target accounts into that activation play, then marketing's job is actually to drive more intentional target accounts into the existing activation play that you've built. So the goal is drive more into that. And then the second half is how do you optimize for conversions post activation play? So again, the way that, that I'm helping clients build them, we build a single sequence. So to be very clear, it's, it's single threaded, which means we're only going after one contact and one company. And also it's based on their existing data flow. So to put it bluntly, it's a little bit serendipitous because we're trying to get a quick win.

So now it's the intentionality around who are the accounts we want to go after. How do we drive them into our existing trigger? And then once they're driven into that trigger, what is the right message? Not for this general audience. That's kind of serendipitously hitting this trigger, but it's the intentional message for the intentional audience. And how do we start to maybe segment out our audiences even further to be target accounts in specific industries. And then even further within that of target accounts within specific industries, and then giving their different buying decision makers, different messages that resonate specifically with them. 

So that's new outreach sequences. That is new sales collateral. That's new landing pages. That's where you get into the complexity of ABM. But again, for most customers that I'm speaking with, they've got some level of a CRM, they have some level of marketing automation. None of what I talked about even remotely requires an ABM platform. The only thing that you're going to need is to build some level of a target account list in some way shape and form. 

Steve: 

Right. So as I talk to you about this, it's giving me more and more hope because what I, what I feel like we're doing here is we're reclaiming the idea of account-based marketing. Right. Because account-based marketing, honestly, is what 15 years ago we called strategic marketing or strategic account targeting. Right. And then it got  this name ABM, and then all the tech companies jumped on board. But really what we're talking about is...

Use your existing tech stack, whatever that would be. Like you say, CRM and marketing automation is all that most companies probably need. You're selecting a group of accounts that makes sense for you that you sort of have access to, and then you're finding a very targeted way to go after them, right? Which is, I mean, the name doesn't lie. It is marketing that is based on specific accounts, right? So ABM works, but we're getting away from, you've got to have the half million dollar investment tech stack that you talked about. So... Yeah, I think this is really smart. 

Another thing I wanted to dig into with you, because we're on a podcast, right? So let's get better and talk about podcasts on a podcast. This idea of using podcasts as an account-based tool, and I'm a big fan of this. I did it myself a few years ago with a company called Open Gear. And we had a list of strategic accounts that the sales team were struggling to get into. And I just basically went and did my own outreach and found guests to be on. You know, on this podcast show that we created and, uh, you know, and then it gives you credibility. I don't want to talk too much because that's what you're here for. But so, so let me hand it over to you. Do you know what, what's your views on, on using podcasts in that way?

Mason Cosby: 

I think it's how podcasts should be. Cause I'll put it bluntly, I'm probably never gonna be a top 10 podcast. My content is too niche. Like I'm never gonna be someone like an Alex Ramosi or Dave Ramsey that create the industry leading podcasts. It's not gonna be me. That's okay because I use it for a different purpose.

So as you think about outreach to target accounts, even the activation play that I talked through with the client that's reaching out to 50 to 70 people, the high end on that conversion rate, even from a triggered perspective, is 10%. If you do really, really detailed research, personalized outreach, a good friend Sam McKenna 

But still, I have not seen anything that you can almost have a guaranteed 80% booking rate outside of a podcast. And to put it bluntly, that 80% and I need to look up the new data because this is from a couple years back when I really started to think through this.

 Who are the people that I want on my show? And primarily, who are the people that I want to sell to get on my show? So if you think about it from that perspective of let me invite guests that I want to build a one to one relationship with, because I think I can actually help them in their business. You have a near guaranteed success rate of getting them for an hour. It's a pretty good way to think about it. The other thing that it does is your guests will likely share the content on their social platforms, which says two things. One, you've now started to raise awareness within your target account that you exist. Because let's say I'm trying to sell into some kind of a MarTech or sales tech company. If the VP of marketing comes on my show, and then post it to his social channels. I can guarantee everyone in his department or her department is going to see that post and know that I exist. Super helpful. 

The other thing I don't know if you've picked up about B2B in general, it's a very small industry. So what I've already started to see are the people I invite to my show happen to already be BFFs with my target accounts. So as a result, they will actually introduce me to my target accounts. Or my target accounts to see the content, they'll start binging my show and then they will end up coming inbound. To give context, I ran a marketing careers podcast as a fun passion project for two years while I worked at a different marketing agency and that podcast generated, sourced a million dollars in revenue through the guests that came on the show. So I'm a huge proponent of account-based podcasting. I think it is, even though podcasting is very much so on the rise as a tactic and a channel that people are using, I still think the account based approach for a podcast is still one of the most underutilized ways in which you can actually scale a business.

Steve: 

Yeah, very cool. I agree with you. First off, you're going to get a response from somebody much quicker to a podcast request and a, Hey, let's chat about your business problems, right? Then you have the credibility of them being on it, sharing it with their network. When I did it, we were selling to Fortune 500 companies. So you had that internal cell, but then to your point, one of our biggest and unexpected was people that I had worked for at other big companies, you know,

So we were working with one big, or we were trying to get into one big processing company. But this guy had former colleagues who were now at Motorola and Cisco. So that spread was great there. So I do think it's good tactic. The one thing that concerns me about it, and you kind of touched on it in the end, as with all good things, we are going to ruin it as marketers, right? Because at the moment, if somebody gets an invitation to a podcast,

Best case, they're going to say, great, I'd love to be on a postcard. Worst case is going to be, oh, it's nice of them to ask me, but I'm not really into it, right? We are going to get to the point. It's like in-mails, right? LinkedIn in-mails at one point were golden and now it's like, there's so much spam out there. So I have this fear we're going to get to the point where everybody's just blasting out podcast invitations and it can ruin it. I, my, my hope is the one thing that's going to stop it is a lot of people. Like, I'm sure when you pitch this to, to prospects, they'll say, well, great. But, I don't want to host a podcast, right? Or we don't have anybody internally who is going to be comfortable doing that. Or it's a lot of work to edit it. Although there's companies that do that as well. But, um, I agree with you. I think, it's a great way forward, but you know, let's not tell everybody cause let's, let's not ruin it.

Now, let’s look at this whole discussion from a founders perspective. Let’s say they have a basic understanding of ABM, they think it might work in their company, they want to find out more. Where do they go, what do they do?

Mason Cosby: 

So I'd actually recommend you get started and just try it on your own. If you run into a problem, that's where you may want to bring in somebody. Or if you just like, look, I'm bought in on the idea because I've listened to enough content, I've tried to educate myself enough and I just need somebody to come do it quickly, that's when I bring somebody in at that point. But again, like if you come to me and say, I'm not convinced, totally fine.

Like I'm trying to help you build your business. If you're not convinced that this is the right way, I'm not in the business of trying to convince you how to run your business. I'd recommend going and educating a little bit. Here are some resources you can go and listen to and engage with and like start to get, try something. If you're able to see some early successes, awesome. You know.

invest more, but if you're not like that's okay. Cause the other thing is ABM doesn't work for everybody and that's okay. You generally need a higher ACV. You need a sales team you need. And when I say ACV, that's average contract value. You need a customer that's typically going to be around for a while. So you see a high lifetime value from that customer. So again, if you're not convinced, that's totally fine.

you can probably run something else that may work well for you. But if you think ABM might be a good fit, there's a ton of content out there. I have a podcast myself called Scrappy ABM, which is literally digging into how do you do this? So figure like try those things out, come and listen to that show and then give it a shot.

Steve: 

Now, it's great advice and I think particularly, you know, founders and owners of small businesses, they're used to rolling their sleeves up and trying stuff out for themselves, right? So I think that's a good direction to go into. And I'll put a link to the Scrappy ABM podcast in the show notes as well, so people can check that out. Couple of questions just to wrap up here. So, you know, ABM marketing in general is always changing. ABM is absolutely changing. How do you keep up with...

Mason Cosby: 

Thank you.

Steve: 

the trends you mentioned there's a lot of good material out there where should people go and take a look to try and follow us.

Mason Cosby: 

Yeah, I mean, personally, I learn as much from my podcast guests as I try to teach people on my own show. So without fail, the best thing has been and I think will always be some level of peer connection and community. 

And then the other thing is just like, go look at some of the best podcasts. And I say best as like, you can go on chartable and see what podcasts marketers are listening to. And if it, if it can

Steve: 

Any that you would recommend though? You wanna give some hints there?

Mason Cosby: 

I've got two or three. So again, I mentioned the show that I helped produce is called Do This Not That. It is from my perspective, one of the best podcasts and it's not because I produced it. It's because the host is just prolific as a content creator. We're releasing roughly 12 episodes a month that are all 15 minutes or less. 

If you want a deeper dive.

The exact opposite of the spectrum is a revenue vitals that was the state of demand gen by Chris Walker. He has two hour episodes in there. Like most of his content is at least 40, 50, hour and a half long pieces of content, but it's very deep. It's very granular. It's super helpful as a way to think through more complex marketing. And then the final podcast, it's been a minute since I've personally listened to it, but it was the most foundational author was Donald Miller. So he's got a podcast that is Business Made Simple. He's got a sister podcast called Marketing Made Simple. So those two are generally very accessible for business owners and early stage marketers that are trying to just figure out like, what's the basic blocking and tackling that I need to build up my business.

Steve: 

All right, very good. That one's a new one for me at the end there. I'll check that out myself. And again, I'll put links to all of that in the show notes. So last question I was asked. 

So one of the reasons I started marketing makes actually a lot of what you just talked about there is because it was a way for me to have interesting conversations with other marketers, right? But the reality is I would rather be doing it over a drink in person than through a video screen. So if we were doing this together, face to face, what would be your drink of choice?

Mason Cosby: 

Depending on time of day, fun fact, my first marketing job was actually at a coffee startup. So I got really spoiled. They had the best coffee in the world, and it's not even a joke, it was so freaking good. So if we're anytime before 12, I'm probably gonna be drinking coffee. The only other thing that I drink outside of coffee, Unless it's the occasional drink, which I do have an old-fashioned. So if we're if we're out It's a little bit later tonight. We'll have an old-fashioned, but i'm pretty boring and drink coffee water and like the occasional old-fashioned

Steve: 

Hey, you know, coffee is my go-to. I do like an old-fashioned as well. I was actually in Louisville a couple of weeks ago. That seems to be the official drink of the city there. So yeah, do you have a favorite bourbon that you like to put in your old-fashioned?

Mason Cosby: 

Angels Envy Rye. It's not a cheap bottle. It's, I think, about 120 bucks, which, granted, in the grand scheme of whiskey, you know, you can be doing a lot worse on your damage, but it's...

Steve: (

Yeah, that's still up there. But you know, if it's an occasional drink, if it takes you a year to go through the bottle, it's well worth it, right?

Mason Cosby: 

I've had the same bottle for about a year and a half. So my other recommendation that's on the lower end is Four Rows of Signature. I think that's about a $30 bottle. So it's a good bottle. It almost always beats really expensive $500, $600 bottles in competitions, but it's a very accessible price point for a lot of people.

Steve: 

Nice. Yeah. So I'm really more of a Scotch drinker than  bourbon, but after, after a few days in Louisville, I'm starting to develop the taste. So I'll have to give that a try. 

Well, Hey Mason, I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me for the, for the last half an hour or so. I have learned a lot to your point. I've learned a lot just from our conversation and yeah, thanks very much for your time.

Mason Cosby: 

Thank you for having me, it was a blast.