Challenge:

• Adobe Experience Cloud offers a collection of analytics, marketing, content management, commerce and advertising solutions across both B2B and B2C for companies of every size. Its customers span every industry and seek to deliver memorable customer experiences.
• Two years ago, Adobe faced a scenario that should be familiar to many matrixed organizations with multiple marketing and sales teams: siloed strategies resulting in inefficiencies.
• “In order to reduce waste, we turned to LinkedIn to help us connect relationship-based sales activity with our broader marketing efforts,” says Matt Rozen, Director of Enterprise Editorial and Social Media.

Solution:

• A focused and cohesive account-based marketing framework on LinkedIn enabled the Adobe Experience Cloud team to harness the power of LinkedIn’s robust member data and advertising tools. Adobe quickly made the professional network central to its revamped strategy. 
• Targeting top decision-makers and influencers enabled Adobe to reach the entire buying committee with precision. Instead of “marketing throwing darts at a dart board, we are able to reach CMOs and other relevant committee members,” says Cari Vecchia, Adobe’s Director of Global Sales Program Ops. 
• With LinkedIn’s unique data and insights, Adobe gained far more clarity in their ABM efforts. “LinkedIn is a very unique place because no other platform has people tell you what they do and what they’re interested in professionally,” Rozen observes.

Results:

The team at Adobe is tightly focused on delivering results and business impact. Based on data from LinkedIn, Adobe's program showed the following impact in 2018: 42% of closed-won deals were influenced by marketing on LinkedIn while 55% of closed-won deals were influenced by sales, powered by Sales Navigator. LinkedIn's data also revealed that deals influenced by LinkedIn were 161% bigger on average than those that were not.

Overcoming ABM obstacles

• With a strong marketing strategy in place, coupled with a sales team that leverages Sales Navigator, Adobe now has a platform to facilitate true alignment and orchestration. Marketing and sales are in lockstep throughout the pursuit of key accounts on LinkedIn.
• “It’s not just the traditional lead hand-off, where we’ve driven a lead and now sales has to do all the heavy lifting,” says Megan Ybarra, Head of Enterprise Digital Marketing. “Instead it’s, ‘Hey, let’s be there to make sure that we’re getting our message to the account and to all people in the buying committee.’”

Full coverage of the buyer journey

• Collaboration across marketing and sales on LinkedIn helps Adobe deliver consistent, relevant experiences throughout their customer’s journey. The business now has more visibility into what’s happening within each department, enabling both Adobe marketers and sellers to fill in gaps and provide assistance when needed.
• With multiple people overseeing complex B2B buying decisions, this is essential, because it can care for the needs of everyone involved — from researching new vendors, to ultimately moving forward with a purchase.

The right message in the right context

• The focus and continual refinement behind Adobe’s ABM program helps the team ensure they’re reaching out to professionals with value and relevance. “LinkedIn has this database of people who are there because they want to talk about what they do,” says Rozen. 
• Meanwhile, Adobe stays agile and flexible with its collaborative strategy on the platform. “We’re actually able to get input back from a lot of the leads because the marketing team is targeting people we want them to,” adds Vecchia. “And we’re then refining, okay, how do we surround that buying committee with the right content to help move those opportunities through the funnel to close?” 
• Adobe’s results speak for themselves. Insights from LinkedIn are made actionable, leading to higher close rates and bigger deals.

About

Adobe is the global leader in digital media and digital marketing solutions. Our creative, marketing and document solutions empower everyone – from emerging artists to global brands – to bring digital creations to life and deliver immersive, compelling experiences to the right person at the right moment for the best results. In short, Adobe is everywhere, and we’re changing the world through digital experiences.