Core ABM
Article | June 20, 2023
Introduction: Lead Nurturing
The leads in your database are there because your brand or service offers them a solution to a particular problem they are facing. Developing and reinforcing relationships with leads is critical at every stage of the sales funnel. How can you do this? By fostering leads.
To effectively nurture leads, you must first understand their wants, then address their problems, build brand recognition, and follow up until they become buyers.
Campaigns for Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing campaigns accelerate the process of deepening your connection with a prospect. A lead nurturing campaign has elements like:
Lead Magnets
Offering relevant content, solutions to pain points, and other enticing content like whitepapers, ebooks, and newsletters in exchange for the visitor’s contact information, mostly email, can get you a lead.
Website Landing Pages
Lead magnets are hosted on landing pages to attract visitors and collect their contact information.
Personalized Content
Personalized content engages and holds the visitor's attention. Marketing software generates this tailored material.
Data Segmentation
Every marketing software allows you to segment your lead data based on differentiating metrics like geography, age, and behavior. So, you can understand and analyze your users better.
Content Development
Using case studies and whitepapers to build credibility throughout the buyer's journey shows your capacity to aid customers you can relate to. This type of content nurturing can turn a visitor into a buyer.
Emailers
Engaging and educating your leads via periodic emails can help maintain a consistent communication chain. Your marketing software will send emails through the lead nurturing workflow you choose.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation, much like robotic process automation, leverages software to automate marketing tasks. Remember those survey and feedback emails you receive now and then? Marketing automation software sends them.
This software helps marketers align processes, technology, and people to achieve marketing goals. It automates and measures marketing tasks like email campaigns or content schedules into workflows to increase operational efficiency and revenue growth. It sends out marketing emails, grows your database, and collects data that helps with your marketing strategy.
It is used in lead generation, lead nurturing, scoring, relationship marketing, cross-selling and upselling, retention, segmentation, ROI measurement, and ABM.
Choosing a Good Marketing Automation Workflow Software
There are thousands of marketing automation software on the market. Consider the following factors to find the best fit:
Features
The more features your software has, the more you can do to entice a prospect to buy your product or service. Features like email campaigns, real-time alerts, lead management, and personalized messaging are great to have.
Budget-Friendly
The software should be affordable so you can easily implement your strategy without creating a hole in your pocket.
Customizable
Ensure the software can be customized to your needs. This may impact usability. However, customization is an important attribute if you want to track any proprietary data.
Channel Integration
It should easily integrate with other channels so it obtains relevant data to send out selected workflows.
Easy to Use
The software should be easy to use and not require any special training so that the execution process is seamless across teams in an agile environment.
Among the most widely used tools, some notable marketing automation tools are HubSpot, Pardot, Demandbase, and Marketo.
7 Result-oriented Marketing Automation Workflows Revealed
After you choose a marketing automation software that meets the above criteria, it gives you access to various marketing automation workflows that help you nurture your leads. By using specific triggers, you can create different workflows to nurture different kinds of leads. A marketing automation trigger is a unique input that activates a certain workflow when specific conditions are met.
Check out these seven effective marketing automation lead nurturing workflows that you should definitely create:
Hot Lead Workflow
This workflow is crucial for your sales team to bag a lead. Set the criteria for a hot lead workflow by considering the lead’s engagement with your content. This workflow falls into the bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFU) phase, where the lead is very close to being converted to a customer.
Lost Opportunity Workflow
If you have lost a lead due to budget restrictions, competitors, or misalignment of your product, design a workflow that gets the lead back into the sales funnel. You can send such leads special offers or discounts, information on your product’s USP, and a regular update on your products to recapture them.
Re-engagement Notification Workflow
Losing hope when engaged leads go cold on you is not an option. Remind them of your brand to wake them from their slumber. Create a trigger when the lead has spent a specific amount of time not interacting with your content. Your workflow will send this lead an email to get it back into the sales funnel. Special offers, new products or services updates, and company news can get the lead’s attention.
New Subscriber Nurture Workflow
This kind of workflow is crucial for gaining new subscribers and moving your existing subscribers through the funnel. It gets new subscribers to engage with your content. Your new subscribers should receive your newest content first, not just regular subscriber emails.
Topic-based Workflow
If you have a variety of content, create a workflow of the most relevant content that might entice your leads. Once a customer visits your website or downloads an ebook or whitepaper about a certain topic, emails with related content on that topic are sent to them regularly.
Event Workflow
Today, remotely conducted events like webinars or seminars have gained immense popularity. Engaging your target audience with the help of events is not a new trick. A pre-event and post-event workflow can help you remain in touch with event registrants. Important information like event details, agendas, and reminders can be sent to them to keep them in the loop.
Lead Nurturing Workflow
A lead nurturing workflow converts leads into marketing qualified leads (MQLs), leads that have responded to your marketing efforts. If a lead comes and fills up a form on your website, requests a demo, or subscribes to a product launch event, then sending them related content can get them closer to being a marketing-qualified lead.
How Utah-based Start-up Chatbooks Grew Their Customer Engagement by 100%
Using Blueshift’s AI-based cross-channel marketing platform, Chatbooks increased their customer engagement by 100%. They achieved higher conversion rates by engaging with customers 1:1 through personalized content and event-triggered campaigns.
“Blueshift enabled us to up-level our campaigns and provide 1-to-1 personalization using dynamic user information. We can now focus on high-intent customers that want to hear my message rather than email blasting and annoying my whole customer base. The results? A +100% increase in email engagement.”
- Stephen Cruz,Lifecycle Marketing Manager, Chatbooks
Wrapping It Up
Leveraging marketing automation in ABM by creating marketing workflows can do wonders for your ABM marketing strategy. 57% of marketers stated that lead nurturing is the most advantageous feature out of all the features of marketing automation software.
FAQ
Why are marketing automation workflows important for lead nurturing?
Marketing automation workflows make sure that your leads get appropriate engagement based on their type so that they get converted into marketing qualified leads.
How to choose a marketing automation software?
Consider factors like UI, ease of use, features, easy integration, and customization before choosing a marketing automation software.
What factors are important for the success of a marketing automation workflow?
Designing workflows for each type of lead is crucial. Other factors include creating appropriate triggers, mapping customer behavior, and maintaining CRM and technology stack.
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Account Based Data
Article | June 29, 2023
Discover the top 10 buyer intent data tools for businesses to leverage advanced data analytics and real-time intelligence for gaining valuable insights into buyer intent and drive revenue growth.
The ability to effectively harness and leverage buyer intent data has become imperative for organizations striving to stay ahead of the competition in the dynamic modern business landscape. In this era of empowered consumers, businesses must go beyond surface-level understanding and delve into deeper motivations and preferences of their target audience. As organizations strive to understand their customers on a deeper level, sophisticated buyer intent software and tools have become indispensable for extracting actionable insights.
With the implementation of these sophisticated solutions, businesses can unlock invaluable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and purchase intent, enabling them to make informed decisions, tailor their marketing strategies, and ultimately drive substantial business growth. The following are some of the best buyer intent data tools and software essential for organizational growth:
SalesOS
Developed by ZoomInfo, SalesOS is a cutting-edge go-to-market platform tailored for B2B companies. It boasts the largest, most accurate, and regularly updated database of insights, intelligence, and purchasing intent data pertaining to companies and contacts. Complementing this wealth of information, SalesOS incorporates additional tools such as Chorus for conversation intelligence, Engage for sales engagement, and RingLead for data orchestration. Integrating these tools with existing systems, SalesOS equips go-to-market teams with the necessary resources to engage prospects and customers effectively. With SalesOS, organizations can optimize their sales efforts, close more deals, and achieve their sales targets with precision and efficiency.
Terminus Intent Data
Terminus Intent Data is a robust software solution that equips sales and marketing teams with precise insights to identify their most promising opportunities and evaluate their conversion potential. It leverages a combination of first-party and third-party intent data, enabling teams to focus their efforts strategically. With its native, multi-channel ABM campaigns, organizations can select and prioritize accounts demonstrating intent to buy throughout the entire buyer's journey. In addition, by initiating targeted brand promotion to companies exhibiting intent interest, Terminus helps businesses establish an early impression and activate their sales teams at the optimal time. With Terminus Intent Data, companies can optimize their go-to-market strategies, enhance customer engagement, and drive growth by capitalizing on valuable intent-driven insights.
Demandbase One
A comprehensive and intelligent go-to-market (GTM) suite, Demandbase One, empowers businesses to outpace their competition. With its single platform for orchestrating and automating seamless buyer journeys, Demandbase One enables organizations to accelerate their go-to-market strategies. The platform revolves around robust account intelligence, allowing teams to identify opportunities earlier, engage prospects more intelligently, and streamline the deal-closing process. It offers a complete GTM package, encompassing solutions for account-based experience (ABX), advertising, sales intelligence, and data. Alternatively, businesses can adopt the specific solutions they require at their own pace. Whichever path they choose, Demandbase One optimizes GTM operations, leading to a superior buying experience and positioning organizations for success in the competitive marketplace.
Identification
Identification, a powerful software solution developed by RollWorks, offers B2B businesses the capability to identify and engage their target accounts with precision. Leveraging advanced data intelligence and machine learning, Identification empowers marketers to uncover the companies visiting their websites and gain valuable insights into their intent and interests. It assists businesses in accurately identifying both known and unknown website visitors, enabling them to personalize their interactions, tailor messaging, and prioritize outreach efforts. With Identification, companies can optimize their account-based marketing strategies by effectively targeting high-value accounts, utilizing ideal customer profile (ICP) insights, and accessing sales intelligence. By capitalizing on this comprehensive tool, organizations can enhance engagement with their most valuable accounts, resulting in increased conversions and revenue growth.
Integrate Marketplace
Integrate Marketplace, powered by a global network of trusted partners and expert campaign strategists, empowers B2B businesses to execute turnkey brand and demand programs that generate qualified, compliant, and marketable leads. With its custom programmatic display campaigns and diverse content syndication partnerships, the software enables businesses to establish brand recognition among target accounts and drive demand effectively. Integrate also helps companies to leverage unified technology to run precise, holistic campaigns while gaining valuable data insights by incorporating media channels and providing a consistent buyer experience. The key features of Integrate Marketplace include predictable pipeline generation, meticulous brand campaigns, and beautiful cross-channel buyer experiences, facilitating businesses to drive measurable results and accelerate their demand generation efforts. As it works with vetted partners, Integrate Marketplace expands its reach on a global scale, ensuring that brand and content exposure reaches the desired markets.
Company Surge
Company Surge, a comprehensive data intelligence solution developed by Bombora, provides businesses with valuable insights into buyer intent. Leveraging a vast B2B intent data database, Company Surge empowers organizations to gain a deep understanding of the topics and interests potential customers are researching across the web. Businesses can refine their understanding of their target audience, identify key accounts displaying buying signals, and optimize their marketing and sales strategies accordingly by harnessing this database. Company Surge helps businesses enhance their lead-generation efforts, personalize their messaging, and improve overall marketing effectiveness, resulting in higher conversion rates and revenue growth. With the power of intent data, businesses can make informed decisions and strategically align their efforts to meet the needs and interests of their prospective customers, driving meaningful business outcomes.
MRP Prelytix
MRP Prelytix is a purpose-built software solution that addresses the specific needs and challenges faced by enterprise sales and marketing teams. With over 20 years of experience in serving these teams, MRP Prelytix simplifies the complexities of the operating environment and enables coordinated account-based programs alongside existing marketing initiatives on a global scale. The software's key features include enterprise administration for efficient management, omnichannel orchestration for cohesive marketing campaigns, pre-built integrations for seamless data connectivity, and revenue-driving analytics for actionable insights. Recognizing the distinct requirements of enterprise-class marketers, MRP Prelytix offers a mature and sophisticated platform that facilitates seamless coordination of ABM programs across teams. Integrating the capabilities of MRP Prelytix, enterprise sales and marketing teams can optimize their operations, enhance customer engagement, and drive revenue growth in their highly sophisticated operating environment.
6sense Revenue AI
6sense Revenue AI transforms the way organizations drive pipeline and revenue, offering advanced capabilities for capturing anonymous buying signals, targeting ideal accounts, and recommending effective channels and messaging. Removing guesswork and streamlining sales efforts, the platform empowers sales, marketing, and customer success teams to improve pipeline quality, accelerate sales velocity, increase conversion rates, and drive predictable revenue growth. 6sense also enables businesses to uncover hidden signals and missed opportunities in their funnel, utilizing intent data from multiple sources to accurately match buying signals to accounts across devices, channels, and locations. With features such as dynamic account targeting, predictive analytics, and a centralized tech stack, businesses can craft precise audience-building strategies, automate workflows, and engage buyers through hyper-targeted advertising campaigns and conversational emails.
Capture
Capture, offered by Clearbit, is a versatile software product designed to assist businesses in obtaining accurate and comprehensive lead data in real time. With Capture, sales and marketing teams can instantly enrich lead information by entering an email address or domain. Key features of Capture include the ability to reveal hidden pipeline opportunities, find critical buyer contact information, add new records to the CRM, and seamlessly integrate with the entire technology stack. Leveraging Clearbit's vast database and powerful algorithms, the software provides valuable details such as company information, social media profiles, and job titles. It also empowers businesses to streamline lead qualification, personalize outreach, and enhance the effectiveness of sales and marketing campaigns by seamlessly integrating with existing workflows and systems.
PurePush
PurePush, offered by Demand Science, is an innovative software solution that revolutionizes B2B content syndication. It enables businesses to effectively target their desired audience and deliver tailored content across various digital channels. PurePush leverages advanced targeting capabilities and precise audience segmentation to ensure the right content reaches the right individuals at the optimal time. It also assists organizations in amplifying their content visibility, expanding their reach, and driving engagement with high-quality leads. The software provides actionable insights and analytics to optimize content syndication strategies, allowing businesses to nurture prospects, generate quality leads, and accelerate their sales pipeline. With PurePush, enterprises benefit from dedicated customer experience managers who provide exceptional support and guidance throughout each campaign, ensuring a seamless experience.
Conclusion
The integration of buyer intent data software and tools has become essential for businesses aiming to maximize their growth potential in the business landscape today. The top 10 tools for finding intent data discussed in this article offer a wide range of features and capabilities that enable businesses to gain valuable insights into buyer intent, optimize their marketing and sales efforts, and drive revenue growth.
The growing integration of advanced technologies, such as data analytics, machine learning algorithms, and real-time intelligence in buyer intent data tools, further empowers businesses to identify high-value accounts, personalize their messaging, prioritize their outreach efforts, and deliver exceptional buyer experiences. With the ability to uncover hidden signals, target the right accounts at the ideal time, and make data-driven decisions, businesses can significantly improve pipeline quality, accelerate sales velocity, increase conversion rates, and ultimately achieve their growth objectives. Embracing these buyer intent data tools as part of a comprehensive business strategy will give organizations a competitive edge in the dynamic and ever-evolving B2B landscape.
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Programmatic ABM
Article | June 9, 2022
Is ABM just Another Bullshit in Marketing* or a path to success? After some exciting years of establishing and experiencing ABM, I think, there is clearly a potential for both: a chance for a significant contribution to success, or just another bullshit.
There are many paths in both directions (succeed or bullshit) - below are some thoughts and personal observations - and I leave the decision with you!
ABM and the Relationship with Sales:There is no chance for ABM if you are not working in lockstep and partnership with sales. Anything else is just bullshit.
The Right Balance to Scale ABM,1:1 ABM vs. ABM at Scale:Both approaches have their reasons and value. As ABM at scale is often discussed, the key question is: what makes the approach account based? Applying ABM methods in a scaled environment is an enormous chance to put more customers into the center, especially if 1: few is seen as a scaled 1:1 (and not as a small 1: many). Account insights are used for better planning, personalization, messaging, and content development – the right balance is the key. The chance of scaling ABM to death is relatively high - then just don't call it ABM.
From Pipeline Only to Customer Loyalty:What is the expected outcome? This quarter’s pipeline? Or a long-term successful relationship with a loyal customer? How will you measure success in such a customer relationship? There are extensive lists of KPIs for ABM. Leads are normally not part of it - for a reason.
My view is: Finally, ABM has to contribute to the business, especially in the long-term. It is relatively easy to realize short-term success, but will your accounts be loyal customers over the years? Will they grow over time or only for a quarter? Defining joint goals for sales and ABM and committing as peers to customer lifecycle-related goals, not just single deals, reduces the risk of delivering bullshit.
Is Your Approach "Marketing for Accounts" or "Account Based"?
There is value in both in marketing for accounts and in account-based marketing. If you label it “ABM,” make it account-based. Ideally, you look at your data and insights and decide: is that enough to make it an ABM approach? If so, great! If not, fix your data. My company invested an enormous effort in fixing the data and developing an innovative view of our accounts.
Listen to Your Customers! That's something I do by myself, and I ask my team to do so, too.
Have you ever asked your customer (humans, people, executives - not data) how your ABM was received? Do they value what you do for them, and what exactly makes the difference between all the many newsletters and emails they receive? We measure everything we do, but we do not really measure what we don't do. What do you think about it?
*By the way, the "bullshit statement" was made by a sales leader in one of my first ABM presentations in front of his team. We have proven multiple times the opposite, but to be constantly successful, we have to challenge ourselves daily: Is that really ABM what I do? Can I prove it? What is the expected short-term and long-term outcome? What will my customer think about it? One has to reflect on these questions.
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Account Based Analytics
Article | December 28, 2021
Inbound Marketing
Businesses put effort into designing their inbound marketing strategies to seek growth opportunities. In inbound marketing strategies, target audiences are attracted, engaged, and delighted by businesses by using valuable content. They also communicate with the customers regularly through inbound sales calls and keep the customers happy through timely and prompt assistance.
Businesses use an inbound marketing strategy that they have trusted for years, while some still struggle to grasp the power of inbound marketing. In both cases, if the strategy doesn’t show the expected results, it becomes a matter of immediate concern.
Why Should You Conduct an Inbound Marketing Audit?
In an interview with Media 7, Daniel Englebretson, Founder of Khronos, talked about rise of AI in ABM and the success of marketing programs.
“The best programs, and the best marketers, have built their success on the back of rapid iteration and a long history of testing, learning, and continuously improving.”
Continuous improvement in marketing can happen only when you carry out regular assessments or audits of your marketing strategy, inbound, and outbound.
A marketing audit looks at the business environment, strategy implementation, systems, organization, productivity, and function of the strategy. It is undertaken when there is a change in leadership, the business is lagging compared to competitors, has rapid growth or is terribly stuck, or when a design overhaul is planned.
Here is why you should conduct an inbound marketing audit:
Identifying Weaknesses
If an inbound marketing strategy suddenly stops working, you need to find its weaknesses and remedy them in time to get the best results. This is called “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” (SWOT) analysis.
An audit will help you analyze the effectiveness of the channels and the tactics you use as compared to industry standards and find out the reasons behind ineffective lead generation. An effective audit also rigorously checks the marketing tools your team uses.
You can make adjustments and improvements to the strategy based on the audit. You can look into channels like websites, paid search, email marketing, social media, and organic search to assess the performance of your strategy.
Spotting Growth Opportunities
When expanding the business, introducing a new product or service, conducting an audit can add great value to your plan. You can evaluate your business position, rate your customer satisfaction and engagement, know how well you are exploiting your existing opportunities, and if you are using the right channels and messaging to get in touch with your target audience.
If you find anything amiss, you can promptly deploy resources to course-correct your team and work towards a better ROI through the inbound marketing strategy.
Reaffirming Goals
Reaffirm your marketing and business goals by assessing important data-driven perspective metrics like keyword ranking, post engagement, customer acquisition cost (CAC), email click-through rate, and lead quality. For example, if your website is not optimized for SERP and doesn’t grab the attention of your users, it could be the reason behind ineffective lead generation. In such a case, you can re-evaluate your content strategy.
Things like text-to-image ratio on web pages, irrelevant images, and weirdly placed call-to-action (CTA) buttons can affect the user’s journey. If some pages are unresponsive on mobiles or tablets, then the audit will help you find those and implement appropriate solutions.
Knowing what is working and what isn’t helps you know what you need to do next to get optimum results from your inbound marketing strategy.
Keeping Your Team Motivated
Every team is a defined stakeholder in the company's success. Right from the sales team, customer experience, IT architects, c-suite, product developers, to your marketing team, everyone will know their strengths and weaknesses through the audit. A regularly conducted marketing audit will keep your teams motivated to perform their duties well.
Boosts ROI
Boost your ROI by ditching things that do not work. Allocating resources to your business strengths instead of your marketing weaknesses will help you get the ROI you expect. You can also focus on introducing new plans to revive the part of the strategy that is no longer working. It can be anything from redesigning a few website pages to hiring a new SEO expert.
What Does a Strong Inbound Marketing Audit Look Like?
A strong marketing audit yields results that enhance your strategy, improve your ROI, and help you step up your game so you don’t fall behind in the race with your competitors. These are the characteristics a strong inbound marketing audit will have:
Autonomy
An effective audit should be autonomously conducted by a third-party auditor so you do not skip the hard parts and the management completely cooperates in the process. The more stringent the audit, the better the understanding of potential growth opportunities, managerial snags, and resource allotments.
Perfect Structure
The audit has to be systematically structured to cover all bases, like contact channels, business environment, customer experience, design, engagement, SEO, SMM, and sales management, so no crucial elements are missed.
Conducted Regularly
Conduct the audit at regular intervals of time, at least once a year. It should be a part of your marketing calendar or your strategic marketing plan.
Business-specific
The audit should factor in the technology, expertise, and experience of your business. It should consider factors like political, legal, and socio-cultural issues that arise from the location of your business. Competitors, best practices, and conditions should also be considered.
How Eclipse Software Saw a 370% Increase in Organic Traffic in a Year
Manchester-based software company Eclipse Software hit a snag when their online presence wasn’t translating into revenue, leads, or ROI. They hired Noisy Little Monkey, a service-based digital marketing agency in the UK, to help them boost their online presence. Noisy Little Monkey ran a marketing audit for them and found issues like page speeds and content offerings, and they ran campaigns using gated content. As a result of such campaigns and website improvements, Eclipse Software saw a 370% rise in their organic traffic in a year, with a conversion rate of 3.7%.
Key Takeaways
An inbound marketing audit is crucial for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing strategy. It can tell you which areas need improvement, how to allocate your resources better, and how to increase your growth opportunities and ROI through data-driven perspectives and more to achieve better results.
FAQ
At what time interval should you conduct an inbound marketing audit?
Every business should conduct an audit once every six to twelve months.
What are the characteristics of an inbound marketing audit?
An inbound marketing audit should be autonomous, periodically carried out, systematic and business-specific.
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