Old Wine In New Bottles — PUBLIC
Old wine in new bottles
7 Essentials for Account-Based Marketing Success
Acknowledgements:
The contents of this presentation are based on the article titled 'Seven Essential Ingredients for Account-Based Marketing Success' written by Aaron Bean, Senior Planner & Digital Strategist at BNJ Portland.
For more updates and insights from Aaron and others, please visit our blog, or follow Aaron directly on Twitter (@aaron_bean).
What is ABM?
And why should you be practicing it...
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-based marketing (ABM), also known as key account marketing, is a strategic approach to business marketing in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one. - Wikipedia
Account-based marketing (ABM) is the strategic approach marketers use to support a defined universe of accounts, including strategic accounts and named accounts. - SiriusDecisions
ABM focuses explicitly on individual client accounts and their needs. More importantly, it is a collaborative approach that engages sales, marketing, delivery, and key executives toward achieving the client’s business goals. - ITSMA
Why should you be practicing it...
The rise in popularity of an account-based approach is down to the benefit it brings an organisation.
Companies practising ABM have better alignment between sales and marketing and typically see a higher return on investment on their marketing spend, as well as bigger deal sizes and an increased pipeline velocity.
The nature of ABM campaigns allow companies to easily pilot and scale and/or replicate based on success.
ABM campaigns are much easier to track and measure, meaning you can get accurate attribution and ROI.
Marketing technology, such as marketing automation platforms and (re)targeting solutions, have made it much easier to automate ABM marketing programs.
Old wine in new bottles?
The title of this presentation is accurate: the principals behind ABM are not new. In fact good salespeople have focused their efforts on targeting several stakeholders in key accounts since sales began and BNJ has been practising ABM for over a decade, although we didn't call it that at the time.
What is new is the development in marketing technology which allows you to build scalable and replicable, programmatic Account-Based Marketing programs. It might not be new wine, but it makes for an excellent bottle.
"ABM delivers the highest Return on Investment of any B2B marketing strategy or tactic."
ITSMA
1. Talk with your sales partners
[early and often, get buy-in for their participation]
Sales & Marketing working together is critical to the success of any account-based marketing campaign.
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There needs to be a shared vision on which accounts have the highest propensity to buy and which existing accounts are of interest for upsell/cross-sell (existing accounts are an integral part of ABM).
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It's important to define shared objectives and goals that sales & marketing will deliver together.
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Determine how your marketing activities can integrate with sales efforts to maximize buyer engagement and conversion in the later stages of the buyer journey – including handover.
Learning: Engage them early. At the start. Develop a mutual understanding & trust.
How aligned are your sales and marketing efforts?
- Totally aligned
- Moderatelt aligned
- They function indepently
2. Ensure your data is clean
[and accurate for every individual]
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Bad account & contact data kills your ABM strategy.
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Clean, validated data is particularly necessary for any 1-to-1 tactics (such as email, telephone outreach, direct mail and events).
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Many corporate contact databases are a mess, mainly due to inconsistent data capture and purchase of poor quality lists.
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There are many services available to clean up your data and enrich it with accurate details.
Learning: Ensure you're working with clean and accurate data.
"ABM programs can have both 1-to-many and 1-to-1 approaches, often within the same program. Good data is essential for 1-to-1."
Mike Boogaard - Managing Director
Babcock & Jenkins EMEA
3. Use personas
[to identify unique roles, actionable buyer insights]
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Identify the unique personas involved in the decision-making process within your target accounts.
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Segment your accounts by attributes that define unique decision-making behaviours, buying triggers and/or solution interest areas.
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Gather fresh insights around topics and themes of relevance to your buyer personas.
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Look for changes in decision-making criteria since you last built your buyer personas.
Learning: Include mindset attributes into your personas for a more complete and in-depth view of people and motivations.
"Buyer personas and insight should be second nature for most B2B marketers, yet very few marketers properly use them."
Julie Wisdom - Strategy Director
Babcock & Jenkins EMEA
4. Define attributes of high-propensity accounts
[versus a creating a dream list]
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Not every company you want to sell to is the right fit for your products or solutions.
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Focus on high-propensity accounts — use your CRM, talk with sales and finance — which customers deliver the highest revenue to your organisation? Identify common attributes.
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Use predictive analytics, solutions like Leadspace, Everstring & Lattice, to build a data-driven model that teases out the attributes of companies most likely to be your next customers.
Learning: Align your list of target accounts with companies who share similar attributes with your best customers.
"You might have aspirational goals related to big wins but focus your efforts on companies that really want to buy your products."
Mike Boogaard - Managing Director
Babcock & Jenkins EMEA
5. Segment your\ engagement strategy
[and tactical mix by account priority]
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Not all accounts have the same value. Align your approach with revenue potential of the accounts you're targeting.
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Split your lists into a small list of big, strategic accounts AND a larger list of named accounts (strong prospects which will still net less revenue per account).
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Scale your strategy accordingly: for the strategic accounts, invest in higher-touch, higher-value programs and experiences. For the larger list of named accounts, think about how you invest in customising your messaging and content offers.
Learning: In the strategic account scenario you'll have a higher participation requirement from sales (very important to have them on-board!).
"Bottom line is that you should evaluate your ABM investments as a function of account revenue potential and align your strategies and tactics accordingly."
Aaron Bean - Sr. Strategist, Babcock & Jenkins
6. Orchestrate your channels
[rather than using one-off tactics or campaigns]
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The goal of an ABM program is to surround multiple people at the accounts you are targeting.
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Engage across channels they frequent, in a context that is highly relevant (this information comes from your personas).
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The magic of account-based marketing stems from the orchestrated integration of multiple, cross-channel tactics.
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ABM doesn’t conform to traditional metrics, so you need to define engagement metrics (coverage, awareness, interaction, impact).
Learning: ABM programs are typically smaller and more focused so you need more channels to reach and convert more of them, which is simply not possible through a single channel like email.
"The saying 'buildings don't write cheques, people do' is incorrect. Buying committees make decisions, so you need to reach multiple people at each account."
Mike Boogaard - Managing Director
Babcock & Jenkins EMEA
7. Apply rigor
[to your account-based marketing]
Success is measured in engagement and sales, not leads. Include engagement metrics to quantify success, including:
- Coverage: how many accounts did you reach?
- Awareness: are the target accounts aware of your company and its solutions?
- Engagement: did the right people at the account spend time with your content, and is that engagement going up over time?
- Program impact: did their engagement result in interaction?
- Influence: how are the ABM activities improving sales outcomes such as deal velocity, win rates, average contract values, retention and net promoter scores?
Learning: Leverage 'always on' content and opt-in newsletters, social communities and online forums where buyers from your target accounts are learning.
"Account-based marketing is about engagement, and engagement is the art of connecting the customer to your business through context. "
Julie Wisdom - Strategy Director
Babcock & Jenkins EMEA
Babcock & Jenkins
A little bit about us
Babcock & Jenkins
Babcock & Jenkins is Demand Generation, Demand Innovation agency. We connect buyers to businesses by artfully and quantifiably building brand, driving demand, and accelerating revenue streams and business growth.
About BNJ
An agency is its people. Its culture. Its collective experience. Its values.
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Get in touch
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How to get in touch
By phone: 0207 427 6083
By email:
- General enquiries: emea@bnj.com.
- Sales enquiries: Catharine Heath
- Customer & partner enquiries: Mike Boogaard
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Soho, London W1F 8WX
