MARKET WITH A MISSION - Marketing Automation Platform | A ... · term Account Based Marketing. According to ITSMA, “ABM focuses explicitly on individual client accounts … it is

MARKET WITH A MISSION

A Quickstart Guide for yourAccount Based Marketing Strategy

A long, long time ago (ok, really just over a decade ago) B2C and B2B companies started realizing

the need for more personalized marketing. Because consumers of all types were craving a more

personalized buying experience, the ways of marketing had to change. Marketers needed to figure

out how to take a more strategic approach in defining and targeting key accounts. Insert Account

Based Marketing.

In 2004, Information Technology Services Marketing Association, better known as ITSMA coined the

term Account Based Marketing. According to ITSMA, “ABM focuses explicitly on individual client

accounts … it is a collaborative approach that engages sales, marketing, delivery, and key executives

toward achieving the client’s business goals.”

A Lesson in History

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“In its purest form, account based marketing has been around forever. Account based marketing is simply instead

of fishing with nets, we’re fishing with spears. You identify exactly the prospects you want to do business with

and then you market very precisely and narrowly to them directly. I think we have renewed interest in ABM now,

because there’s an advancement in tools and technology that make it a little easier to execute - but the idea of

doing target account selling and target account marketing is not new.”

Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing

Is ABM just the new hype or the next big thing?

SiriusDecisions recently released its State of the Account-Based Marketing survey, stating that over 90% of marketers recognize the value in ABM.

So the question is …

Account Based Marketing (ABM) is all about taking a very focused

approach to who you target with your marketing efforts. Instead of

throwing your message out to the universe to see who responds,

ABM dictates that you should go after a defined list of accounts.

SiriusDecisions describes it better as the strategic approach

marketers use to support a defined universe of accounts, including

strategic accounts and named accounts.

By targeting a defined list of accounts, ABM provides several

benefits. For example, the list of accounts should be companies

that you’ve vetted and determined will not only be a good fit

for your business, but will also be more likely to buy from your

business. It’s one thing to know that your product/service would be

a perfect match for someone, but if they will never actually become

a customer of yours (for any number of reasons), why waste your

time and effort?

3 STEPS TO BUILDING AN ABM STRATEGY

Identify Market Measure

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Determine who your target accounts will be and build a targeted account list by

identifying who can generate real revenue for your business. Make sure they’re a good

fit in terms of how your product or service will work for the business and the likelihood

that they’ll ever buy from you.

Research your target audience. ABM is all about targeting specific accounts - so know

your target audience, inside and out.

Questions you should be able to answer about your target audience:

• What’s happening in their industry?

• Who are their top competitors?

• What have they done in your space to date?

• Who will be key people within their company with whom you need to interact?

1 Identify

Ensure you’re working with clean,

accurate data when identifying

key accounts. If you don’t have

a clean database already, check

into services that will help you

clean up your data and enrich it

with accurate details.

ABM Success Tip:

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Once you know your target audience even better than you know the back of your hand,

it’s time to get to work. Approach them in a very direct, personalized manner. Build

behavior-based campaigns for each account.

These campaigns should -

• Include personalized content and other messaging that targets each account’s needs,

history, challenges, etc.

• Flow based on how the people you hit within the account respond.

Align sales and marketing and make sure they’re on the same page. Beyond simply

having a widely-recognized name internally for your ABM program, everyone should -

• Speak the same language

• Have the same deep understanding of each account on your targeted list

• Understand the same action plan across the board

Your target accounts must have a seamless experience regardless of who they speak to

within your business.

70% of B2B companies have staff dedicated to driving ABM specific programs.

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2 Market

Use your campaigns for more

than just a promotion. Sharing

news stories, ideas or fun facts

about your field, and tips that

target their personal needs can

help your audience see that

you’re providing them with info

they’ll actually use.

ABM Success Tip:

No matter what the marketing plan is, there are always going to be successes and failures.

Once you get your ABM plans running, bring your sales and marketing teams (remember -

alignment) back together and review what worked for you and what didn’t.

Topics to discuss post campaign -

• Major points (strong and weak) that occurred during the process

• How many accounts did you acquire? And what are the shared characteristics of each?

• What were you great at?

• What were you not so great at?

• How will you do it better next time?

As we move deeper into the digital age and continue to uncover the power of

personalization, the ABM approach of very defined and strategic targeting will no doubt

become increasingly valuable in how marketing and sales teams operate.

According to ITSMA, 84% of B2B marketers say that ABM delivers a higher ROI than any other approach.

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3 Measure

Use conversion metrics to help

pinpoint areas of your ABM

campaigns that you can optimize.

Remember when measuring

the success of your ABM

campaigns, ABM is about

focusing on the RIGHT leads, not

just MORE leads.

ABM Success Tip:

Before you sign any contracts, do your research. If ABM is going to be a part

of your marketing strategy, you want to be sure the tools you adopt fulfill their

promises and deliver a clear ROI. As a marketer, proving the value of your efforts

can be hard enough. The last thing you want is to be stuck with inadequate

technology. Here are some questions to ask prospective ABM vendors:

1. What are the objectives of the ABM solution?

2. Will the ABM solution help you meet your overall marketing goals?

3. Are there other ways to perform tasks that support an ABM strategy without a specialized tool?

4. What does the ABM tool actually do?

5. Will the solution be able to measure ABM campaign metrics and track ROI?

6. Does the ABM solution integrate with your existing marketing/sales systems?

Almost half (47%) of

companies say they don’t

feel their ABM teams

have the necessary

skills for ABM and their

marketing teams need

more support to succeed

in ABM.

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Picking a Vendor

State of the Account-BasedMarketing Study

Salesfusion is a marketing automation platform with built in ABM capabilities allowing users to customize their marketing efforts into targeted campaigns. Salesfusion uses account-based scoring modules to help determine account specifics such as country origin, geo scoring, geo name, etc. to build targeted lists.

Key ABM features included in our platform are:

1. List segmentation to build campaigns to targeted accounts2. Social targeting through Oktopost3. Ability to put targeted accounts into personalized nurture campaigns4. Build individual reports based on account results (i.e. downloads, events, etc.)5. ROI reporting and analytics by account6. Account based lead scoring

About Salesfusion

Want more information?Check out Marketing Automation Simplified.

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855.238.6522 | [email protected] | www.salesfusion.com