Gigamon: Programme of the Year Award Winner at SiriusDecisions EMEA Summit 2016

At SiriusDecisions Summit Europe last month, Gigamon EMEA was awarded a Programme of the Year award. Gigamon provides active visibility into physical and virtual network traffic, thus enabling stronger security for a client base that includes over 75 percent of the Fortune 100. 

Trevor Dearing, EMEA marketing director at Gigamon, recognized that the company had a significant opportunity through a focused upselling and cross-selling approach within its customer base. Trevor knew that Gigamon could achieve 94 times the initial sale across the customer lifecycle. He and his team also knew that by getting in front of the right decisionmakers, they could expand opportunities and generate a predictable and scalable pipeline/revenue stream for building repeatable business from customer accounts.

Gigamon had been executing broader demand creation programs through traditional marketing methods and attaining a good volume of leads. However, the leads were not converting into real opportunities. Trevor was also looking to increase the contactable universe within customer accounts to drive greater customer engagement – as well as to gather all important account insights.

Trevor leveraged SiriusDecisions’ Account-Based Marketing Framework and applied its industry-focus approach to accelerate Gigamon’s ABM journey and ensure the key process steps and elements were in place to support the joint sales and marketing program. Here are just some of the key process steps they followed:

• Prioritization. Within the prioritization step, the team performed a data-gathering exercise that included internal (Marketo, finance and Salesforce), and external (third-party agency, channel partners, DiscoverOrg) data sources to assess the growth opportunity of the program at an account level, and to determine the  accounts to target. Based on existing benchmark and account-level data, they identified the opportunity based on Gigamon’s existing footprint, share of wallet and expansion opportunities, and added scoring and purchase propensity modeling. Working closely with the sales organization, they defined a set of target accounts based on intelligent data insights, which allowed them to map out the opportunity across their target accounts aligned to the buyer’s journey, and construct propositions and product areas for the accounts within the program.
• Planning. Within the planning stage, after setting the goals for each account based on the sales account plan, Trevor’s team worked to understand the persona they wanted to engage by leveraging the SiriusDecisions Buyer Persona Framework. Doing so enabled them to develop a scope of messaging and a multi-channel tactic mix that would engage target contacts based on those contact needs; it also meant they understood the persona interaction and content preferences based on buyer insights, and developed their campaign to meet those needs.;
• Execution. Within the execution stage, it was imperative to launch a pilot to test sales and marketing processes, tactic performance and execution capabilities. Based on existing benchmark and account-level data, Gigamon defined a set of 58 target accounts within the finance and insurance industry, which is also its largest install base. A core objective was to get in front of the customer and focus on a tight geographic area in order to be most effective. The pilot tested the tactic mix and utilized a mix of disruptive direct mail, ad targeting, virtual events, case studies, digital marketing tactics and messaging centered on the message of “What’s lurking on your network?” This messaging resonated with the target persona – the head of IT. The pilot was evaluated and quickly outperformed the initial key performance indicators and targets, and was then expanded into a full UK program.
• Foundation elements. Gigamon gathered and validated insights for the industry and accounts targeted, looked to all available sources, and validated or enhanced through channel partners. The team established interlock with sales and their agency by communicating the program and their objectives and involved sales in every step of the execution. They developed technology integration and defined processes to measure engagement from target contacts and aligned existing demand creation efforts and ABM campaign targets to ensure they were flagged for increased lead scoring. Notification was sent to the salesperson and the marketing team to trigger an action for the prospect. Finally, Gigamon clearly defined the roles, responsibilities and competencies required to execute and support the program, as well as set roles for internal education, enablement and communications throughout; everyone involved knew what was required of them at every step.
• Success factors. By following the ABM industry framework and starting with a foundational approach through a pilot in one market, Gigamon was able to measure and show pipeline contributions to optimize prior to expanding into new markets or verticals. Trevor commented that sales involvement and collaboration with marketing was imperative to the program’s success. Through technology integration, they were able to automate processes to measure ABM target engagement across inbound, outbound and global account interactions.
• Results. The program was a resounding success – it delivered more than 2,000 new contacts to engage across 104 accounts, and produced 40 face-to-face prospect meetings with real project opportunities attached; as a result, more than $3 million of reported pipeline opportunity has been generated to date.

Gigamon’s next steps are to take the program to other geographies starting with France and Germany, where pilot program are already underway. They are also looking to other industries and other segments to target, and considering additional solutions and developing further tactics. Regarding contribution to sales revenue, Simon Mott, the account director who worked on the pilot, is now the number-one salesperson in EMEA, and commented that adopting ABM has drastically accelerated his pipeline development as a direct result of the program. Congratulations  to Trevor and the team at Gigamon!