In a recent episode of the Financial Marketing Insights podcast, Nickie McDade, former Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Director at the London Stock Exchange Group, and Tony Jarvis, Global MD – Client Relations at EI Advisory, shared their career journeys and insights.

Nickie McDade began her career as a researcher at the Scottish Government before joining Thomson Reuters in 2008 as an intern. She worked on their brand transformation project following the merger of Reuters and Thomson Financial. Over the years, she gained experience in brand marketing, customer experience, insight, and UX design. For the past five years, she has been focused on account-based marketing (ABM) at the London Stock Exchange Group, and has recently left LSEG.

Tony Jarvis, before founding EI Advisory, worked at the Financial Times in the financial services conference division. With a career spanning 22 years in financial services and marketing, he co-founded EI Advisory after identifying a gap in the market for evidence-based advice and independent recommendations. The company now boasts 30 to 40 clients, 28 staff, and offices in New York and London. Tony emphasized the importance of providing insights for ABM and sales enablement programs and highlighted the value of community-building through initiatives like EI Advisory’s new ABM Club.

What is ABM?

Nickie shared her perspective on account-based marketing (ABM), describing it as a modern term for a long-standing concept. She noted the growing interest in ABM among tech companies, financial services, and professional services organizations. According to McDade, ABM is about integrating customer experience with the brand and working across an organization to deliver optimal experiences for strategic customers.

She emphasized that ABM is not just about marketing, but involves using marketing methodologies to enhance customer experience. This requires collaboration across various departments, including product, customer success management, account management, and marketing. She highlighted the importance of a strategic approach that aligns with the overall brand and customer relationships, particularly in relationship-based industries like financial services.

In her recent role, Nickie focused on strategic accounts, working closely with sales teams to build trust and align around customer goals. She stressed the need for co-creation and collaboration with sales to develop effective ABM strategies. By bringing in customer insights and UX experience, McDade aimed to understand the holistic health of accounts and prioritize resources accordingly. She acknowledged that while priorities can shift due to external factors, having agreed-upon mission-critical priorities is essential for success.

“And I think it's why it's so effective, especially when you're looking at relationship-based organizations. Account-based marketing for me, and in my experience, is really where you bring all that together and it's that thread throughout, that really ultimately rolls up to the brand and the overall relationship you hold with your customers. I think that's why we're seeing such a proliferation of that in financial services. Because financial services ultimately is anchored in relationships. And so there, I believe it's important and a really effective methodology for that strategic approach to marketing.”

The ABM Club

Tony added that Nickie’s insights during panel sessions, such as a recent ABM Club meeting in London, are highly valuable. He observed that Nickie and her Head of Strategic Sales, Kristen, have a deep understanding of each account’s current status and how to advance them. Each client lifecycle is unique, and Nickie’s team avoided a one-size-fits-all approach, focusing instead on tailored strategies for each account.

Tony emphasized the importance of focusing on strategic accounts to gain a profound understanding of their dynamics and working in partnership to achieve positive outcomes. He highlighted the origins of the ABM Club, which is run by practitioners for practitioners. The steering committee, composed of industry leaders, guides discussions on timely and compelling issues.

The ABM Club aims to create an environment for meaningful discussions, with pre-introduced participants and structured formats. Table captains facilitate discussions, and insights are shared with the group. The club’s mission is to foster genuine discussions to advance ABM thinking.

“EI's part in that is we want to learn as much as we possibly can about where ABM is now, and where it's going, so that we can shape our new level of insights to provide value and to evolve that value as the ABM function evolves.”

Nickie expressed her enthusiasm for the ABM Club project, highlighting the energy and collaboration she experienced during the sessions. She appreciated the openness and willingness of participants to share best practices and knowledge, which created a unique and engaging atmosphere.

Reflecting back on her career, Nickie fondly recalled her first project at Thomson Reuters as an intern, where she worked on a holiday e-card project in New York. This experience, filled with creativity and interaction, set the course for her career.

Making ABM Work

More recently, Nickie finds great satisfaction in establishing account-based marketing (ABM) as a function within financial services. She emphasized the importance of strategic partnerships and the iterative process of integrating ABM into an organization. Her efforts at London Stock Exchange Group were recognized with the Forrester Program of the Year award and a gold award for the program’s effectiveness.

Nickie highlighted the significance of long-term KPIs in measuring ABM success, focusing on customer experience, satisfaction, and retention rates. She stressed the importance of understanding the unique dynamics of each account and working collaboratively with sales teams to achieve strategic goals.

She emphasized the importance of understanding the unique dynamics of each account, whether they are approached individually or clustered together. She also highlighted the need for deep insights into customer health and external factors, such as market operations and strategic imperatives, to support strategic partnerships effectively.

Nickie finds satisfaction in tracking long-term metrics to measure the success of ABM. She believes that providing internal stakeholders with valuable market intelligence and insights is crucial. This involves using various tools to gather real-time information and integrating it into personalized pitch decks and reports.

Collaboration with sales teams is essential, as they provide critical intel that can be augmented with additional insights. She stressed the importance of building trust with sales teams by providing them with comprehensive dossiers on accounts. This approach helps establish rapport and ensures that the sales team is well-prepared for client interactions.

Overall, Nickie’s approach to ABM focuses on understanding customer needs, leveraging insights, and fostering strong partnerships with sales teams to achieve strategic goals.

Client Insights

Tony also shared his favourite project, which involved working with a major tech firm targeting a large US retail outlet. The account was significant, generating over $50 million annually. During the initial briefing call, the account lead, who had extensive experience with the retail company, expressed scepticism about what new insights EI Advisory could provide.

Tony and his team asked about potential blind spots and set clear goals for the project: identifying new deals, growing existing ones, speeding up deals, or increasing their likelihood of success. The engaged stakeholder and his team then provided further valuable information, revealing genuine blind spots.

Over three weeks, EI Advisory used various tools and processes to uncover critical insights. They discovered connections between the client’s organization and the target contact, who had been unresponsive. By following the target’s activities and interests, they identified shared passions, such as supporting homeless veterans, which provided new avenues for engagement.

The project culminated in a “jaw-dropping moment” when they found a significant connection between the client’s internal stakeholder and the target contact. This revelation led to a shift in the client’s approach, with the team actively planning to attend relevant events and engage with the target contact. The success of this project highlighted the value of deep insights and strategic connections in account-based marketing.

“For me, I'll be excited where you've started with a genuine sceptic, and at the end of it, he's like, ‘Everybody, please, in my team, turn your cameras on?’ And we pulled up the events that the target client was going to in the next six months. And he just interrupted us and said, ‘Right, my team, which events are you going to go to? I'll go to that one. I'm going to try and get on the panel with him on that one.’ And I’m just smiling and messaging with my team on the backchannels, saying ‘Okay, this is why we do what we do’.”

The Challenge of AI

Nickie identified Generative AI (Gen AI) as a significant challenge for financial services marketers, emphasizing the need to navigate its ethical use while maintaining authenticity and trust. She noted that financial services organizations are risk-averse and heavily regulated, which complicates the use of Gen AI. Although AI and machine learning have been used for years, the widespread adoption of Gen AI represents a major shift.

She highlighted the challenge of being creative within the constraints of financial services marketing. It’s important to use insights to drive personalized experiences and creative engagements while being mindful of risks and regulations.

One successful initiative involved organizing a bespoke C-level dinner, where insights about the attendees’ challenges and preferences were used to create a tailored experience. This included serving their favourite childhood desserts and mocktails, which facilitated meaningful conversations and strengthened relationships. Nickie concluded that while creativity in financial services marketing is challenging, it is achievable and essential for building strong customer relationships.

“It’s all a collaboration, it's a co partnership, and I think that's where you build trust. We had a new Global Head start actually, and one of the very first things that I did with him to establish my relationship was to arm him with a dossier on the accounts that he was going out to speak to and instantly it builds that trust and rapport. I'm like, I know these accounts. I know the folks you're going to speak to, and here's some Intel. And really it was our job to pull together all of the threads and create that picture for them and with them.”

Tony added that in the relationship-based B2B financial services sector, leaders are focused on deal-making, which can overshadow the strategic value of marketing.

He emphasized the need for marketers to demonstrate ROI for marketing spend and to show that marketing is a critical discipline. This involves measuring beyond simple metrics like ad clicks and focusing on brand reputation, thought leadership, and relationship nurturing. By doing so, marketers can secure a genuine seat at the table with the leadership and the CFO.

He noted that this shift was a recurring theme at the Financial Services Marketing Leadership Summits, indicating that marketers are making progress in overcoming these challenges.

Nickie re-emphasized the importance of collaboration when presenting an ABM program to C-suite decision-makers. In her recent program, Growth Board sessions involved directors and strategic sales leaders presenting to C-level executives, including the CFO. These presentations used slides created by Nickie and her team, ensuring consistent data and insights.

She highlighted the need for a unified story across all levels of the organization, from C-suite to marketing and other departments. She stressed the importance of co-creating with the sales organization, using the same data, insights, and results to maintain a consistent message.

Creating and optimizing slides for these presentations helped align C-level executives with the importance of ABM. By focusing on customer insights and strategic customers, Nickie demonstrated the effectiveness of ABM in nurturing strategic relationships, as evidenced by finalized deals, positive retention scores, and satisfied customers from C-level down to end users.

Tony underlined the importance of setting a timeline with the CFO to start seeing results from ABM initiatives. He referenced an ABM expert who measures success by comparing the performance of ABM accounts to non-ABM accounts over a five-year period, acknowledging the long sales cycles in financial services.

He suggested two dimensions for comparison: the performance of an account before and after it became an ABM account, and comparing it to similar accounts that are not part of the ABM program. He stressed the need to identify leading indicators, such as the number of new conversations and non-project touchpoints with clients, which precede the lagging indicators like pipeline growth.

He highlighted the importance of collaboration between sales and marketing, noting that it doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as the results are positive. Establishing senior-level buy-in and maintaining consistent data and insights across presentations are crucial for demonstrating the value of ABM and achieving strategic goals.

Nickie said she finds inspiration when setting of on mid-year hikes to the top of Scottish Munros. The lack of phone signal and the fresh air help clear her mind, allowing creativity to flow. Surrounded by the beauty of the mountains, she often experiences light bulb moments and feels a surge of creativity. The experience of conquering a Munro gives her a sense of accomplishment and inspiration, making it a highly recommended activity.

“Scottish people are eternal optimists. You're just born that way. You have to be when it's that rainy, you know, you just have to just put the raincoat on, and off you go!”

Tony echoed her sentiments about the inspiration found in the Scottish Highlands. He added that he finds great value in witnessing excellence and shared that he is inspired by stories of people overcoming great odds, whether they are personal challenges or professional achievements.

He particularly enjoys award ceremonies that showcase outstanding work and innovative approaches to projects. Tony also takes pride in his team’s ability to hold their own and provide valuable insights to experienced professionals in major firms.

“…looking at how people have approached different projects and applying that sort of overcoming the odds or that sort of David and Goliath piece, such as our little organization, when we are supporting some of the biggest organizations in the world. So my inspiration from that perspective, is definitely my team, when they are working with deeply experienced teams like that.”