CONTENTS
- Account-Based Marketing: Definition
- The Advantages of Account-Based Marketing
- Types of Account-Based Marketing
- Sales and Marketing Alignment
- B2B Ideal Customer Profiles
- Prioritizing Sales Opportunities
- Account-Based Marketing Tactics
- The Account-Based Marketing Customer Journey
- Sales Enablement Strategies for Account-Based Marketing
- Account-Based Marketing Metrics
- Refining the Account-Based Marketing Process
- Create an ABM Strategy for Your Business
Account-Based Marketing: Definition
For all the attention ABM has received in recent years, it’s still worth defining what this approach actually is. The concept is more complex than traditional demand generation. And definitions can vary depending on where you look:
“ABM is a strategic approach that treats individual accounts as markets in their own right.”
– IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), which first coined the term account-based marketing in 2003, emphasising multinationals with many large business units to pursue
“Account-Based Marketing is used by B2B marketers to identify and target the accounts they value the most.”
– Demandbase, a leading provider of ABM intelligence and personalization solutions
“Account-based Marketing is a focused growth strategy in which Marketing and Sales collaborate to create personalized buying experiences for a mutually identified set of high-value accounts.”
– HubSpot, a leading provider of demand generation platforms
Before exploring ABM for your organization, it is important that your team values the characteristics that all ABM programs share:
- A list of high-potential accounts to target, categorized by their revenue potential and likeliness to buy from you.
- Tactics and campaigns that personalize outreach to key stakeholders at high-priority companies.
- A business strategy that ensures Sales and Marketing work closely together to move those key stakeholders through the entire sales cycle.
- Marketing programs that vary from highly personalized to programmatic, based on the way you prioritize potential customers.
At its heart, ABM is a strategic business initiative. It requires a cultural shift that aligns the focus of Sales and Marketing to apply the most effective outreach tactics to the most promising potential customers.
The Advantages of Account-Based Marketing
When considering whether to implement an account-based marketing program, Sales and Marketing leaders typically face concerns around the effects of disrupting current workflows and introducing a new framework. Why shake up existing processes and metrics? Why put more marketing resources into target accounts when long sales cycles mean waiting to see a return on that investment? What about account-based marketing makes this approach more than just a trendy way to frame new sales enablement initiatives?
The short answer? ABM gets results.
- 85% of marketers surveyed by ITSMA describe ABM as delivering higher ROI than any other marketing approach.
- Companies that have implemented ABM experienced a 171% average increase in annual contract value (ACV).
- Organizations executing ABM say revenue growth has increased more than 40%.
- More than 80% of marketers employing ABM report improved win rates.
These gains are possible because ABM makes better use of scarce marketing resources. The approach helps reach the decision makers at accounts that your data shows are worth the extra investment. At the same time, an ABM approach moves the talents of your marketing team deeper into the funnel to improve performance well beyond the typical handoff of campaign-generated leads to Sales.
Just as important, ABM helps build an organization that pulls in the same direction—toward more revenue.
The Advantages of Account-Based Marketing
When considering whether to implement an account-based marketing program, Sales and Marketing leaders typically face concerns around the effects of disrupting current workflows and introducing a new framework. Why shake up existing processes and metrics? Why put more marketing resources into target accounts when long sales cycles mean waiting to see a return on that investment? What about account-based marketing makes this approach more than just a trendy way to frame new sales enablement initiatives?
The short answer? ABM gets results.
- 85% of marketers surveyed by ITSMA describe ABM as delivering higher ROI than any other marketing approach.
- Companies that have implemented ABM experienced a 171% average increase in annual contract value (ACV).
- Organizations executing ABM say revenue growth has increased more than 40%.
- More than 80% of marketers employing ABM report improved win rates.
These gains are possible because ABM makes better use of scarce marketing resources. The approach helps reach the decision makers at accounts that your data shows are worth the extra investment. At the same time, an ABM approach moves the talents of your marketing team deeper into the funnel to improve performance well beyond the typical handoff of campaign-generated leads to Sales.
Just as important, ABM helps build an organization that pulls in the same direction—toward more revenue.
Types of Account-Based Marketing
Venturing into ABM doesn’t require a big slice of your marketing budget or a complete overhaul of your demand generation program. For many organizations that are new to an account-based strategy, initiatives with a smaller scope can generate improved ROI and provide proof of the concept to organizational leadership before expansion.
Different approaches to ABM offer varied levels of investment and commitment:
Full-Scale ABM
A full commitment to account-based marketing requires deployment of a full slate of tools to engage prospects you’ve prioritized based on potential business impact. This includes high-touch outreach for a small number of Tier 1 accounts, such as personalized gifts and exclusive event invitations. It also includes delivery of personalized messages to make your brand stand apart in the eyes of prospects at Tier 2 organizations while segmenting your efforts across Tier 3 companies to better reach contacts with content that is relevant to their professional challenges.
ABM-Light
This approach harnesses the resources of martech tools to add more personalized messaging to your content marketing. In practice, this requires customized outreach to Tier 2 and Tier 3 accounts by developing content such as emails, landing pages, and digital ads that display different content based on the recipient’s buyer persona. ABM-light programs bypass the expensive, one-to-one marketing investments in top-level prospect companies while still offering a more relevant experience to the people who engage with your assets.
ABM Pilot Programs
With this approach, you can leave existing marketing programs in place while learning to prioritize accounts and personalize your content. Like full-scale ABM, a pilot program will challenge your team to rank potential accounts by their total lifetime value. From there, a pilot extends high-touch outreach to priority contacts at Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts.
Types of Account-Based Marketing
Venturing into ABM doesn’t require a big slice of your marketing budget or a complete overhaul of your demand generation program. For many organizations that are new to an account-based strategy, initiatives with a smaller scope can generate improved ROI and provide proof of the concept to organizational leadership before expansion.
Different approaches to ABM offer varied levels of investment and commitment:
Full-Scale ABM
A full commitment to account-based marketing requires deployment of a full slate of tools to engage prospects you’ve prioritized based on potential business impact. This includes high-touch outreach for a small number of Tier 1 accounts, such as personalized gifts and exclusive event invitations. It also includes delivery of personalized messages to make your brand stand apart in the eyes of prospects at Tier 2 organizations while segmenting your efforts across Tier 3 companies to better reach contacts with content that is relevant to their professional challenges.
ABM-Light
This approach harnesses the resources of martech tools to add more personalized messaging to your content marketing. In practice, this requires customized outreach to Tier 2 and Tier 3 accounts by developing content such as emails, landing pages, and digital ads that display different content based on the recipient’s buyer persona. ABM-light programs bypass the expensive, one-to-one marketing investments in top-level prospect companies while still offering a more relevant experience to the people who engage with your assets.
ABM Pilot Programs
With this approach, you can leave existing marketing programs in place while learning to prioritize accounts and personalize your content. Like full-scale ABM, a pilot program will challenge your team to rank potential accounts by their total lifetime value. From there, a pilot extends high-touch outreach to priority contacts at Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts.
Sales and Marketing Alignment
In many organizations, Sales and Marketing work under different leadership and track metrics separately. They also maintain separate cultures and attract different personalities to their teams. Whatever the scope of your ABM program, its success will hinge on close alignment between Sales and Marketing and a commitment to shared goals.
In a survey by TOPO, 53% of ABM leaders identified Sales-Marketing alignment as the biggest factor in their success. This is because ABM breaks down the traditional divide between the marketing team—seen as drivers of awareness and lead generation—and the sales team, which typically takes full ownership of the deal near the bottom of the funnel.
With ABM, the front-line insight of sales personnel informs more effective marketing campaigns, while the creative and analytical talents of marketers help sales reps close more deals.
In practice, this alignment begins in the earliest planning stages of ABM. A committee steering the program should include leaders from both Sales and Marketing, as well as any other business units involved, such as sales operations. Interviews with members of the sales team should inform customer personas, messaging, buyer’s journeys, target account lists and the other strategic material that will shape the program. Sales will help execute lead-nurture strategies and high-touch prospect outreach developed by Marketing. Finally, when implementing an ABM program the performance metrics will likely change, with revenue attribution shared across teams to reflect the combined effort required to move deals across the finish line to a winning close.
Sales and Marketing Alignment
In many organizations, Sales and Marketing work under different leadership and track metrics separately. They also maintain separate cultures and attract different personalities to their teams. Whatever the scope of your ABM program, its success will hinge on close alignment between Sales and Marketing and a commitment to shared goals.
In a survey by TOPO, 53% of ABM leaders identified Sales-Marketing alignment as the biggest factor in their success. This is because ABM breaks down the traditional divide between the marketing team—seen as drivers of awareness and lead generation—and the sales team, which typically takes full ownership of the deal near the bottom of the funnel.
With ABM, the front-line insight of sales personnel informs more effective marketing campaigns, while the creative and analytical talents of marketers help sales reps close more deals.
In practice, this alignment begins in the earliest planning stages of ABM. A committee steering the program should include leaders from both Sales and Marketing, as well as any other business units involved, such as sales operations. Interviews with members of the sales team should inform customer personas, messaging, buyer’s journeys, target account lists and the other strategic material that will shape the program. Sales will help execute lead-nurture strategies and high-touch prospect outreach developed by Marketing. Finally, when implementing an ABM program the performance metrics will likely change, with revenue attribution shared across teams to reflect the combined effort required to move deals across the finish line to a winning close.
B2B Ideal Customer Profiles
With Sales and Marketing pulling in the same direction, you can more accurately identify the types of organizations most likely to buy your product and grow company revenue. This begins with an ideal customer profile, or ICP. Analyze your sales data and look for common traits among your customers with the highest net revenue, deal size and/or lifetime customer value. Are these companies roughly the same size? Do they share similar customer bases? Do they use the same technology stack in their business operations? Do they conduct business in a specific geographical area? Use insights like these to create a profile of what your most valuable prospects might look like. Then validate your findings with your leadership to ensure it aligns with their vision for the organization and your offerings. If you’re selling a new product that lacks historical sales data, organize working sessions between Marketing and Sales to review external research and generate ideas for your ICP.
Once you’ve identified the types of organizations you’ll target with ABM, you can dig deeper into the audiences you’ll need to reach within those organizations. Bear in mind that the average B2B sale involves six to seven people and can easily take six months or longer. You’ll need to map out the typical buying committee for your product, identifying both the decision makers and the influencers who counsel them. From there, you can build buyer personas and persona-customized messaging for ABM campaigns.
B2B Ideal Customer Profiles
With Sales and Marketing pulling in the same direction, you can more accurately identify the types of organizations most likely to buy your product and grow company revenue. This begins with an ideal customer profile, or ICP. Analyze your sales data and look for common traits among your customers with the highest net revenue, deal size and/or lifetime customer value. Are these companies roughly the same size? Do they share similar customer bases? Do they use the same technology stack in their business operations? Do they conduct business in a specific geographical area? Use insights like these to create a profile of what your most valuable prospects might look like. Then validate your findings with your leadership to ensure it aligns with their vision for the organization and your offerings. If you’re selling a new product that lacks historical sales data, organize working sessions between Marketing and Sales to review external research and generate ideas for your ICP.
Once you’ve identified the types of organizations you’ll target with ABM, you can dig deeper into the audiences you’ll need to reach within those organizations. Bear in mind that the average B2B sale involves six to seven people and can easily take six months or longer. You’ll need to map out the typical buying committee for your product, identifying both the decision makers and the influencers who counsel them. From there, you can build buyer personas and persona-customized messaging for ABM campaigns.
Prioritizing Sales Opportunities
A hallmark of ABM is the use of account tiers to prioritize resources. A limited number of high-priority target companies (sometimes as few as 10 to 20) are identified as Tier 1 accounts and selected for one-to-one outreach, with marketing campaigns and content highly personalized for their decision makers. Contacts at Tier 2 accounts typically receive outreach personalized based on personas, rather than the traits of each individual prospect. Outreach to Tier 3 uses automation tools to add customization to a traditional demand generation approach.
Prioritizing sales opportunities starts with rounding up a target account list of all potential companies that match some or all of the characteristics in your ICP. From there, a scoring model is applied to this list to rank accounts based on their potential for sales and revenue. The tools used to prioritize accounts can be as simple as a spreadsheet assigning scores to companies based on traits like market cap, employee headcount, growth rate, and similar characteristics identified in the ICP. More sophisticated models weigh the scores for each trait based on their relative relationship to potential revenue from a sale.
There are also martech solutions that can apply business intelligence algorithms to existing sales data to help predict which target accounts are likely to convert and create the most impact for your bottom line.
The scoring model you adopt should be informed by the scope of your program and the amount of data you have available to analyze. (Advanced business intelligence tools can be of limited use if you’re working with a smaller dataset.) Likewise, the number of accounts listed in each tier should be informed by the program budget and the internal resources available to execute the campaign development required for each tier.
Account-Based Marketing Tactics
With your accounts ranked and your teams aligned around common goals, your next challenge is identifying a set of tactics to engage decision makers. The marketing channels used for ABM will be familiar to marketers already managing demand generation and sales enablement. These include email, digital ads, content downloads, events and direct sales outreach. What makes ABM different is the focus on personalization for specific companies, personas and individual prospects. Instead of sponsoring a conference booth, for example, an ABM program might invite C-level prospects to an exclusive networking dinner after the event. Instead of an email drip campaign to nurture prospects, Sales reps might reach out with targeted content directly from their email addresses and social channels. Instead of a white paper written for a broader market audience, an ABM program might produce custom research targeting pain points specific to a given company or persona. The level of customization and investment involved in each tactic will vary based on the account tier that each recipient falls into.
According to ITSMA, the most popular ABM tactics include:
- Account-specific custom content
- Executive-to-executive relationship programs
- Other in-person events
- Direct mail
- Email marketing
- Paid social media
- Targeted digital ads
- Webinars and virtual events
- Paid search
Throughout a given campaign, Marketing also backs up Sales with persona-specific messaging and content that helps engage prospects from the first contact with a sales rep through the final proposal to the buying committee.
The Account-Based Marketing Customer Journey
You know the logos you want to land. You know which people at those companies will influence the decision to buy your product. You’ve outlined the tactics that will show them that your offering stands above competitors’. It’s time to shape a detailed marketing strategy that puts that planning into action.
An ABM customer journey framework can help your team plan the deployment of marketing strategies in a methodical fashion. Chart out each step of the buyer’s journey for each influencer and decision-maker persona. What does your experience in your market tell you about the kind of questions and pain points they will raise? How do these evolve through the discovery, consideration, and decision-making stages of the sale? What campaigns and content are most likely to engage stakeholders’ needs at each stage of the process?
This exercise can inform a comprehensive ABM content strategy. Look for gaps where you lack material or campaign initiatives to reach specific personas along the buyer’s journey and develop an editorial calendar that fill them. Then layer in varied levels of personalization and one-to-one outreach in your content plan to focus resources on your high-priority accounts.
Sales Enablement Strategies for Account-Based Marketing
Once account targets are set, and before marketing tactics are put into play, you’ll want to ensure that sales reps have a thorough understanding of your ABM program and a sales playbook that coordinates your outreach to prospects.
Well-thought-out sales enablement strategies transform the abstract exercise of targeting named accounts into a series of specific actions that Sales and Marketing will take to win that business. Sales playbooks generally have two goals. The first being to educate your sales force about the rationale, processes, and messaging of the program. The second is to outline a set of coordinated sales and marketing plays that combine outreach by Sales reps with strategic content and campaigns directed by Marketing.
A thorough ABM sales playbook will include the following:
- Ideal customer profile
- Buyer personas
- Messaging
- Market position
- Program roles and responsibilities
- Program KPIs
- Sales plays aligned with marketing efforts
Account-Based Marketing Metrics
Just as with demand generation and digital marketing, data is the primary driver informing ABM strategy and is relied upon to make programs more effective going forward. But before you begin gathering data, you need to identify which KPIs and account-based marketing metrics will be helpful for tracking your program. Your KPIs should focus on the actions taken by named accounts and how they relate to program goals, such as net new revenue, logo acquisition, deal size, and pipeline velocity.
KPIs help you evaluate if your broad strategy is working. Individual metrics tell you if specific tactics are performing. Think of metrics as the next layer down from KPIs.
As a starting place, this Periodic Table of B2B Digital Marketing Metrics adapted from Insight Venture Partners provides a comprehensive list of metrics and general benchmarks.
Remember, high-touch outreach to target accounts can take months to bear fruit, and many metrics used to measure traditional demand generation will capture only a part of the sales cycle. Once you’ve identified the KPIs and metrics specific to your account-based marketing program, you can run campaigns and begin getting a feel for the impact your program drives. With data in hand, you’re able to review and optimize areas that can be improved or tweaked to deliver better results.
Optimization may include refining your target account list or revisiting your assumptions about what makes a high-value account. For example, if it turns out that mid-market businesses are generating more net-new revenue than expected compared to larger companies, you might need to adjust your scoring model accordingly.
You’ll also want to check in with Sales frequently:
- What assets are prospects requesting?
- What types of content are missing?
- Which sales plays have gained more traction than others?
- Are there elements of sales plays that aren’t working?
Refining the Account-Based Marketing Process
An account-based approach is one of continuous improvement. A successful program will periodically reassess each component of ABM as you develop new insight into prospects’ purchase intent and buying cycle. Measuring campaign response rates and conversions will help you optimize your outreach, while evaluating deal size and marketing ROI can inform the way you prioritize accounts.
If you begin to establish greater ROI from ABM than from other marketing frameworks—which most programs do—you’ll have a good argument for securing additional budget. Those resources could be used to extend the more personalized tactics used with Tier 1 accounts into campaigns geared to your Tier 2 or Tier 3 accounts.
You could also expand your target account list or take what you’ve learned into other verticals and business units. There is not a cookie cutter approach that defines how your ABM program will grow. What does remain consistent is a coordinated, long-term approach to business growth that keeps a focus on a targeted list of potential customers most likely to build your bottom line.
Create an ABM strategy for your business
Account-based marketing aligns Sales and Marketing in a way that creates a seamless customer experience for your target accounts. Those accounts receive personalized content at the right time and are put in touch with Sales reps who understand their pain points and offer valuable, highly relevant content to help them make a confident purchasing decision. This collaborative approach between Sales and Marketing is the reason you’ll be able to build more effective messaging and campaigns while Sales can count on genuine support from Marketing throughout the sales cycle. Just as important, ABM allows both teams to train their resources on accounts with the highest potential for bottom-line growth. The result: More profitable sales and higher ROI. Refining an account-based marketing program is a multi-step, multi-stakeholder process that takes time and commitment. But with the right groundwork and investment, ABM can re-invigorate your funnel.
Interested in learning more about the ways ABM can supercharge your organization for success? If you’re looking for expert ABM guidance on account scoring, messaging, coordinated sales plays, targeted digital outreach, and building an ABM framework that aligns Sales and Marketing, please reach out to us.
