ABM
A shoe in a box
Sent prospects a single shoe to, quite literally, get a foot in the door. It made people smile and opened conversations a standard email never would.
Results
Results, not
just activity.
Measurable impact across SaaS, marketing technology, professional services and regulated markets. Here’s some of what I’ve delivered, and how. No mammoth claims, just real numbers.
The headlines
£60m+
Revenue influenced
90%+
New business from marketing programmes
52% to 70%
Lead conversion improvement
4,298%
ROI on a hospitality programme
Case studies
What I did, and what it delivered.
The same approach in different businesses: understand the market, focus on the right buyers and measure everything against pipeline and revenue.
Events
Figaro Digital
MOSTADON client, 2026 to now
8 weeks
From scattered data to one clean database
Retainer
Ongoing monthly support won after delivery
The situation
Figaro Digital had built a valuable contact base through its events and professional networks. But it sat across several systems and formats, so it was hard to use for marketing.
What I did
Reviewed and combined every dataset into one master database, removed duplicates, standardised fields and turned years of contact codes into clear tagging and segmentation. Then made it import ready for CRM and email platforms, and set up the structure for event invitations and newsletters.
The result
One clean, segmented contact database that’s easy to maintain and ready for regular communications. Figaro then kept me on a monthly retainer covering CRM, newsletters, event comms and marketing operations.
Event tech
Momice
MOSTADON client, 2026
50+ MQLs
Qualified UK leads from a standing start
1 new customer
Plus 5 more deals in the pipeline
The situation
Momice is a Dutch event management platform with a strong home market and next to no UK customers. They wanted to find out, properly and quickly, whether their model would work in the UK before committing to it.
What I did
Stepped in as UK market lead. Defined who to go after (in house event teams first, then agencies), mapped the UK event calendar and built the target list from scratch. Then set up the engine behind it: HubSpot lead scoring and MQL rules agreed with sales, IP tracking to spot UK companies on the site, and enrichment through Clay and Apollo feeding email and LinkedIn sequences that end in a call. I also fixed the UK basics, from pound signs and UK English to landing pages and a review of the paid search.
The result
Over 50 MQLs, five deals in the pipeline and a first new UK customer signed. With the whole engine up and running, I handed it over to the Momice team to keep it going.
PE backed SaaS group
Spotler Group
Marketing Director, 2018 to 2026
90%+
New business from marketing
52% to 70%
Lead conversion
The situation
A PE backed marketing technology group operating across the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, which needed marketing to drive the majority of new business.
What I did
Led marketing across the group with budgets from £200k to £1M. Built demand generation programmes across content, events, webinars, ABM and paid, connected HubSpot and Workbooks CRM for joined up pipeline reporting, and set shared KPIs with sales.
The result
Marketing programmes generated over 90% of new business and thousands of leads a year, and lead conversion improved from 52% to 70%.
Original research
The neuromarketing study
Spotler, 2020. Designed and run end to end
87
People from 14 companies
28
Web and email formats tested
The situation
Split tests tell marketers which layout wins, but not why. And people can’t tell you what really drives their choices, because most of it happens subconsciously.
What I did
Ran a first of its kind neuroscience study with research partner Rhetonic, using EEG to measure engagement, excitement, stress, relaxation, interest and focus as people viewed 19 web page layouts and 9 email formats.
The result
The plain, Outlook style email beat designed templates for engagement, and moving a single form box changed how a page performed. The study, The Experiment: Insights from the Inside, was released to the press and became the basis for a series of talks.
Account based marketing
Physical ABM programme
Creative direct mail and coordinated outreach
50%+
More meetings booked
15%+
Higher order value
The situation
High value target accounts were ignoring cold email and calls. Sales needed a way to get noticed and start real conversations with the right decision makers.
What I did
Designed a physical ABM programme of creative direct mail, from Glastonbury, Leeds and Reading festival tickets and empty iPad and Kindle boxes (the device arrived once they agreed to a call) to personalised hampers with photos of the SDR who would follow up, a LeadFest campaign and, my favourite, a single shoe in a box to, quite literally, get a foot in the door. Each send was followed by a coordinated sequence of email, phone and LinkedIn outreach, timed to land after the post.
The result
Meetings booked with target accounts increased by more than 50%, the time from opportunity open to close dropped by 10%, and order values from these accounts rose by more than 15%. See how I run ABM now.
SaaS scale up
CommuniGator
Head of Marketing, 2013 to 2018
25%
Of seminar attendees became customers
87%
Renewal rate from GatorCon attendees
The situation
A growing marketing automation business competing in a crowded MarTech market, with a small team and big ambitions.
What I did
Built the brand and marketing function, rebuilt the seminar and events programme, launched GatorCon, a multi day customer conference and awards, implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM and introduced structured automation and nurture.
The result
Around 25% of seminar attendees became customers and GatorCon attendees renewed at around 87%. The business grew from under £5M revenue through to a PE backed acquisition by Spotler Group.
Regulated financial services
Huntswood
Head of Marketing, 2009 to 2013
4,298%
ROI on corporate hospitality
£100k+
Raised for charity
The situation
A specialist consultancy serving banks, insurers and large financial organisations, which needed a sharper position with institutional buyers.
What I did
Reported to the CEO and COO and managed a budget of around £500k. Repositioned the brand, ran integrated ABM, digital, PR, sponsorship and events, and led a CRM transformation.
The result
Website traffic grew by more than 10% a year and generated won business, a hospitality programme including an event at Buckingham Palace delivered a 4,298% ROI, and the Cross Channel Challenge raised over £100k for charity.
Mammoth ideas
Cool stuff. No spreadsheet required.
Not everything needs a stat. Some of my favourite work was about getting noticed, getting the right people in a room, or trying something nobody else would.
Events · CommuniGator
GatorCon to SpotlerSummit
Our customer conference. I ran it start to finish, grew it from one day to three, and put Seth Godin and Mark Ritson on the same bill.
GatorCon was CommuniGator’s annual customer conference, later SpotlerSummit, and I ran it start to finish: the speakers, the agenda, the sponsors, the awards and the dinner, plus managing the team that made it all happen.
It started in 2014 as a one day event at a hotel near Birmingham. From there we moved to Old Thorns in Hampshire, went to two days and added the awards dinner, and eventually grew it to three.
In November 2018 it was two days at Old Thorns, billed as “a night (and two days!) to remember”. LinkedIn’s own head of content and social media explained how LinkedIn markets itself, Katie Hart got inside the minds of men and women, and I launched the Great British Split Test, inviting customers to join our experiment of the year.
By GatorCon 2020, the sixth one, it had grown to three days at Old Thorns from 4 to 6 February: a pre learning day of hands on workshops, then two full days of keynotes, customer stories and masterclasses.
3 daysup from one
30+speakers and session leads
7conferences, 2014 to 2022
10Golden Gator Awards
87%renewal rate from attendees
1very tired organiser
On stage in 2020. Dr Dave Chaffey on the state of marketing automation, Katie Hart’s keynote launching our EEG brain research, Susan Hallam MBE on LinkedIn account based selling, Waheed Warden on agile ABM at Fujitsu, CIM Chair Leigh Hopwood on building a marketing strategy, and Anthony Stears, The Telephone Assassin. Plus plenty of customers sharing what worked for them, and a masterclass of my own, the Great British Split Test.
The big finale. The seventh and last one, SpotlerSummit 2022, ran 29 to 31 March, again at Old Thorns. Seth Godin was beamed in live from New York and Mark Ritson live from Australia, on the same bill, a line up we’d never seen at one event before. Alongside them were Dave Chaffey, Michelle Carvill on sustainable marketing, the DMA’s John Mitchison on GDPR and cookies, and Tony Robinson on how to read people. There was even a pre day round of golf, where I took the beginners out for nine holes. It took as long as eighteen.
After hours. From Old Thorns onwards, every year ended with the awards dinner: champagne reception, dinner and a quiz, the awards, then entertainment until late. Categories included Best Loved Sender, Best Subject Line, Lead Machine and, my personal favourite, The Most Predictable Award.
“Fantastic event and very well done to CommuniGator for organising such an engaging and interesting conference with such military precision. The conference truly is a Marketing Manager’s dream come true!”Michelle Lansdowne, Mactaggart & Mickel
Research · Spotler
Brains on emails
EEG headsets on 87 people from 14 companies, to see how their brains really respond to emails and landing pages. The plain email won.
In 2020 I wanted research nobody had done before. Years of split testing told us what worked, but not why. So, working with Katie Hart and neuromarketing specialists Rhetonic, I set up a study using EEG (electroencephalography) to see how people’s brains actually react to emails and landing pages.
I set the hypothesis, shaped the structure of the research with Katie, and managed and ran the sessions. We took the lab to our customers’ offices across England, with two of us in the room for every session and GoPros filming faces and screens, so every spike in brain activity could be matched to what people were looking at.
87people
14companies
10research days
9email formats
19landing pages
701,280data points
Every participant wore an EEG headset while working through the emails in a mock Outlook inbox and the landing pages, all about the same topic (GDPR, so nobody got too excited), and we measured six things: engagement, excitement, interest, focus, stress and relaxation. We even looked at what a scroll through social media and a cup of coffee do to the brain.
What we found. What people said they liked didn’t match what their brains told us, and the brain data matched how people actually behaved in real split tests. The best and worst landing pages were identical apart from where the call to action sat. And the plain, Outlook style email beat the designed templates overall, especially with senior and longer serving staff.
The findings went on to become a series of talks, and they still shape how I build emails today.
Sponsorship · Huntswood
The Cross Channel Challenge
I helped organise Olympic hopeful Paul Wycherley’s record breaking kayak across the English Channel for Huntswood. Over £100k raised, and BBC Sport on the boat.
In 2011 Huntswood sponsored Paul Wycherley, a British sprint kayaker chasing a place at the London 2012 Olympics, to break the world record for kayaking across the English Channel, and I helped organise it.
That meant helping organise the challenge itself, from the specially designed sea kayak and support boat to the Cross Channel Challenge website Huntswood built and ran, and running the fundraising with Huntswood’s clients and employees.
I also ran the PR and got the outlets involved. BBC Sport came out on the support boat to film the crossing.
On the day Paul set off from Dover at 9.35am and reached Cap Gris Nez just after midday, in 2 hours 28 minutes. That beat the record set by his coach, Athens bronze medallist Ian Wynne, by 31 minutes, with Ian relaying advice from the support boat.
Paul raised over £100,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital and The Prince’s Charities. Not bad for a Sunday morning paddle.
ABM
The empty iPad box
Target accounts got an empty iPad or Kindle box. The device arrived once they agreed to a call. Funny how quickly diaries opened up.
Hosting
Hosting the big names
Hosted and interviewed Seth Godin, Mark Ritson, Dave Chaffey and PR Smith. Tried very hard to look calm.
Webinars · Spotler
Leads from Your Living Room
When Covid shut down physical events, I launched a weekly webinar series that kept Spotler’s lead gen going and tripled leads from webinars.
12 week webinar series · 2020
Leads from your living room
Practical lead generation, every week, from the comfort of your sofa.
When Covid hit in 2020, physical events were suddenly off the table, and with them a big chunk of our lead generation. So I created Leads from Your Living Room, a weekly webinar series marketers could join from the comfort of their sofa.
12weekly webinars
3xleads from the webinar channel
0physical events needed
It went out live every week at 11am, from 8 April to 24 June 2020, with every session on demand afterwards for anyone who missed it. Each week tackled a core lead generation topic marketers were wrestling with:
- Get personal with personas8 Apr
- Organising your content16 Apr
- Data purchase, LinkedIn and GDPR22 Apr
- Dispelling SEO myths28 Apr
- Investigating IP lookup6 May
- Smashing it on social media14 May
- Polish up your PPC ads19 May
- The wonders of website nurture27 May
- Excellent email campaigns4 Jun
- Inbox placement and deliverability9 Jun
- Reporting on what actually matters17 Jun
- Wrap up: bringing it all together24 Jun
The series also fed content across every channel, from social to content syndication, so our output went up and the brand stayed front of mind while everyone was stuck at home.
The result? Spotler’s lead generation kept going when it could easily have stalled, and the webinar channel produced three times the leads.
ABM
Festival tickets for a meeting
Glastonbury, Leeds and Reading themed mailers where the only ask was a meeting.
Events · Huntswood
A party at the Palace
A corporate hospitality programme that included an event at Buckingham Palace. Not a bad venue for a client catch up.
Campaign
LeadFest
A festival branded campaign with one headline act on the bill: more leads.
Webinars
AI search with Exposure Ninja
Hosted a three part live webinar series on AI search with Exposure Ninja’s Charlie Marchant.
ABM
Hampers with a face
Personalised hampers with a photo of the SDR who would be calling, so the follow up came from a friendly face, not a stranger.
MOSTADON
This website
Yes, the mammoths hiding around the site are on purpose. How many have you found?
Let’s talk
Want results like these?
Book a free natter and let’s talk about what marketing could deliver for your business.