Episode Summary:

Travis and Kevin talk with Co-Founder and SVP Data Sales at Bombora, Mike Burton, about a model used at Bombora where everybody wins, how the tools in front of you can optimize what you already have, how sales prioritization can drive success, and more.

Mike Burton Short Bio:

Mike has been working with AdTech startups since 2002. Currently, he is responsible for driving adoption of Bombora’s offerings across email marketing, analytics, programmatic display, predictive analytics and lead scoring, and countless other applications. Mike helped build B2B’s first Intent data co-operative, helping Bombora to consolidate over 9.3 billion monthly B2B behavioral interactions, fueling massive efficiencies across B2B marketing and publishing. Prior to Bombora, Burton worked with Madison Logic as Head of Platform Sales. He was also Madison Logic’s first VP of Sales, helping the company in its earliest stages to grow revenue and gain a foothold in B2B’s competitive lead generation space. Mike also worked at Collective, and was one of the first employees at IndustryBrains, an innovative direct marketing firm that helped shape B2B’s early online migration.

Episode Highlights:

Asset- behavioral data from lead gen advertising and display advertising programs

Through the process- realized the value in behavioral data

Saw that using this data provided lift for all types of marketing

Used to prioritize outbound and to accelerate leads

Most SDR work is keyed off of intent data, marketing team uses it for linked in/advertising/top of funnel

Things that are driving success

Keep it simple, start with prioritization

If intelligence jumps out, use it

“There’s diminishing returns in trying to extract every bit of value, but there’s really strong returns in prioritization.”

Freemium model- important part of mix, sometimes we wonder if we’re putting our best foot forward

Data in email once a week, but deep believers in automated workflow

Made a decision to just be a data company, and to specialize in intent data

Be the best/leader in this one thing

Have to be good at integrating the data into workflow

“There’s challenges to being a data specialist”

Not al one-stop-shop like competitors

Approach for differentiating Bombora

Market in three categories

How are people using G2 crowd data

“I think there are flaws in all data, it’s just about seeing what’s giving you the highest percentage shot that’s meaningfully moving the needle.”

The vendor sphere in general oversells

“Some companies are just scared to tell customers it’s actually not that complicated.”

Leveraging the voice of the customer

Seeing what works and what became sticky- “Our philosophy is to start with sales prioritization and then let the data expand into lots of other used cases from that platform.”

How to do attribution

Needed way more data

“If we want this to be impactful for the market, we need lots of data from all these other companies who also have valuable data.”

“A good humbleness gave him the vision to build the business.”

Effectiveness of overlaying data

Rewriting the book

Lots of partnerships, but no resellers

Current model- Bombora embedded in other platforms, full Bombora through direct sales team

“Our partners get great intent data and we get to enjoy the better economics and scalability of having a direct sales organization.”

Create partnerships with people who already have the customers

“Everybody wins with our model. The user gets something valuable, the partner controlling the end user gets something valuable, and the data company can still enjoy the better economics of having a direct sales team.”

“There’s so much cool stuff in front of our face that we aren’t using yet, so I can’t really think about what’s next because we haven’t fulfilled what we have.”

“The whole market could use some time to adopt what’s out there.”

Alignment, orchestration, and automation

“If everyone could hunker down into what’s...