True Influence Summit - Accelerating Revenue in Uncertain Times

True Influence®, the technology leader of intent-based sales and marketing solutions, conducted its inaugural 2021 True Influence Summit – Accelerating Revenue in Uncertain Times this week.

The virtual Summit addressed how digital demand generation could become a revenue machine in 2021.

As businesses struggle to navigate through information overload, it's critical to break the cycle. True Influence brought together some of the best minds in the technology industry to discuss crucial learnings and insights that align marketing, sales, and data to build a path to a successful and certain B2B future.  

Apart from some insightful panel discussions, True Influence shared some critical information from a Forrester Research commissioned report that evaluated the state of B2B sellers' go-to-market strategies.

A General Report

The half-day virtual Summit was held on Thursday, January 21, 2021, from 12:00 pm – 3:40 pm (EST). It featured eminent speakers like Howie Mandel - comedian, television personality, screenwriter, actor, producer, director, entrepreneur, game show host, and author. 

Howie popped into the Summit multiple times during the day to provide entertainment to attendees and mesmerized everyone as the keynote speaker speaking on how he got viral on TikTok, mental health, and why personalization is the need of the hour.

Key Takeaways from the Summit

Brian Giese, CEO, True Influence gave the opening and closing remarks for the Summit addressing practical, real-world examples around how to align marketing and sales with data to deliver specific goals. He talked about how the pandemic moved all B2B marketing and sales activities to digital, the big challenges that B2B leaders face in accelerating revenue, the importance of intent data for B2B organizations, and much more.

Interactive Panel - Actioning for The Future, Aligning Intent Across Sales, Marketing & Data led by-

• Oktay Arifkhan - SVP Data, ViacomCBS
• Brian Solis - Global Innovation Evangelist, Salesforce
• Leslie Canning – Vice President, Worldwide Sales Enablement, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The three eminent leaders answered these five major questions:

1. How meaningful collaboration between sales, marketing, and data boosts business revenue significantly, 
2. Why is using data with precision is important to identify and reach in-market buyers at the right time with the right message is critical for an effective and profitable organization? 
3. How quality data give us information about prospective customers before any action takes place?
4. How can we plan smarter engagements with customers?
5. How aligning sales, marketing and data can help us plan effective strategies for segmenting, personalizing, connecting, and closing successfully?

Fireside Chat- Modernized B2B Marketing led by

• Kay Kienast, CMO, True Influence
• Laura Ramos - VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Critical information from a 2020 Forrester Research commissioned report that evaluates the state of B2B sellers' go-to-market strategies was shared and discussed. Forrester's research found that while sellers realize the future of selling has arrived, many struggle to meet the moment with comprehensive, optimized prospective buyer engagement strategies.

This Fireside Chat delved into what this means for business-to-business (B2B) brands as well as for their business-to-consumer (B2C) counterparts.

Interactive Panel - Success in Depth

Activating the Journey to Accelerated Revenue led by:

• Tim Schneller - Head of Global Marketing, Honeywell
• David Amaro – Senior Manager, Corporate Marketing, Salesforce

Honeywell PPE is piloting a new benefit for their Honeywell Partner Program. The vision is self-service lead generation through their partner portal eliminating manual efforts where minimal leads were produced using generic MDF/Co-op funded programs. Partners would interact seamlessly with Honeywell to update lead status allowing for close collaboration driving a measurable improvement in the lead to revenue cycle. Tim threw some light on how he is using content syndication with display advertising and the preliminary results.

Salesforce has already surpassed the industry benchmark for both impressions and click-throughs with their display advertising implementation. David discussed the impact that ABM display ad campaigns has had on his business, as well as review the best practices when using display ads for ABM.