There’s a time for spray and pray marketing: For casting your net wide when sharing news in the expectation that a small percentage of recipients will have that ‘aha’ moment. But let’s face it, when the emphasis is on delivering immediate results (and timely opportunities), then the more targeted your activities the better. Which is, of course, the central promise behind Account-Based Marketing (ABM). With it comes the ability to deliver more meaningful and relevant messages that are tailored to a precise audience. But then you already knew that. What you possibly don’t know so well are the key factors behind a successful ABM programme or the main pitfalls to avoid. At least until you opened this ebook...

1. How to
drive profit
From account-based marketing
5 Principles for Success;
5 Pitfalls toAvoid

2. ContentsAlways Be Meaningful.............................................................................1
Actual Benefits Materialised.................................................................2
Also Brings Marvel.................................................................................3
Advancing Beyond Maturity................................................................. 4
Articulating Basic Methods...................................................................5
Always Be Mindful..................................................................................7
10 Steps....................................................................................................9
Automation Boosts Mindsets..............................................................10
Activating Basic Materials......................................................................11
Avoiding Basic Mistakes........................................................................12
Ambition Behests Measurement.........................................................14
Conclusion.............................................................................................15

3. Let’s get personal
Always
Be
MeaningfulThere’s a time for spray and pray marketing: For casting your net wide when sharing news in the expectation that
a small percentage of recipients will have that ‘aha’ moment. But let’s face it, when the emphasis is on delivering
immediate results (and timely opportunities), then the more targeted your activities the better.
Which is of course the central promise behind Account Based Marketing (ABM).
With it comes the ability to deliver more meaningful and relevant messages that are tailored to a precise
audience. But then you already knew that. What you possibly don’t know so well are the key factors behind
a successful ABM programme, or the main pitfalls to avoid.
At least until you opened this ebook…
1

4. A spotlight on value
Actual
Benefits
Materialised
First let’s quickly remind ourselves
of the key reasons why ABM has
become the hottest ticket in town:
ABM delivers higher ROI: as any
sales person would (hopefully)
agree, quality always trumps
quantity. Which probably helps
explain why 87% of B2B marketers1
agree that ABM rules when it
comes to measurable results.
ABM leads are more likely to
convert: part of the ‘special sauce’
of ABM is its ability to deliver
the right content to the right
stakeholders, be they decision-
makers or influencers – and
increase their willingness to
purchase by 40% according
to one survey2
.
ABM helps drive up average deal
sizes: according to SiriusDecisions
over 90% of companies using the
approach reported bigger deals –
with 25% of them experiencing
an increase being over 50%!
ABM helps bring sales and
marketing together: a goal that
many aspire too but few (in the
past) have achieved. But with ABM
there’s a noticeable improvement
in how both teams work toward
the same goal.
ABM helps improve C-level
engagement: arguably the biggest
benefit of all is ABM’s ability to
inspire ‘big cheese’ conversations.
30% of marketers (according to one
report3
) say it delivers greater than
a 100% engagement increase with
executive audiences.
1
Source: https://www.itsma.com/pdfs/research/2013ABMSurvey_AbbrSummary.pdf
2
Source: CEB/Motista B2B Brand Survey
3
Source: SiriusDecisions: State of ABM Findings
2

5. Dobelieve
theHype
Also Brings Marvel
The main reason why ABM has caught the imagination
of the marketing community is simple: it’s proven
to deliver results. In fact, account-based business-to-
business marketing has turned out to be one of the
few industry buzzwords that deserve its reputation.
The statistics alone tell their own story:
The important point to emphasise here is that these
statistics shouldn’t be considered ’marketing fluff’.
Any internet search will quickly offer credible facts
on not just the results achieved by ABM – but that fact
that this is repeatable and able to be ‘industrialised’.
What’s more, they illustrate the impact this process
can have when systematically applied to the complex
B2B market; to audiences of decision-makers and
influencers estimated to number 17 on average for
any large deal – each with their own unique needs,
preferences, pain points, and expectations.70%
171%
80%
That’s the increase in
opportunities created by
ABM programmes over more
traditional avenues (according to
Gartner)
Is the upturn in Annual
Contract Value when ABM is
implemented (according to a
report from TOPO)
Of marketers report that ABM
outperforms other initiatives (as
reported by ITSMA)
3

6. If you’re coming to ABM for the first time and
expecting to be an early adopter then we hate to
break it to you but that ship has sailed. In fact ABM
has been around for decades, gaining traction first in
the enterprise space due to the great deal of manual
effort (and time, resources, and a big budget) required
to make it work.
Fast forward to today, and the basic process remains
pretty much unchanged, though advances in
technology have served to reduce the labour equation.
As for what this process is, ABM makes target
organisations an individual ‘market’ in their own right
– and therefore the target of dedicated sales and
marketing efforts. To this is added the data analysis
and research needed to identify the correct accounts
and contacts to target, as well as the materials needed
to engage these people: all done in a personalised,
scheduled, and timely fashion.
ABM:
the
of overviews
briefest
Advancing Beyond Maturity
4

7. ABM at the tactical level
Articulating Basic
Methods
Drill one step below the ‘high
level picture’ of ABM, and you’ll
find a variety of ABM tactics that
can be employed. The two most
common being:
Proactive targeting.
The ‘traditional’ form
of ABM based on in-
depth knowledge of
your customer base:
and using this insight
to identify the most
suitable account-
level prospects.
Once this list of accounts is
complete, the next step is to name
names, and to identify individuals
inside each business (ideally
with an analysis of their needs
and interests). Once done you’re
then free to engage them via the
channels they’re most active on,
from social media and mobile, to
display and video.
Not that the process is finished
there. Instead once a prospect
becomes a customer, you can
continue to market to them
to help deliver big on your
business’ customer retention,
referral, and advocacy goals.
Reactive targeting. An activity that’s
easier to integrate with your existing
demand generation activities.
Here you pick up a lead once it’s
entered the sales funnel, and treat
it as a representative of a company
rather than an isolated point
of interest.
This may sound like just a small
shift, but it can have a great deal
of impact. To start with you can
evaluate how well that account
fits the ‘ideal customer’ profile,
or whether it represents an
opportunity you‘ve identified (such
as a promising vertical).You can
also work to understand the lead
on an account level, and reach out
to other contacts working there
to build a deep relationship with
stakeholders across the entire
account – rather than just the first
person to fill in a form.
5

8. By 2021 it’s projected
that marketing
leaders will spend
75% of their
total marketing
budget on digital
marketing, rather
than traditional
marketing.Source: Salesforce State of Marketing report
6

9. Sales, marketing, and customer success
teams are all equal partners
Think the Three Musketeers, The Three Degrees: three teams working hand-in-glove to
define the characteristics for what makes a key account, and the actions and behavioural
factors to be scored. When working in unison, marketing’s branding messages are infused
with input from sales and customer success – with each team deploying these messages
in concert to assure a consistent customer experience across each and every touch point.
PRINCIPAL
2#
Appreciate that time and attention are
your most valuable assets
ABM, whether proactive or reactive, is all about identifying the most appropriate and
timely account-focused opportunities – and committing your resources to them. In other
words it’s about rigorous, disciplined, and informed prioritization, meaning you (and your
sales team) will have to be prepared to say no as often as yes when an account doesn’t
closely fit the preferred profile.
PRINCIPAL
1#
ABM:
key principles
Always
Be
Mindful
7

10. Use marketing automation to personalise
ABM and content strategy
Delivering more tailored marketing outputs should be a primary goal of any ABM activity.
Do this and you get to dial up the relevance of any information being sent to contacts,
thereby earning the highest possible engagement and conversion rates from key decision-
makers and influencers. In effect ABM has made personalization possible on a mass scale.
It’s the modern equivalent of hand crafting individual letters to a few dozen (or a few
hundred) of your best prospects – based on their particular areas of focus.
Use the tools and resources already at your
fingertips to establish an ABM programme
Introducing ABM into your day-to-day doesn’t have to require sizeable investment in
new tools and capabilities. In fact most B2B marketers can employ an account-based
strategy – and employ it well – by utilising their current knowledge, experience, and
marketing technologies. The reason here is simple: ABM is really about repurposing
common B2B marketing fundamentals and technologies to achieve a different objective.
PRINCIPAL
4#
Go for a quick, early win to get traction
within (and budget from) the C-suite.
It obviously helps to ‘prove’ the value of any investment in ABM to sceptical executives.
Hence the value of starting with efforts designed to expand business within the existing
customer base – before going after new ones. Keeping the focus here gives you a good
shot at achieving relatively quick and easy gains, which in turn can build the support,
patience, and funding required for sustained, longer-term ABM programmes.
It’s an approach that aligns with the long established truth that keeping and expanding
an existing customer relationship is cheaper than attempting to land new business. It also
ensures your customers experience the extra care and attention that accompanies an
ABM campaign, which in turn helps:
• Strengthen loyalty and advocacy
• Increase referral business
• Generates wins in the form of upsell, cross-sell, and other types of account expansion
• Increase the lifetime value of an account
These are credible, long-desired benefits that help spread the reputation of ABM beyond
those pioneering souls who initially champion its usage.
PRINCIPAL
5#
PRINCIPAL
3#
8

11. Steps
to kickstart
your first ABM
programme
Develop specific, measurable business goals that state the required end
result – be that expanding existing clients or winning ‘new’
Based on your business goals, choose the accounts you want to focus on: If
existing customers identify your best, most profitable customers; if ‘new’ -
identify any strategic markets you want to include
Determine the decision making ‘hierarchy’ within the target account
(decision marketers and influencers)
Set up account-level intelligence on incoming leads
Define your messages, and align them to the resources available
within your business
Create content targeted to buyer and influencer personas
Determine which channels to use to reach your targets
Choose the correct success metrics and apply them
Observe your results to determine whether the activity is working
Fine tune your content and channel strategy based on actual results
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
9

12. ABM: scaling to succeed
Automated
Bespoke
Messaging
Marketing automation is a critical component
to ABM because it enables you to:
• Capture the data that makes
personalization possible
• Deliver content that’s targeted to specific
needs, interests, and buying stages
• Deploy content outreach according to a planned,
calibrated schedule
Along with capturing data and putting it to work, automation also lets you create a process and then set
it to repeat at scale. Plus if you take the time to build in conditional logic, the messaging process can even
customize itself in response to a contact’s engagement patterns – allowing the delivery of an even more
personalized approach.
All of which brings us to an important point: you don’t need to build a complex process to succeed with ABM.
There, we said it. In fact, one recent study showed that simply replacing generic marketing messages with
versions optimized for a target’s industry vertical doubled conversion rates6
. Furthermore, it’s possible to get
good results by mixing targeted offers with broader (but still relevant) content offers – or to mix customised
elements, such as calls to action, into these more ‘broad brush’ assets.
Finally, it’s worth keeping in mind that marketing automation lets you start small and build on the results
delivered. A content strategy based on some form of personalisation is going to make a difference – even if it
doesn’t deliver every conceivable ABM benefit.
6
Source: http://triblio .com/account-based-marketing-tactics/
10

13. Account Scoring
Versus Lead Scoring
Activating
Basic
MaterialsIntent. It’s a key word in ABM as it helps reduce the risk of targeting
(and therefore wasting precious resource on) the wrong account to
begin with. And it’s here that an account-focused scoring model can
be extremely useful, by looking at key players in the buyer cycle, and
assessing their readiness – their intent – to progress toward a final
purchase.
Most B2B marketers will of course have robust lead scoring built into
their existing marketing automation systems already. The clever part
comes when you can combine this intelligence with methods for tying
each scored lead back to an account. While the really clever part comes
when you can uncover insights into the roles each individual plays.
It can also be said that this “use what you’ve got” approach works for
a variety of activities related to ABM, including personalized outbound
content marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, social media, and
website visitor tracking. Better still, other activities geared toward lead-
based marketing are also still applicable to account-based methods.
This flexibility and ability to work with existing capabilities, in turn,
requires three things:
1: A thorough understanding of your target market,
accounts, prospects, and ideal buyer profiles to
get the most from your existing tools
2: A high degree of comfort and proficiency with
the marketing tools you already have
3: A respect for the saying, “Don’t make the perfect
the enemy of the good”
11

14. The Other Side of Success:
Avoiding Basic Mistakes
When starting out on the ABM path to greater leads
and customer engagement, you’re inevitably going
to make a few small mistakes along the way. The
good news however is that it’s relatively easy to spot
and avoid the bigger mistakes, and to help in this
endeavour we’ve listed five of the main pitfalls to
avoid:
Pitfall #1:
Don’t use ABM exclusively to land
new logos.
Account-based marketing, when proactively focused
on new accounts and winning those coveted marquee
‘new logos’, may seem like the fastest path to big
rewards. In reality however this approach traverses
unknown territory, and bypasses a whole category of
key accounts that are easier to convert and often more
lucrative: your existing customers.
Pitfall #2:
Don’t assume that ABM is inherently
complex, expensive, and too slow to
yield tangible benefits.
There’s ‘previous’ when it comes to this assumption:
ABM, as it was practiced years ago, demanded big
marketing teams, big budgets, and lots of time. Today
however, given modern technology, this view of ABM
is only true if you want it to be – a perfect example of
a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s why we recommend
starting small with the existing technology you already
have, and only then scaling after success has been
achieved.
Pitfall #3:
Don’t get “loud and proud” about your
team’s devotion to key accounts.
Personalisation works because every prospect and
customer wants to believe they’re your number one
priority. That’s why when you do achieve success
it works to keep your celebration relatively muted.
Otherwise it’s an easy for other customers to come to
the conclusion that they don’t matter as much to you.
Or put another way, work hard to ensure everybody
gets to continually feel the love!
Pitfall #4:
Don’t give sales the key to the ABM
machine — then find yourself in the
back seat.
Sounds like ABM success principle #2 turned inside
out right? Not entirely: while ABM is totally dependent
on creating alignment among sales, customer service,
and marketing teams, it still takes an equal and
concerted effort by all involved. In a SiriusDecisions
study of B2B sales (of all buyer interactions at all
stages of buying), 51% were marketing-led and 49%
sales-led. In other words it’s vital to make sure that
responsibility, accountability, and credit are shared
among all three teams.
Pitfall #5:
Don’t assume silver-bullet technology
solutions will make your ABM
programmes effective.
Evidence alone points to the fact that many marketing
technology solutions are innovative, efficient, and
highly effective problem-solving tools. However,
there are still those that turn out to be dead weight
investments bolted onto increasingly unwieldy
marketing tech stacks . A useful way to assess a
solution is to remember that, in essence, technology
amplifies an existing process. If your process is good,
the right technology will make it better. If your process
is bad — technology is not going to save it.
Did you know…
Individual customers who perceive
supplier content to be tailored
to their specific needs were 40%
more willing to buy than those
who don’t.
Source: CEB in Harvard Business Review
12

15. 75% of marketers
say they currently
use at least one
type of marketing
automation tool.
Making automation
tools accepted by
most marketers.Source: Social Media Today “State of Marketing Automation Survey Report” (2019)
13

16. Working with ABM Metrics
Ambition
Behests
MeasurementAccount-based marketing is about quality not quantity. It therefore
demands a different approach to measurement. No longer should the
question be “How many people did I reach?” but rather “How many of the
right people in the right accounts did I manage to engage and influence?”
ABM therefore makes the traditional top-of-funnel statistical metrics
such as delivery, open and click-through rates less important. Instead to
measure ABM during the buying cycle, you need to quantify the value
your prospect places on their experience with you, and the impact this
experience has on sales. That’s not always easy, but the best way to do so
is by looking at measures across five main categories:
• Coverage – how many accounts can you cover, and how
many of the ‘right’ individuals reached?
• Influence - has there been a noticeable decrease in
sales cycles and increase in deal sizes?
• Engagement – what percentage of your target audience
is consuming and reacting to your content?
• Reach – has your message reached the right
decision-makers and influencers?
• Impact – what was the nature of interactions with your
campaigns, and are they ready for the ‘next step’?
Within each of these categories you’ll find a number of specific
measurement options. While these may be less familiar, some
fundamental principles still apply: start small, look for metrics that
align with your current analytics capabilities, and then build out your
measurement as you gain experience and expand your capabilities.
14

17. ConclusionABM, done well, can transform B2B companies from being product pushers
to account champions. That ultimately is why account-based marketing
works. With the right strategy and the right technology in place, ABM can
support all aspects of your strategy from brand awareness and demand
generation, through to customer retention and expansion.
At the same time, it also inspires greater alignment and collaboration
between all customer-facing teams. And because of this concerted focus on
individual accounts, success measurements are simplified and based on the
impact to your company’s overall objectives – rather than the achievements
of siloed, disconnected teams.
Best of all, it puts your key customers front and centre, which is exactly
where they should be.
15

18. AboutQuantumMarketingThe one B2B demand generation agency for technology
At Quantum we can point to a long track record of success since first opening our doors in 1999. These are
success stories centred on delivering a consistent ROI for large blue-chip tech brands, smaller mid-market
businesses, and everything else in between.
All of which means we’re passionate about generating leads for our clients, and delivering opportunities
that have an immediate impact on sales pipelines and customer experiences.
To do this, we offer a range of services that collectively enable Quantum to offer a truly end-to-end
engagement model:
• Demand generation
• Insights and data strategy
• Creative development
• Channel partner services
• GDPR compliance
• Audience building
• Account based marketing
• Digital social marketing
• Marketing automation
• Inside sales
• Proposition enhancement
• Bid support sales enablement
T: +44 (0) 118 902 2500
F: +44 (0) 118 902 2501
E: enquiries@qm-g.com
W: www.quantummarketing-group.com
Quantum Marketing Group
Abbey Gate, 57-75 Kings Road
Reading, Berkshire
RG1 3AB