With the world thrown into turmoil this year due to Covid-19, our annual Ignite London event went digital for the first time. Of course, having to rapidly transition into the digital world was not a unique experience, as marketers the world over have been forced to migrate to digital platforms seemingly overnight.
It is interesting, however, how quickly the industry has adapted to new digital ways of working. The notion of digital events might perhaps have been met with a wry smile in January, but now they have become a necessity.
Hosted on the Hopin platform, Ignite London was spread across three days in late June, and featured sessions on Insight, Engagement, Leadership & Strategy, Sales Enablement, Creativity & Innovation, Martech, Brand and, last, but not least, Account-Based Marketing (ABM).
In order to give a flavour of some of the content presented at the event, let’s take a look at one presentation from our ABM stream: ‘Who to target in a post-Covid world: It’s time to review your priorities’, by Chris Ashley-Manns and Charlie Nicholson of Really B2B.
Who to target in a post-Covid world: It’s time to review your priorities
Tired as we may be of hearing about it, it is undeniable that Covid-19 has disrupted everything. With that in mind, there is little room for error, and businesses need to make sure they’re on the money more times than not. Ashley-Manns and Nicholson, therefore, used their presentation to discuss the importance of prioritising which companies you focus on in your ABM campaigns.
Specifically, they discussed: the most effective processes to help you prioritise the right companies and contacts; why you need to review your ABM campaigns; how to review them; what you need to consider; and why you need to keep reviewing them.
Pre-Covid, Really B2B identified key targets for its clients through the following process:
- Discover insights.
- Develop insights and develop into a strategy.
- Deliver the plan.
The first phase consists of being as thorough as possible in researching the client’s accounts. Really B2B discovers the client’s existing perceptions, analyses their data (specifically revenue and CRM data), and reviews any existing marketing information the client already possesses. This provides a picture of the macro-environment as they currently see it.
Then, Really B2B moves externally, interviewing industry experts and some of the client’s top customers. The customer interviews help Really B2B to understand what it is that currently works so well. The industry expert interviews, meanwhile, provide a greater understanding of the market in general.
Following this, Really B2B carries out secondary research to gain further understanding of the situation, and looks at the client’s competitors to understand their positioning and targeting. Finally, the findings are validated with a quantitative survey. This includes a few hundred decision makers within the industry, in order to establish who that decision-making unit is, how it varies (by industry, company size, etc.), and what the key criteria are that those key decision-makers are using when they’re appointing a supplier. Ashley-Manns and Nicholson claim that this is essential when forming their messaging hierarchy. They also ask what pain points are currently in their role, which is useful for creating helpful content later on.
Ashley-Manns and Nicholson pointed out that this further research could actually highlight something that shifts the strategy away from the original internal perspective. In this case, Really B2B will go back to the stakeholders to discuss how this new knowledge works with them and come to a conclusion.
Once this is all done, all of the criteria that define the perfect prospect will be established. This is then used to create a long list of potential accounts.
The second phase is all about turning this long list into a short list of accounts that will become the main accounts to focus on. This is created by going through each account, one-by-one, and filling out key information. This includes a number of things, such as: relationship history (this could include or exclude an account), contact availability, and more. This new list is then shared with Really B2B’s intent partners. In short, these partners aggregate multiple signals of intent to demonstrate who is considering purchase at any given point.
Once this is done, a shorter version of this list of accounts is created. Further resources are then used to carry out a deep dive into these accounts. This is done in order to gain a greater understanding of the decision-making unit, as well as the strategic initiatives of the company. This allows a personalised targeting and messaging strategy to be created for each account. It’s worth noting that, during this stage, you could reveal something that demonstrates an account is not an ideal target. These accounts should then be replaced with an alternative account.
Whilst that methodology hasn’t changed since the pandemic, there are now certain things that need to be taken into consideration. With that in mind, Ashley-Manns and Nicholson offered their tips on undertaking ABM in a Covid-19 world.
Don’t wait it out
This is quickly becoming less relevant as the world begins to accept its new reality and the likelihood that we are not going to revert to the old normal (at least not overnight). Nevertheless, Ashley-Manns and Nicholson pointed out that it’s crucial not to simply bring your ABM campaigns to a halt.
Ashley-Manns said: “It’s really important not to take the foot off the gas when thinking longer-term. By virtue, ABM for new acquisition is more often than not targeted at those larger organisations with longer buying cycles. Therefore, a break in any key account targeting is going to have a longer-term effect potentially later down the line in driving those larger contract values. Yes, channels and approaches may have changed, but remaining agile and keeping going is crucial.”
Don’t sit and speculate. Act and plan to adapt
Following on from the last point, Ashley-Manns and Nicholson argued that it can be very easy to get lost in scenario planning and forget to act. Instead, we need to be agile and embrace the uncertainty in order to succeed.
“It’s been said about coronavirus that the only certainty is uncertainty, and so our tip is to embrace this uncertainty by acting and planning to adapt as new information presents itself,” Nicholson said. So, how do we go about doing this? Ashley-Manns and Nicholson suggested two key methods: embrace agility and design for flex.
Embrace agility
Marketers should create a culture of rapid review and iteration of strategies. “Create the processes to gather data and insight quickly and regularly to assess your strategies. And importantly, welcome change. Don’t shy away from the red flags someone has uncovered, but create a war room culture, celebrating those flags and jumping on the solutions quickly,” Nicholson said.
Design for flex
Nicholson added: “It’s all good having rapid and up-to-date insight, but if you can’t adapt your actual marketing activities, then it’s pointless.” Therefore, it’s crucial to remain flexible. In order to do this, there’s a few things you can do: “create dynamic content that can have copy and images rapidly changed as and when your targets do; review your internal processes to remove any lost time between creative, marketing and sales teams; and finally, invoke a just-in-time project management approach. This means pushing final sign-off decisions as late as reasonably possible to reduce the time between the point of no return and delivery of the campaign.”
Consider the human impact in all of this
Covid-19 has, of course, not just affected business practices. On a human level, the sad reality is that many people you may have researched and spent a lot of time with may no longer be employed by their company. Thus, insight is absolutely crucial before continuing with ABM campaigns.
Ashley-Manns commented: “Should we be undertaking Tier 1 or Tier 2 campaigns? Right now, our recommendation is particularly focused on – if you’re trying to win new ABM accounts – Tier 2 (organisational or department level targeting) to protect any resource investment there. But for any existing growth accounts […], Tier 1 (one-to-one) targeting is still very much a viable option by the nature that you and sales team should have insights on those individuals, or at least it should be relatively easy to get hold of those.”
In addition to this, Ashley-Manns and Nicholson argue that we have to be more human in our communications. ‘Being human’ has always been important in the B2B industry, but now more so than ever. Being empathetic to decision-makers in your key accounts is crucial. If you want to build a long-term relationship with a customer, you cannot be cold or unempathetic in your approach.
The medium is in the message
Ashley-Manns and Nicholson’s final tip for undertaking ABM in a Covid world is that ‘the medium is in the message’. In other words, now is the time to think creatively in terms of channels and how they support your ABM activity. For instance, standout creative and content will need to be more powerful than ever. In addition to this, think about prioritising your how you use your channels. For instance, direct mail is now completely out of the window. Webinars, meanwhile, have increased by over 400% since last year. However, is webinar fatigue soon on the horizon? We all know how quickly Zoom quizzes with the family lost their appeal and began to feel more like a chore. Are your webinars likely to suffer the same fate? In order to combat this, it may be that you need to consider creating more niche webinar topics and events. On the flipside, digital and social media spend has increased massively. In addition to this, interactive content can also be a great way to reach and engage your audience, but act in a smart way to capture data on those who are interacting with the content.
