Account-Based Marketing - An untapped potential

So in the B2B and B2B2C industries, the buzzword is ABM these days, but many in the marketing world are still struggling to understand what it means and how it helps B2B and B2B2C brands. Therefore, I thought to dive deep into this elusive concept to write this article for you and spare you from scratching your heads in the team meetings.?

ABM means Account-based marketing. The concept is quite simple, and it won't be wrong to say that ABM is the digital equivalent of direct marketing. However, as this is a technology-led marketing strategy, you won't be wrong to assume that it has a lot more to offer than a traditional direct marketing approach.?

At the heart of any ABM strategy, the core focus is on five areas.?

1. Data enrichment
2. Account targeting
3. Personalization / predictive recommendations
4. Interaction management?
5. Performance measurement

Starting your ABM journey does not require that you go all out or revamp your complete marketing/sales approach. You can easily start with your standard direct marketing strategy and create avenues to get accurate client data for prospecting and retention. You can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to do this. Therefore, If your marketing or client success teams are using LSN or any similar platform to acquire clients, then you are already doing ABM. Congratulations!

Having said that, whatever your current state of play may be, with this article, you will develop a high-level understanding of ABM Strategy.?

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As mentioned above, there are five core areas that you will need to focus on to implement a successful ABM strategy for your organization. However, before moving ahead, you will need to ask the following questions as they are the prerequisites to any ABM Strategy.?

1. Does your company cater to B2B and B2B2C sectors?
2. Do you have sales representatives that deal with clients directly??
3. Is your business development department ready to take the lead and dictate requirements?
4. Can your marketing and BD teams work collaboratively?

If you have answered all of the above as yes, then you are in a perfect position to deploy ABM Strategy for your brand/product/service.?

Now let us dive into the core aspects of AMB strategy:

1. Data Enrichment

Successful ABM relies on accurate and robust account information. Although this is true for all marketing activities, it is especially true for an ABM strategy since the targeted accounts usually have a long-term conversion rate and higher value. Therefore, Data Enrichment becomes an integral part of data-to-day operations to assess the overall health of the account.?

There are three types of account-level information that you can acquire from both first-party and third-party sources. These data sets are very significant for ABM strategy as they will enable your teams to plan data-driven sales and marketing:?

• Technographic Data:?A description of the hardware and software used by accounts to conduct their business. Technology data is crucial in the high-tech environment because it identifies accounts with complementary technologies or excludes accounts with incompatible systems. You could also use competitive intelligence and/or scraping firms in addition to social media forums and job boards.
• Firmographic data:?Any business information based on quantitative factors, including vertical market, company size, number of locations, number of employees, revenue, and growth are included here. In addition, demographic data can be obtained from annual reports, LinkedIn, and other sources.
• Intent data: Determines whether or not a company is in the market for a solution based on company actions or signals. A company can collect intent data from B2B forums or job boards (to see how to account for participation measures up), first-party content downloads or ad clicks, as well as third-party vendors, are also part of intent signals.?

2. Account targeting

The objective of an Account-Based Marketing strategy is to align sales and marketing departments to concentrate on a small number of high-value clients that have the greatest growth potential. As accounts are nurtured down into the funnel to create greater value for the organization, ABM strategy "flips" the standard sales funnel by beginning with a small group of accounts (rather than casting a wide net in the beginning). See Figure 1.?

Figure 1: Sample ABM sales funnel. When an account moves down the funnel, it delivers more value to the organization.

Source: The Definitive Guide to Account-Based Marketing, published by Marketo

Targeting accounts requires consideration of many factors, including the client history with the business, the?growth potential, and whether the market is growth-oriented. Getting the right account comes down to whether it fits the company's Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). To determine if an account is an ideal match for a company's product or service, predictive analytics and scoring are typically used to develop an ICP. In addition to industry/vertical, size (both employee numbers and revenue), budget, geography, and technology used, the ICP should take into account relevant account characteristics.

Once your sales and marketing teams have agreed upon the list of high-value accounts, there are three different ways to implement account-based marketing. Some B2B companies use more than one of the following and do not view them as mutually exclusive:

1-to-1:?ITSMA refers to this as "Strategic ABM," where marketers work with account teams to create highly customized programs for each target account. Meetings with clients can be held face-to-face or virtually to enhance the relationship.

1-to-few:?ITSMA dubbed this type of marketing as "ABM Lite," which executes programs for clusters of target accounts with similar needs or business attributes. The types of marketing actions that can be used include email campaigns, in-person or virtual road shows, and events geared toward groups.

1-to-many:?Also knowns as “Programmatic ABM.” Marketers can send highly targeted, personalized messages to individuals at hundreds (or thousands, for enterprises) of key accounts using machine learning. There are many ways to advertise, including email, personalized web content, retargeting, and live or virtual events for large groups.

3. Personalization / predictive recommendations?

A huge part of creating and executing tailored, dynamic account interactions is leveraging machine learning. These include curated and personalized emails, social media posts, landing pages, and product recommendations based on account preferences and behaviors. In the latest State of the Connected Consumer report, published by Salesforce, 84% of business buyers prefer buying from a company that demonstrates a deep understanding of their goals.

The use of personalization has evolved from simple token-based greetings in emails ('Hello *first name>') to highly customized webpage content, images, and layouts; and adaptive mobile experiences. In addition to providing content and product suggestions specific to individual account decision-makers, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has become a cornerstone of prediction or recommendation engines. Detailed account data and account scores can be analyzed in real-time to provide recommendations based on visitor behavior and preferences.

4. Interaction management

Today's B2B buyers conduct research and make purchase decisions using multiple channels and devices. For an ABM communication strategy to be effective, it is essential to interact with account decision-makers along the customer journey. A company can manage interactions with customers using digital advertising (paid or organic search, display, and social media), email, webinars, websites, chatbots, direct mail, events (virtual or physical), as well as in-person or phone-based sales outreach.

Source: Third Door Media

There are three ways in which interactions can be targeted: through cookies, IP addresses, or personally identifiable information (PII) like email addresses. Cookie-based targeting is currently the most widely used targeting mechanism. However, Google plans to deprecate third-party cookies in the near future. Global targeting is possible with IP-based targeting, but it is not possible to target individuals. To date, the use of PII is only possible when a prospect shares their information with you, such as for a white paper download. Each targeting method has pros and cons, and marketers must examine their data practices regarding PII carefully to comply with privacy laws.?

5.?Performance Measurement?

Effective ABM strategies should be measurable to ensure success. Therefore, quality is more important than quantity. Measuring the impact of marketing efforts on the crucial target accounts is an important part of any ABM strategy. Clear sets of metrics should be defined,?and the ultimate goal of these metrics should be to increase customer mindshare, establish long-term relationships and build pipeline.?

There are three focus areas when it comes to measuring ABM success.?

1. Reputation?
2. Relationships?
3. Revenue

In addition, ABM should be measured in a very granular manner due to the rich amount of data available. For example, account engagement can be tracked through how long your contacts spend with your content, attending webinars, or participating in live chats.

The below table will help you start with ABM Metrics?

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ABM Technology

Simply ironing out the strategy part will not cut it. In today's world, everything revolves around technology because it's a primary enabler, whether you like it or not. Therefore, you should be able to assess which technology will help you achieve your overall ABM strategy.?

Based on the current state of business and technology infrastructure, you can categorize your company in 4 ways before rolling out any RFP for new technology acquisition:

1. Exploring - Planning your ABM strategy
2. Experimenting - Piloting, measuring, and refining your approach
3. Expanding - Increasing account coverage
4. Embedded - Driving the strategic growth

It is quite important to understand your current state before you plan to invest in ABM technology. You don't want to end up buying sophisticated tech at the start and repent if your ABM strategy fails due to x number of reasons. Thus the best approach is to start walking and then plan for running because these technologies can be very expensive.?

List of Top ABM Platforms?

So here you go; I am sure you wanted to know what tech is available in the market and what are their capabilities. I will conclude this article by giving you the table below, which shows the state-of-the-art tech available in the ABM world and their native capabilities. You must discuss these technologies with your IT teams in case you are looking for any kind of custom integration.?

I hope the information shared in this article will prove to be a good starting point for your ABM strategy. Best of Luck!