Who is ABM a ‘best fit’ approach for?

ABM can offer some distinct and compelling advantages to sales and marketing teams in businesses where the products, pricing and buyers fit the ABM model.

But it isn’t a strategy that fits every business. If you are selling low-ticket products or services to a volume market then ABM is not your go-to strategy.

You should consider ABM if:

• You are selling
  
  high-ticket products or services
  
• You are selling to a high value, limited scale marketplace – fewer than 100 prospect accounts for example
• Your sales team has a high value-per-deal ratio
• You have a target list of companies you want to win new business from or do more business with
• Your buyer journey is sales team-led, rather than ecommerce-led.

Benefits seen from account-based marketing – findings from B2B Marketing’s


Account Based Marketing Benchmarking Report 

Account-based marketing strategy

ABM comes in three distinct forms

One-to-one

Selects and targets a small pool of top-tier accounts, typically five to 10. 

One-to-few (or ABM lite)

One-to-few applies ABM to a larger selection of accounts, often selected in ‘clusters’ according to their commonalities – this may be their vertical, their challenges, or their relationship to you. The number here may be in tens or hundreds.

One-to-many

This approach uses

martech, intent data and adtech

such as programmatic ABM, to apply ABM at scale by delivering personalisation en masse to a wide pool of target accounts and prospects.

Choosing which of these strategies to focus on is subject to the specific objectives, structure and requirements of your business. 

Which account-based marketing strategy is right for you?

There is no one-size-fits-all ABM solution. Every business will have its own

special shape of ABM.

 

That said, as a general rule, one-to-one ABM is resource heavy and is often a best fit for businesses targeting very high value accounts that justify the intensive one-to-one resource investment.

One-to-few ABM can be a more cost-effective approach for businesses targeting larger numbers of smaller value accounts where clear commonalities exist.

It’s arguable that one-to-many ABM does not work as a stand alone ABM strategy, but rather as a supportive, multiple account nurturing approach used to back up one of the two main strategies.

B2B Marketing’s 2018-19 Account-Based Markeing Census

found the majority of marketers surveyed were taking a one-to-one approach to their ABM.

Can account-based marketing be used to target small businesses?

Put simply, ABM is most appropriate for targeting a company’s largest and most valuable customers and prospects. Small businesses may struggle to fit that description.

However, advances in martech are making a hybrid approach of one-to-few and one-to-many an effective tactic for targeting specific small businesses with commonalities.

For example, third-party intent data and landing page traffic tracking can provide insight for personalised engagement and prioritisation of sales follow-up.

So

ABM to smaller business

begins to look feasible and effective, given the

right approach

.

Account-based marketing tactics

While there are many tactical approaches to ABM, all types use the same basic process.

The process of ABM, step-by-step

1. Stakeholder and
   
   sales and marketing alignment
   
2. Target account definition and selection
3. Data and insight
4. Content and programme delivery.

Stakeholder and sales and marketing alignment

Internal alignment starts with key stakeholder buy-in from across the business.

From the board down and across, buy-in, confidence and a positive supportive approach is crucial for success. 

These steps can help marketers achieve stakeholder alignment:

• Understand the distinct challenges and goals of each individual stakeholder
• Understand the numbers and metrics that relate to and drive each stakeholder
• Be clear about how ABM can benefit and adavnce of each of them
• Explain how each stakeholder will fit into the new process
• Use industry case studies and success stories to support for the case for buy-in

Once this is buy-in is secured, the key objective is to define and enable sales and marketing alignment. 

Sales and marketing alignment

The relationship between sales and marketing creates the framework from which all ABM efforts will hang.

Thankfully, ABM doesn’t just require collaboration between sales and marketing, it helps to encourage and build it. 

Sales and marketing teams should be closely and continously aligned around the exact same ABM objectives, target accounts, messaging and proposition,

outreach

and measurement. 

Account selection and definition

This is the process by which marketing and sales have worked together to define what the ideal account will look like, and then selects the target accounts. This includes finding agreement on the number, size and type accounts that you will target.

That decision must be data-driven and made collaboratively by sales and marketing.

Data and insight

Data and insight

is fundamental to the success of both account defintion and selection, and to create and deliver effectively targeted, resonant messaging and content.

Marketers need to be able to

evaluate

the different insight types and data sources available to them within the business, as well as for insights into accounts, contacts, personas and market segments, including:

• Transaction history
• Engagement history
• Pain-points
• Priorities
• Media habits
• Buyer journey
• Connections and contacts.

Programme, proposition and content

At the very core of account-based marketing lies the creation and delivery of highly personalised value propositions, value-add content and messaging – targeted specifically for each ABM account, and the people (or personas) within those accounts.

Keys to ABM content success

• Position your product or service in terms of the buyer’s strategic goals.
• Become a trusted advisor who adds tangible value to the decision-making process.
• Connect with individual stakeholders on a human and emotional level.
• Use your content and marketing to enrich your existing knowledge of the customer.

To help with ABM engagement and content planning, consider categorising your contacts based on personlity type, eg:

• Socially led
• 
  Content led
  
• Ego led.

The cheat sheet below illustrates how you can tailor your ABM engagement around these personality and persona types.

Louis Fernandes, VP and country manager at Basware, shares examples of highly successful ABM content marketing programmes he’s led

Account-based marketing tech

Technology can help support sales and marketing teams pursuing ABM, in a variety of ways, including:

• Customer data, analysis and insight
• CRM
• Content management
• Marketing automation
• 
  Programmatic advertising
  
• Fully integrated cross-channel orchestration and attribution.

What’s in the account-based marketing tech stack?

Choosing the right tech for your ABM

The choice of investment in martech will depend on a business’s point on their ABM maturity journey, and their specific ABM strategy and challenges. 

B2B Marketing’s annual

ABM Tech Maturity Map

below shows how the tech landscape maps to marketers’ levels of ABM adoption.

Measuring and reporting on ABM success

Because account based marketing focuses on a specific set of accounts, it arguably easier to track the impact and success marketing activities in an ABM programme. 

Cornerstone metrics tracked by business undertaking ABM fall into two categories:

Account engagement

• Content consumption and sharing
• Email click-throughs
• Event attendance
• Face to face meetings.

Conversion

• Velocity – prospects to opportunities
• Sales cycle lengths
• 
  Win rate
  
  – opportunities to closed deals?
• Deal sizes – average order value, lifetime value
• ROI.

Measuring more widely

To measure ABM success right through the buying cycle, marketers need to quantify the value their prospects place on their experience as an ABM target, and the impact this experience has on sales.

That’s not always easy, but the best way to do so is by looking at coverage, engagement, impact and influence.

Account-based marketing skills

There are specific,

key skills and personality attributes

associated with

effective account-based marketers

.

It takes a certain

mindset

to be a successful account-based marketer. It needs long-term strategic thinking that looks beyond the confines of the marketing function.

But according to B2B Marketing’s survey of 300 B2B marketers, just 1% of marketers believe their team has all the skills required to carry out ABM successfully.

Fujitsu’s ABM Lead, Andrea Clatworthy

explains the attributes needed to be a great account-based marketer, in terms of body parts!

Michael Avis explains Oracle’s highly successful account-based marketing model

Successful account-based marketing in action: Mobile app marketing and analytics company, Localytics

Have any questions, observations or examples of what’s working or snagging for you in ABM?

Fire them to us in the comments box below and we’ll get them shared and addressed.