Matt Senatore, research director, account-based marketing at SiriusDecisions, reveals how your brand can successfully adopt an account-based marketing approach
In its most basic definition, account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach that aligns resources against a set of defined, targeted accounts. This could include a very small number of large, strategic accounts – where a one-to-one approach is warranted. It could also include a larger set of named accounts (across territories, industries or horizontals for example) – where a one-to-few or one-to-many approach would be executed. ABM efforts typically include a focus on both opportunity goals (i.e. revenue) as well as relationship goals (i.e. satisfaction). Regardless of the goal or approach – the focus must be on bringing relevance based on specifics within those targeted accounts.
In the past 12 months ABM has generated enough global search traffic that it now appears on Google Trends. Furthermore, at SiriusDecisions, our Account-Based Marketing practice is one of our fastest growing services.
That’s because the promise of account-based marketing is compelling. With marketing functions being challenged to do more with less, fill the pipeline with quality leads (over quantity), accelerate existing deals, improve marketing ROI and turn existing customers into raving fans and advocates (fostering retention and fueling future growth via references), B2B marketers are exploring how an account-based marketing approach can help (thus driving the popularity in search as well as in our advisory growth).
While account-based marketing can help produce the aforementioned benefits, you can’t just flip the switch and begin doing ABM. Among other things, building a successful ABM practice requires proper planning, alignment, communication, and a substantive change in mind-set. To that end, here are the five most critical things your organisation must be committed to in order to successfully adopt an ABM approach:
1. Commit to customer intimacy
How can you determine which accounts (i.e. existing customers or prospects) will yield the highest returns without knowing anything about them? The first thing a successful ABM program needs is a commitment to learn as much about the account as possible. The good news is that there are many sources of customer information (internal or external) – it’s a matter of identifying what information is needed, where to find it and how trustworthy and actionable it will be.
2. Treat different customers differently
A one-size-fits-all approach is better left to traditional advertising – where you want to convey one message to as many people as possible. However with ABM, it’s essential to engage customers in a differentiated, relevant way. Since B2B marketing organisations don’t have endless resources, there should be a clear focus on where those limited resources can make the biggest impact. Developing and maintaining a customer value model can determine which accounts to focus on. Your organisation may have to be OK with doing nothing (or very little) proactively to certain low-opportunity accounts where very little (if any) return is expected.
3. Take a different approach to content development
Today, quite often, sales organisations struggle to find customer-specific utility with the content that marketing has provided – citing it’s too generic and not appropriate to the specific challenges their customer is facing. In order to engage in relevant differentiated relationships prescribed in an ABM model, you need to have something to say (actually you’ll need many different things to say) to the different types of customers, industries, challenges, buying stages, personas, contacts that you will be addressing in an ABM model. Sales needs to be involved in the marketing content planning process (among other things).
4. Interlock sales and marketing
ABM requires a cross-functional, collaborative approach. The two functions that will need to most closely align are sales and marketing. Marketing must be engaged as early as possible in the sales account planning process in order to be as precise as possible with the insights, content, programs and initiatives that they will be producing. Furthermore, aligning marketing coverage to the sales go-to-market structure will ensure that the priorities are aligned. Building a consistent cadence of communications between sales and marketing will ensure that any deviations in strategy, direction or account goals will result in timely changes to the ABM activities.
5. Measure results differently
Generally, marketers are measured on the amount of leads (i.e. marketing qualified leads, sales accepted leads, sales qualified leads) they bring into the sales funnel. While that can still be an important measurement for many organisations, with ABM there are additional sets of metrics that must be considered to reflect the different activities that marketing will be doing in support of the specific goals that ABM will set forth. Since some of these account goals will have long sales cycle times or be relationship focused (as opposed to growth focused), defining (and aligning sales to) short- and medium-term metrics will be crucial to demonstrating ABM progress.
Not all customers or opportunities are created equal. Knowing where best to align your resources to engage those most critical to your business in an appropriate manner, with a cohesive unified approach, measured appropriately provides your organisation with a competitive advantage – and ABM can help you get there.
