Programmatic ABM
Article | June 9, 2022
The Pareto Principle is introduced by an Italian economist - Vilfredo Pareto. According to this principle, for several results, 80% of the outcomes arise from 20% of the cause. Other variations of the Pareto principle states: 80% of the sales come from 20% of customers or 80% of marketing engagement comes from 20% of accounts.
Many researchers believe that ABM is a descendent of the 80/20 rule. By following this rule, businesses can spend the bulk on creating personalized marketing campaigns for the 20% of customers who spent the most on the product or services of their company.
How the Pareto Rule Brings Sales Growth?
In ABM, the Pareto principle can be used as a guide to overcoming the business growth obstacle and acquiring extremely productive business solutions. So here are a few strategies that will assist in bringing the resources and attention to the top 20% of customers.
1. Identify Best Customers
Companies might have hundreds or thousands of customers or prospect lists either from email, social media, or by the website. To ensure making a wise choice, it is a must to have a glance at the historical data of every account, then compare it with the ideal customer profile and determine which makes it to the list of the best customers. After finding the top customers for the business, assure to mark them as a top priority.
2. Locating Their Area
An important factor is to check the Point-of-Sale platform and find the area from where the highest number of best customers belongs to. It will lead to determining the most suitable sales or marketing strategies that can boost the growth of the organization.
3. Rank The Need Of Customers
After creating the list of best accounts or customers, try to dig a bit deeper and discover the want, need, or problems each customer has. If in case, the insight is not up to the mark, a company will have to form a team that can gather some information, by:
Tracking customer’s social media
Having a conversation with the customer
Purchasing Insights from vendors.
After finalizing the need list make sure to mark each with their importance and address them accordingly.
4. Offer Personalization Across Different Platform
Marketing according to the way that connects with each customer deeply without engulfing the resource and budget can be achieved by making the process as automated as possible through hiring developers. Some of how businesses can personalize their channels are:
Using images that shows the customer’s interested area
Addressing each customer by their name
Sharing related case studies with the customers
Including a personalized note
Remember to keep a track of the progress you made through these steps and modify your list and strategies based on them.
Take Away!
If used properly, the Pareto rule in account-based marketing helps a business in keeping the focus on what matters the most. It stops enterprises from multi-tasking all the time. With the help of the 80/20 rule, businesses can properly allocate time and resources to the areas that produce the best results. That being said, relocating the budget while cultivating time for referrals from the customers who generate long-term advantages is the core to sustainable growth.
Read More
Buyer Intent Data
Article | September 11, 2023
Inconsistent language in B2B marketing is becoming a growing hurdle for collaboration.
I attended a workshop recently that brought together members of different marketing functions to train them on ABM. The task was simple enough: Act as the agency and put together an ABM brief. We didn’t have any trouble understanding the assignment. We just couldn’t seem to speak the same language.
We were discussing the same topics and working toward the same goal. But the variations in how each of us used established B2B marketing terms made collaboration harder. And so, it got me thinking. How often have you sat in a meeting and understood what someone has said but not what they’ve meant? Sure, you understand that impressions measure how many times someone’s seen your ad. But why does it matter? How does it contribute to revenue growth and the overall performance of the campaign? What does it mean to me?
I was reminded of when we were learning a foreign language in school. You could try directly translating a sentence to English, but chances are it wouldn’t make much sense. A translation would only add up when you understood its grammatical and syntactical context. So, if we (no matter how humorously) consider B2B marketing a language of its own, why aren’t we as rigorous in policing our use of terminology?
Growing pains
In the past, B2B marketing departments were seen as single-focus, cost center arms of a business. Since then, the Marketing remit has grown considerably. Tools and technology allow us to work on everything from insights and analytics to bespoke, hyper-personalized 1:1 ABM programs. Sales and Marketing alignment is helping prove our contribution to the bottom line. And we’re finally becoming a revenue center.
But I think there’s a catch. The same increased responsibilities that allow us to connect our marketing activity to revenue have made the language we use more inconsistent. Teams are more specialized than ever. And the size of the marketing department has expanded massively. There are even employees in the same functions who’ve never said a word to each other.
This creates bubbles of intradepartmental dialects. Linguistic nuances that create collaborative hurdles between teams, departments, and even organizations. Time that should be spent planning, producing, and activating is lost to soul-destroying email chains and inane meetings clarifying points of uncertainty. Things I’m sure we’d all be happier without.
The effects on business
Then there are the impacts inconsistent language has on your business. Brief your teams unclearly and budget/resource that could be used more productively is squandered on multiple revisions. Chains of stakeholder questions that could have been easily avoided with greater context can result in strained working relationships. Levels of employee stress can increase out of fear of asking a question and sounding stupid. And perhaps the scariest of all – misunderstandings of key deliverables that find their way through to your final outputs.
Standardizing our use of language can help alleviate these challenges. Key performance metrics will always differ between functions. KPIs like leads generated and engagement will be valuable to your Marketing or social teams, but not Sales whose sole focus is accelerating pipeline. But it’s context that helps tie everything together.
It saves you questioning why everyone’s talking about split testing and not A/B testing (before realizing they’re the same thing an hour into the discussion). It clarifies why certain conversations are happening, sets clear expectations of what needs to be done and by whom, and breaks down siloes between departments. It stops important points of discussion from being lost in translation.
Speaking the same language
Driving revenue through a more unified marketing and sales function is becoming core to what we do. But we need to take a step back and evaluate our use of terminology. Before considering Sales and Marketing alignment, our marketing teams have to speak the same language.
Collaboration is a product of good communication. But siloes across your marketing department can stand in the way of productivity. Making a concerted effort to convey the scope and role of specific marketing functions, core metrics necessary for success, and ways of working for each team helps promote a more collaborative work culture.
It’s our responsibility to ensure we’re all on the same page before starting group projects or aligning with other branches of business. Recognizing the inconsistencies in our language and addressing them in advance helps reduce wasted time and resource. It sets us up for success by reducing the number of roadblocks in the way of our work and path to revenue growth.
Marketing departments in B2B industries will likely continue to grow. And for organizations like B2B tech enterprises, the challenges associated with inconsistent language are only exacerbated by teams spread by geo, mother tongue, and culture. Creating clear and consistent rules for the language we use as B2B marketers can help overcome these barriers, allowing us to focus on creating exceptional marketing.
Some ways forward
So, how do we create guidelines for more consistent marketing language? I won’t say I have all the answers. But I do think there needs to be a shift in employee education and training with a view to standardizing nomenclature. Glossaries that include company-specific frameworks can be a great way to provide context and meaning to your business’ use of terminology.
Pre-recorded video resources with your subject matter experts can be paired with an intranet site to offer a more interactive, always-on education and training solution. Or, better still, regular workshops across departments to promote cross-functional understanding of why terms are used at certain times.
I’d also recommend reviewing your corporate team structures to see which stakeholders have a seat at the table. Changes in how your teams communicate can only come from the top down. And a reflection on how your use of language affects those you work with, through researching communication processes/best practices or otherwise, can be a step toward fostering a more collaborative work culture.
Establishing clear definitions for common language allows us to work closer together. It breaks down barriers to collaboration and lets us focus on common business goals. If Marketing really wants to become a revenue center, we need to start speaking the same language.
Read More
Account Based Analytics
Article | August 3, 2022
B2B businesses use various marketing techniques to increase revenue. Most marketers run campaigns to target a wide range of audiences. But strategies are rarely successful in the B2B world. Moreover, these companies are forced to sell to a narrow list of prospects. So, they use a combination of inbound and account-based marketing techniques to make the magic happen. But, most of them probably aren't marketing the right way.
Similarly, if the sales team fails to align with marketing in your company, perhaps, it's time to try something new. Because, as a marketer, you already know how difficult it is to decide on marketing aspects. Of course, none of these are convincing unless you aren't aware of account-based marketing and its clear and observable benefits.
The benefits of Account-Based Marketing can help you to know accurately how to measure marketing ROI. In addition, the benefits can button-up marketing-to-sales alignment, reduce or maintain the size of the sales force you need, and cater to your marketing message to specific targeted accounts.
The list of advantages and benefits of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is endless. But, here is an attempt through the ten most valuable ones that'll push your marketing goals with ABM.
An Opportunity to Get Personal
Personalization is an essential benefit of Account-Based Marketing! ABM technology allows marketers to create more personalized messaging for specific accounts instead of creating blanket messaging for a larger number of accounts. When approaching a specific account, spending as much time and effort as creating relevant content is essential, which provides value for your targeted account.
For instance, instead of creating bulk email marketing, your efforts would work better if there is direct messaging or account-targeted ads for your accounts.
Faster Sales Process
Depending on your business, industry, and resources, the sales cycle typically looks something like this:
1) Prospect → 2) Connect → 3) Research → 4) Present → 5) Close → 6) Delight
Several investors are involved in making a final purchase decision. This can often slow down your sales and marketing process. But when you do account-based marketing, it allows making the process faster. With ABM, you get the opportunity to specifically nurture your primary decision stage, along with all relevant accounts, to facilitate the sales process.
However, with the concept of ABM, you can communicate individually to every stakeholder in an account. Hence, this would make the individual sales process faster and longer, yet very effective.
Clearer Path to ROI
ABM is precise, targeted, and measurable. And it helps you maximize your ROI. With personalization as one of the most effective marketing tactics, you select only valuable accounts, which boost your sales, and thus, ROI increases. In addition, the approach makes your team easily align sales with consistent marketing that grows ROI.
Here are some stats to support this benefit of Account-based Marketing:
Response rates from ABM accounts: 47%
Online activities: 39%
Number of new contacts in accounts: 36%
Participation in all marketing activities: 25%
Set an Appropriate Marketing Budget
A sound ABM strategy would help your marketing team focus on the targeted accounts on the various touchpoints to explore during their buying journey. Scaling ABM techniques will save a lot on your allotted marketing budget, which has been wasted on useless leads before.
From a marketing budget perspective, ABM is the best way to go for any B2B communication coupled with the newest ABM tools and strategies to target specific organizations or companies.
Experience Lesser Risk Possibilities
This benefit of account-based marketing can significantly reduce unnecessary waste and risk factors. By scaling ABM marketing strategies, you can do more. Smart ABM technology helps the same number of account managers to target, market, convert, and upsell a much larger number of accounts personally. This means there's much less risk involved. Therefore, with ABM tactics adequately set up, accounts become revolving doors—even if one contact is lost, another one will walk right in. It's that simple—ABM is a no-brainer.
Better Reporting
Your marketing campaign's effectiveness can be measured using ABM metrics. And, the truth is, the more tangible these metrics are, the more clearly you can target your account.
The main benefit of account-based marketing is that there are fewer metrics you're required to keep track of, which helps you to report better. This makes it easier to set marketing goals. And so, analyzing reports becomes a breeze compared to pulling out large sets of data from different accounts. This is because you tend to spend more time assessing each aspect of the efforts put in by you. So, the metrics help to document relevant data for all the accounts and set better goals at the end of the quarter.
So, if you're sure of your target audience, ABM is the way to go!
Sales Alignment Becomes Much Better
ABM technology provides a supplementary targeted marketing initiative, which directly aligns sales and marketing teams to work together & keep track of their efforts and goals. With that, purpose-driven activities like communication code, the collaterals to be shared, the tone of messages, and the ultimate content are put in sync between marketing and sales teams. So that these directly address the unique needs of each account.
Trust-Based Customer Relations
Companies are always looking for solutions to their problems online. In this case, ABM provides them a personalized solution through communication. Be it through blogs, whitepapers, videos, or social media, as they naturally get attracted to you if you offer to solve their problems. This further creates trust between the two. A relationship based on trust is a relationship that can lead to good sales, and future referrals may be.
Make Data-Driven Decision
As there are many benefits of account-based marketing, it effectively encourages marketers to make data-driven decisions. ABM creates a framework for sales and marketing teams to make data-driven decisions after targeting specific accounts. And then market to maximize upsell or create cross-selling opportunities by identifying prospects in the future.
The Right Target, the Right Leads
The concept of ABM is revolutionary. Its marketing methodology focuses on scoring the right leads as opposed to many leads. Why spend half of your team's energy on low-profit clients to create low-level leads when one right kind of lead can help your business to earn a double-digit revenue? As with ABM, you get to target only the accounts most likely to your business; therefore, the right leads are generated. This leads to more revenue than those hundreds of the wrong leads. This is the ultimate benefit of account-based marketing that ultimately runs your business!
ABM makes B2B marketing interesting and sensible completely.
Now you know the benefits of Account-Based Marketing. Just that you need is to implement ABM strategies and see its magic and how your business grows better than ever!
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ABM work?
ABM focuses on identifying accounts, which means companies that match ideal clients and target critical decision-makers with personalized messages and content through advertising campaigns. Content forms such as blogs, social media, and whitepapers work well with the ABM strategy.
Who uses Account-Based Marketing?
Generally, marketers prefer doing account-based marketing to identify target accounts, personalize the marketing and campaign experience. Thus, allowing the sales team to convert accounts into leads.
Does account-based marketing work?
Yes, account-based marketing works indeed. It encourages the marketing and sales team to identify target accounts, craft customized campaigns for accounts, and align individual accounts through the pipeline before and after converting into leads.
How to use ABM?
To use the ABM platform, here are the steps explained:
Identify targets while setting up an effective ABM strategy
Understand the targets
Define and personalize content formats
Choose relevant channels
Offer solutions
Measure & mold
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How does ABM work?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "ABM focuses on identifying accounts, which means companies that match ideal clients and target critical decision-makers with personalized messages and content through advertising campaigns. Content forms such as blogs, social media, and whitepapers work well with the ABM strategy."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Who uses Account-Based Marketing?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Generally, marketers prefer doing account-based marketing to identify target accounts, personalize the marketing and campaign experience. Thus, allowing the sales team to convert accounts into leads."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Does account-based marketing work?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Yes, account-based marketing works indeed. It encourages the marketing and sales team to identify target accounts, craft customized campaigns for accounts, and align individual accounts through the pipeline before and after converting into leads."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How to use ABM?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "To use the ABM platform, here are the steps explained:
Identify targets while setting up an effective ABM strategy
Understand the targets
Define and personalize content formats
Choose relevant channels
Offer solutions
Measure & mold"
}
}]
}
Read More
Account Based Analytics
Article | June 14, 2022
Data-driven strategies for increasing time to market, pipeline, and revenue impact.
The B2B environment is incredibly complex, so it’s no surprise that more than three-quarters of B2B buyers describe their purchasing journey as very complex or challenging. A significant majority (67%) of the B2B buyer’s journey happens digitally, but B2B buying does not play out in any predictable, linear order. Unfortunately, much of today’s ABM technology lacks the capabilities required to provide personalized experiences across multiple channels, platforms, buying centers, geographies, and lines of business. This puts the target account into an undesirable linear campaign and assumes all accounts progress through the funnel at the same speed.
Instead, customers engage in “looping” behaviors during a typical B2B purchase, revisiting multiple buying stages at least once. Buying stages do not happen sequentially but rather simultaneously. This means that ABM success depends not only on a deep understanding of its audience’s needs but also on precisely orchestrating the delivery of the right message in the right channel at the right time - and on a global scale.
In the face of these complexities, ABM is rapidly maturing as a practice. New research shows that almost half (45%) of companies consider their ABM programs to be fully adopted versus experimental – up a third compared with 2020. But even as ABM programs mature, the headwinds of change are accelerating, leaving more than two-thirds of ABM marketers thwarted in their mission to drive significant revenue impact.
B2B marketers must contend with and overcome a slew of challenges that can feel beyond their immediate control. A recent study by Demand Metric and MRP found that more than three-quarters of marketers’ report that the pace of their campaigns has intensified over the past year. That percentage is higher still, at 83%, at enterprise companies that operate with high levels of complexity on a global scale. Four in ten marketers report that changing account profiles poses a challenge, as does the emergence of new channels and demand for new content formats.
Responsive buyer experiences and relevant content across channels have always been the top criteria for mature, high-performing, omnichannel account-based orchestrations. But much of today’s conversation revolves around linear, top-down campaigns, where the target account is placed in a marketing or sales play, operating within a siloed platform throughout the buyer’s journey. The result is often antithetical to the desired buyer “experience.” Addressing this reality requires rethinking how marketers engage with accounts.
The most mature account-based orchestrations are adaptive, understanding a target’s changing needs, aligning content to those desires, and delivering personalized experiences consistently across multiple channels. This demands a new approach to data management, better use of intent and predictive insights, and fully synchronized orchestration.
To make meaningful connections with prospects and customers amidst these changes, enterprise marketers are evolving their ABM initiatives to focus on highly personalized experiences tailored to the account level and individual locations and buyer roles. Increasingly, ABM leaders employ a set of principles and processes that are consistent from company to company – giving others a blueprint for success. The most critical steps for marketers to achieve significant results with their ABM programs include:
Collaborate Closely Across the Organization
Enterprise marketers must share insights widely across interdisciplinary teams. This allows campaigns to be coordinated across shared accounts. A study of top ABM performers found that nine in ten reported close cross-functional collaborations between marketing and sales. ABM leaders need to establish a standardized measurement framework so everyone is working toward the same goals and success.
Establish a Single Source of Truth
Not only are ABM leaders’ teams highly integrated, but so is their data. A single view of data allows for a deeper understanding of audience needs and improves collaboration. Eight out of ten (80%) top performers use data from three or more systems to guide their ABM practice, and even more, 84%, say that their tech stack is mostly or completely integrated. This is more than double the number (30%) of those whose ABM impact was negative or couldn't be measured.
Deliver Messages Consistently - and Across Touchpoints
Successful ABM marketers can customize the buyer’s experience based on the specific product or solution under consideration and factor in their stage within the buying journey. Almost half of leading ABM practitioners (46%) go beyond personalizing messages by industry to adapt their messages to the recipient’s job role and stage of the customer lifecycle. Highly personalized content delivered at the right time is more critical than ever since customers often skip “steps” on the buying journey and require digital experiences to adapt accordingly.
Grasping at New Buzzwords Isn’t the Answer
Calling an initiative “ABX” instead of “ABM” doesn’t make it easier to execute successfully. In fact, in a rush to accelerate the delivery of 'account-based experiences', the platforms that support it have become a critical bottleneck, creating yet another siloed system. This not only adds to the complexity but also undermines the outcomes it is intended to improve.
Today’s B2B marketers face unprecedented challenges but the enterprise must approach ABM as a guiding strategy rather than a limited tactic. Synthesizing data across multiple sources, eliminating tech and people silos, and taking a collaborative approach to ABM can give marketers a deeper understanding of what target accounts need and where to deliver it. The right tech solutions can trigger omnichannel actions based on account insights, simplifying the complexity of ABM and executing mature, omnichannel orchestrations that have a measurable impact on revenue.
Read More