This isn’t an account-based marketing ‘how to guide’, this is a collection of learnings and things we wish we (and our clients) had known when we first started ABM over 5 years ago.
We hope that by sharing these with you, you can avoid some of the recurring issues that stall ABM programs and ultimately demonstrate how valuable the first 12 months of an ABM program is.
How do you successfully pilot, refine, and scale your account-based marketing program?
1. What to expect when
you’re expecting- a
guide to nurturing your
ABM baby
November 13, 2019
AmyAlexander,
ClientDirector,
TheMarketingPractice
ChrisBurke,
SeniorABMConsultant,
TheMarketingPractice
2. The importance
of a pilot:
Walking before
you can run
03
The right tools for
the job
01
Building the
relationship
02
Figuring out what
works
04
Taking it past the
pilot
05
Wrap-up and
questions
3. Is B2B really any
different from B2C?
ABM Pilot
0 – 12 months
ABM Program
12 – 24 months
Account Based
Engagement
Approach embraced
organizationally
24 months +
BROAD TARGETED SPECIFIC
4. No.
And in reality, it never has been.
But ABM helps us bridge the gap that
exists in current B2B marketing
efforts.
So let’s talk about what it takes to
make it happen.
6. Shifting to an Account
Based Marketing
strategy is going to feel
different to many parts
of your organization.
You need to be able to
evangelize what the
future will look like.
7. This starts with clear contracting.
1. Spend time truly understanding what the wider organization wants to
get out of the process
2. Cross-check that with marketing goals
3. Develop a joint set of goals that you’ll both be accountable to
8. Once you’ve got honest, open relationships
with your peers, it makes testing the
approach so much easier.
Because things can and do go wrong.
A strong relationship helps keep everyone
on board and excited for the future.
9. If you get these
elements right, you
have a real chance of
ABM becoming part of
the company culture.
10. But first, you need to decide what you’re
trying to achieve with ABM.
Are you trying to…
Open new
doors, unlock
new deals?
Win big in
your top 100?
Retain and
grow key
customers?
Generate
pipeline
at scale?
12. It can be tempting to shoot
for the stars with ABM.
And it’s true that it can
deliver some truly powerful
results, but you need to test
the waters first and get your
approach right.
13. VISION
RESOURCES
ALIGNMENT
PILOT
And as we’ve already discussed,
building up to the pilot is a
collaborative journey
• Define ABM
• Create a vision
• Agree milestones
• Team setup
• Skills, training,
development
• External support
• Create advocates
• Account selection
• Evangelize
• Align the business,
not just sales
• Focus on advocates
• Test the models
• Build for scalability
• Find quick wins
14. The key is to start small. This is your pilot.
It’s your opportunity to:
1. Define ways of working, both inside and outside of Marketing
2. Build your coreABM team and find the right blend of in-house and
agency skills
3. Experiment withABM theory and practicalities and land on a model
that works for you
15. This period of learning and
thought can never be
overestimated.
Every consideration should
be given time and thought
before you get started, and
then refined over time.
16. And throughout your pilot, you need to be
evaluating every moving piece.
Because it’s not just the content, or the
engagement you do or don’t receive.
It’s about if you have the right culture and
wider organizational setup to support
ABM.
17. A typical 30-60-90 Day ABM Blueprint
• Identify organizational
Stakeholders/Advocates
• Agree on business objectives
• Consider OCM and resource
• Identify areas of focus
• Define account selection
process/criteria for ICP
• Stakeholder kick-off
• Review goals and objectives
• Introduce ABM program and
methodology
• Ensure objectives dovetail business
imperatives
• Benchmark current metrics (avg deal
size, sales velocity, close rates)
• Establish RACI model
• Set regular review points
• Train/hire talent
• Select Accounts/Industry segments
• Stress-test nominations
• Industry/Target account research
• Internal content audit
• Review MarTech capabilities
• Review current campaign attribution
• Agree on RACI for campaign execution
• Define and agree on program metrics
• Benchmark 4-Rs (relationship,
reputation, retention, revenue)
• Present program methodology
• Organizational change management
• Over communicate
• Development and enablement
• Conduct Account/cluster workshops
• Identify imperatives and initiatives
• Develop plays
• Create messaging framework
• Create GTM strategy
• Map customer journey
• Develop creative / assets / comms
• Align program KPIs to plays
• Develop an efficient way to report
success
ALIGNMENT
TARGET
ACCOUNTS
PLANNING/
REVIEW
CORE
OBJECTIVES
30 DAYS 60 DAYS 90 DAYS
19. Only once you’ve built your relationships,
and defined your initial strategy and
approach, is it time to evaluate the tools
that will help you get there.
20. Because MarTech without
a strategy behind it, is
toothless.
You need to understand
what you’re trying to
achieve first, before going
out and finding the right
tools to do it.
21. An audit of your existing MarTech
landscape will allow you to evaluate what
you already have and where your gaps are.
That’s the obvious bit.
22. 1. Categorize each tool into what its purpose is and which
objectives/goals it will help address
2. Evaluate it on a scale of how much you believe it’s achieving what it
was brought in to do as you carry out your pilot
3. Join up your MarTech across the customer journey as part of an
integrated approach and make the right tools accessible to the right
people
Where the real value comes from in this
exercise is being able to:
23. And the most important thing is to keep it
simple.
Thousands of vendors will come knocking.
You just need to ask yourself whether they
fit with your ABM objectives, strategy, and
maturity.
25. Taking your pilot to the next level can be
described in one word.
Scalability.
It’s about taking all the great work and
results you’ve delivered and multiplying its
size and effects across the organization.
26. As your ABM approach
matures, the complexity
and scope of your
program should evolve.
And you should be
approaching these
evolutions in steps.
27. Each evolution should be viewed as a pilot
of the next iteration of your strategy.
Just slightly bigger, more complex, and
higher profile than what came before it.
28. Here’s what scaling up an
ABM program can look like
Pilot program
1:1 ABM
(tailored account journey 60-
100% personalization)
1:Few
(tailored journeys based on
shared challenges/initiatives)
Focus on a small select number of
accounts, marketing supporting with
strategy and go-to-market, success
leads to wider business buy-in and
allows you to go after bigger
opportunities
With strong base you can now
identify opportunities across
clusters of accounts with shared
challenges/initiatives, allows you to
touch more accounts and spread
the impact of ABM
Evaluating the model and effectives
of building relationships, reputation,
retention, and revenue
29. The result?
Things are going to feel different after
launching and scaling your ABM program
Collaboration,
not conflict
Quality,
not quantity
Efficiency,
not waste
Proactive,
not reactive
Intelligence,
not leads
Outbound,
not inbound
This isn’t a ‘how to guide’, this is a collection of learnings and things we wish we (and our clients) had known when we first started ABM over 5 years ago
We hope that by sharing these with you, you can avoid some of recurring issues that stall ABM programs and ultimately demonstrate how valuable the first 12 months of an ABM program is
You need to take a step back and work with your internal teams to define what they want from ABM, and to build a roadmap to deliver the kind of services they needed before you even think about launching your program
When setting out clear expectations from the start, these could be verbal, or for some teams, getting them written down on a whiteboard or drawn up on paper may be necessary to keep everyone accountable
And it’s not just Sales; it’s Operations, Customer Success, etc.
Take time to truly understand what sales want to get out of the process, cross-check that with marketing goals, and use that to develop a joint set of goals that you’ll both be accountable to
Having a strong relationship will help you ride out any negativity as you experiment with what works for your organization.
And when it feels like a team effort, you avoid the blame game when things don’t quite go to plan (let’s be realistic- it happens!)
If everyone does what they agreed to do at the outset, and ultimately, you reach the intended goal, ABM has the potential to become the way you do Marketing
A word of caution though- if there’s been friction in the past between marketing and sales, don’t expect it to be evaporated just because you’re now doing ABM, you may need to rebuild that trust through results
Open new doors, unlock new deals- Highly focused, highly relevant, high impact marketing to move up the value chain in a small number of top target accounts.
Win big in your top 100- ‘Industrialize’ relevant, high impact marketing to mini-segments to generate significant net new pipeline and revenue.
Retain and grow key customers- Target moments of truth in the customer lifecycle to keep and grow customers. Or sell new services to the accounts most likely to close.
Generate pipeline at scale- Optimize planning, data, process management and technology to improve targeting and relevance across bigger markets
Each of these impact the model you will build initially, the strategy and approach, and the tactics- it’s important to have a clear goal in mind from the start, this is the starting point for testing the approach…
VISION
Define what ABM is and what it is not – create understanding from day 1
Create a vision – picture of success for the business and team
Gain agreement on our milestones – it takes time to build, and even longer to see the returns
RESOURCES
Team – internal resources, structure, responsibilities
Skills, training & development – a consistent approach
External support and scalability – agencies, tech, budget
ALIGNMENT
Ensure the account team aren’t just on-board, they are advocates – get them shouting for more
Account selection will make or break your program
You have to be the evangelist – Be visible around the business evangelizing this approach, use internal channels sharing successes, etc.
Not just sales alignment –draw on the expertise of senior execs, marketing ops, business value, solution consultants, product specialists
PILOT
Focus where we you sales advocates – people who want to make this work and believe in the approach
Test delivery models cross-functional
Build it so it can scale when it’s time to come out of the pilot
Finding quick wins is key – pilot a few aspects of the approach into some targeted segments, and used that to build momentum with sales
Closed Loop Campaigns – Ongoing communications with sales
We’ve seen organizations with hundr3ds of ‘ABM solutions’ from a tech perspective, some are point solutions bought by sales, others seem to have been bought and left in a corner untouched because no one knows how to use them.
Your team gets bigger, and the results get better, and you end up doing more and more great work
You can even treat each evolution or step as another pilot, un
Many assets/campaign flows developed in one area can then translate to other areas.
Leverage learnings from 1:1 Account Workshops and Comms Strategy for industry specific Cluster campaigns
To end, we wanted to leave you with three top considerations when standing up your own ABM program/practice
These were three important lessons we wish we knew at the start that we want to share with you
ABM can inform broader content pieces and even corporate marketing strategy.
Blending 1:1 and 1:few ABM approaches maximises your upfront effort & investment.
Example 1
An analytics org worked with us on a 1:1 ABM campaign into a key FS account. The sector lead who sat in on the playback of the planning insights was so impressed with what had been uncovered that she asked for the messaging to be broadened out and the campaign extended to 1:few across a number of FS accounts. We’ve seen similar things across several clients using upfront 1:1 planning and asset templates to then produce less personalised collateral for account groupings in 1:few.
Example 2
One of our clients describes ABM as ‘the tail that wags the dog’, because market insights uncovered through ABM research have now been fed through the marketing organisation and are informing the organisation’s brand strategy.
Pushing content out via the C-suite and subject matter experts helps the message land quickly
Example 1
We worked with a high profile CHRO to help generate meetings in key accounts – she provided a personalized foreword to some corporate market-research driven content and for the ABM programme we’ve produced customized invitations on her behalf to their events.
Example 2
One of the objectives of an ABM programme for a telecommunications provider was to help them reposition themselves in the retail sector. We worked with their retail lead, generating content on topical themes that helped present her as an expert in her field and which led to her being invited to client workshops to provide retail insights.
When done well, ABM programmes draw on value from across the business, and the business can derive broader benefits than marketing outcomes.
Example 1
A recent workshop for a cloud computing firm uncovered the fact that senior engineers’ time was being taken up responding to low-level enquiries which could be better diverted elsewhere. An action was taken to address the problem by the relevant teams
Example 2
The success of one ABM programme’s value reports was due in great part to crucial input from the bid response and customer success teams who fed insights and data