Customer Success Story: Sitting Down With Kyla Bobola at IRIS Americas

For a new-to-the-Americas team like IRIS, a simple ABM solution was mission-critical to support their growing team as they introduced themselves to the market. We caught up with Kyla Bobola, Director of Marketing at IRIS Americas to hear about her process with Propensity as they just started getting off the ground.  

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What is IRIS? What do you do for them? 

IRIS is a medium-sized enterprise software solution provider that simplifies business operations by enhancing operational compliance, efficiency and accuracy.

I am the Director of Marketing for IRIS Americas. IRIS experienced tremendous growth over the past few years, so it needed new leadership to match that long-term growth. I was brought in to help build out the marketing program for the Americas.

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What are the goals you're working towards in your role?

Right now, I’m working to implement a well-rounded marketing program that incorporates ABM. When you're in the enterprise software market, ABM, from a revenue perspective, helps to balance out the pitfalls of relying on traditional inbound.

Ultimately, we want to build a program that generates between 30 to 35% of marketing-sourced pipeline to our sales team and builds brand awareness for IRIS in the Americas market. 

“Propensity is developing features and best practices that will soon rival some of the Gartner quadrant leaders. It kind of feels like we have the best-kept secret for ABM.”

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Could you describe the primary pain points of your process prior to using Propensity?

We were struggling to find an all-encompassing ABM solution that would find our in-market accounts and align our sales and marketing team around shared goals and accounts. Our data was not telling us the full story, and we were determined to find a solution that would connect all of our data from different sources within one single source of truth. We found that with Propensity. 

Now, the data overlays directly into our CRM making it our single source of truth. We can easily see what revenue is being generated or closed, and what is being built in the pipeline. From an ABM perspective, it just makes sense that your data should overlay. It shouldn't be on another platform.

Some vendors only look at intent data, but this can silo information from your marketing programs. So the data doesn’t connect in the way that you need it to. 

We finally have complete control over our ABM data. With the data supplied by Propensity, we control the programs we need to without paying extra ad fees or maintenance fees. 

And we no longer have the pain points of siloed applications and siloed data. Our data points  connect and tell the full story. 

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What’s one of your favorite features of Propensity? 

One aspect that is completely unique to Propensity compared to other ABM vendors,  is that job change signals are included. Job change data is typically an extra cost to the marketing team. But this is baked into the price and within a market where there's so much turnover, that in itself is just invaluable.

A lot of industries are facing turnover. As IRIS ramps up to go into tax season, having knowledge of which companies are hiring or if people are changing their jobs is critical. Propensity helps us get to the core of ABM, and create targeted messages based on what that company is going through, so you really focus on the needs of the target company. 

“This is what the market's been waiting for — having an ABM solution like this. It's not a platform, it's not a service, it's a complete solution.”

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How do you use Propensity? 

We are using Propensity to identify in-market accounts and marketing warm-up campaigns.

Right now, we're doing paid LinkedIn ads and we’re using the in-market accounts list. Then, we’re connecting it back to see which of these accounts are starting to come in, who is seeing our accounts or our ads, and who is engaging with us. From there, we’ll look at how we can reach out to these customers.

Some of these accounts that engaged with us are current customers, but are there opportunities to cross-sell or upsell? Our customers expect targeted messaging curated for them specifically. With Propensity, we’ll have the ability to do something with a higher potential to convert.

The nice thing about Propensity is that we control the platforms that we target advertising through, and we control the budget. We have greater overall control over what we can do with ABM, and we can reach our audience at the right time. I like having full control over where my ads are going. I don't like giving up that control because at a moment's notice things can change. Propensity gives you that level of control you just don't get with other applications or other data service providers.

“You just don't get the same level of customer service with other vendors.”

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So you’re also using Propensity to cross-sell and reduce churn of existing customers?

Yes. One of the great things is we can see the competitive buying signals, which is huge for us. If we know that a customer is looking into a competitor’s product, it gives some indication of if they’re looking to switch off a product that we have or if there is a solution they're looking into that they don't know we offer. It's now an opportunity for us to have access to so much data and have our own path regarding what to do with it. 

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Which KPIs will you be tracking?

First and foremost, we’re looking at engagement and what's resonating. On the other side, we’re seeing how fast accounts are converting and if they convert faster than a typical inbound lead. Essentially, we are looking to see how much quicker we can realize that revenue. 

Will ABM be able to help that same type of deal close in eight weeks as opposed to 12? Are we going to make our quarter revenue at a much quicker pace? What is Propensity going to bring us in terms of realized revenue opportunity that traditional inbound can't? 

It's really going to be looking at engagement and if brands are engaging with us more now that we're in front of them more.

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How was the implementation process?

It’s kind of like being given the keys to a spaceship. Now you need to figure out how to fly it. The opportunities are endless and you get to do ABM the way that works best for your ICP, your company, and your marketing team. But we know the team has our back. 

Propensity is one of the disruptors in this space. At the level of what's being produced, available features and even on the customer success side, the team does everything they can to ensure their clients are successful.

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