Waiting at least 12 months before seeing the first signs of solid ROI can sometimes be a bit of a shock to the system.
For Kate Owen, director, strategic client marketing and industries at Capita, surprise was certainly the case prior to turning her focus to ABM.
She recalls attending an industry event and listening to marketers who had spent several years on ABM before beginning to see the real value flooding in. “I remember thinking ‘can you imagine waiting that long to know if you’ll see the value?’,” she says. “But patience is a virtue and it’s overlooked sometimes by marketers. It’s something I still struggle with because it goes against the DNA of a marketer who wants to take creative campaigns and content out onto the marketplace.”
Capita is currently in the earliest stages of its ABM. However the company has spent years operating the strategy in informal pockets. Now, it’s set to roll out a full programme with a dedicated ABM team, and its initial metrics in place.
Measuring your ABM before ROI
In the early-stages of ABM you’re unlikely to see significant ROI, (although you may see a few chance quick wins).
That means it won’t be suitable to use metrics associated with ROI because it won’t reflect your success. “If you think about ROI you’re probably driving yourself toward short-term metrics, and ABM and key account management are long term strategic activities,” explains Michael Green, account director and Kate’s colleague at Capita. “Sometimes it’s not appropriate to measure by short-term metrics. Instead it’s important to look at the achievement of milestones” he says.
For the first year of your ABM you’ll have to readjust your definition of success. You may still get ROI but that may materialise in forms other than financial returns. For example you may be looking at increases in face-to-face engagements, amount of new relationships, and touchpoints on social media.
“There is ROI in terms of revenue and growth, but actually it’s the softer indicative metrics in the early stage that I’ll be looking for my team to measure,” says Kate.
Alternative long-term account based marketing metricsMike Boogaard, co-founder and CEO at Alias Partners suggests four core metrics for ABM.Coverage: Do you have the data to reach all account stakeholders? How many individuals in each account can you reach? Can you identify the decision-makers and influencers in each account?Engagement: How long has the account spent reading your content? How many of your events have they attended? How much have you engaged with them?Impact: What are the results of the engagement? Are there any opportunities? Is the account sales-ready?Influence: Was there an increase in conversion with ABM? Did the deal size increase?
Proving account based marketing’s worth
Over the account lifespan, there will be multiple activities in the lead up to the account spending money. Some of these activities will be initiated by the ABM team, and some may be triggered by other departments such as accounts and client services.
“ROI is tricky in these big customer relationships because you have a lot of moving parts to get to an end result. It’s sometimes quite tricky to ring-fence marketing activity and say that it directly led to revenue,” explains Michael.
He recommends those involved in ABM (whether sales or marketing) to register their account activities in the CRM religiously. “Then you can pull data and reports on the milestones being achieved,” he explains.
This is the kind of collaboration between sales and marketing that Kate deems to be a sign of success.
“For me, the ultimate nirvana with ABM would be for people in my team to work with others as a joint unit. That’s when I’ll know we’ve truly been successful in what we’re doing. It goes beyond ROI and soft metrics,” she says.
Evolving your metrics with account based marketing
Although Capita has prepared its initial metrics for the beginning of its ABM programme, it’s prepared for these to change. There will come a time when accounts begin to prosper with revenue, and you’ll want to begin measuring this too.
Kate is keen to keep a watchful eye on these metrics and says this is something that should be managed closely. “If you’ve got a growth mindset you should always be measuring, learning and optimising what you’ve done. You need to review continually.” she says.
Managing expectations
As ABM can be such a change for organisations, it’s considered best practice to take an approach that manages expectations.
You want everybody on board with a lengthier sales cycle and to understand what success looks like because if you don’t have buy-in from everyone involved in ABM it just won’t work.
“It needs to be done as a team – don’t go it alone,” Michael confirms. “It needs to be aligned not just with sales and marketing but anyone who touches customer accounts.”
Kate suggests working towards this alignment by being really clear on the phases of your approach. “Outline what each phase of your programme will look like and set those expectations,” she says
