Account Based Data
Article | June 29, 2023
The shift in buyer behavior has increased the opportunities for digital ABM. Organizations implementing ABM are seeing significant success. But what does the situation in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) market look like? ABM is still not well understood in EMEA. Two out of every three ABM programs are not showing optimal performance (Heinz ABM Research). However, things might not be as bleak as they seem.
Talking about the 2021 State of ABM in Europe report by Terminus, Albany Vincent, Senior Research Manager at Vanson Bourse said, “While we were not shocked to see the US to be moderately ahead of Europe in their ABM maturity, we were surprised to see how much more eager European companies were to adopt these practices and their American counterparts. It appears to be a very exciting time to be a marketer- especially in Europe."
Europe has stringent data laws, so the account-based approach could be the only way for sustainable growth for organizations based in EMEA.
Do You Know Enough About ABM Execution?
Taking into account the ever-evolving account-based approach, here are five things you should know about ABM and how to implement it for optimal performance:
A Curated Account List Is the Secret Ingredient
Your target account list should be the result of a conversation between your sales and marketing teams using as much high-quality data as possible. Start off by implementing the program on a small number of accounts and analyze your ROI. Then, periodically revaluate your team performance, tools, skills, and messaging to clear the path for ABM success.
Your Sales and Marketing Teams Should Share Their Pizzas
Sales and marketing synchronization is the most basic requirement of ABM. The marketing team can enable sales with target accounts’ interests and behavior data. The sales team, on the other hand, can give the marketing team insights into key members of the target account buying group. According to research by ZoomInfo, when the sales and marketing teams are aligned, organizations have a 36% higher customer retention rate and a 67% improved chance of converting leads.
Depending Only on MQLs Will Not Get You Far
The TechTarget 2021 Media Consumption Survey highlighted that most buying teams have an average of five people, but can also be more than ten. Understanding the intent of the individuals from the buyer group and offering them value through every sales and marketing interaction is crucial to the success of your ABM strategy. Depending on only MQLs can limit the potential of your ABM.
Only Strategic Content Brings in the Results You Want
Your target accounts are flooded with content every day. To stand out in the crowd and appeal to the individuals in the buying group, you need to align your content with their customer personas. The content should address their pain points and needs. It should be crafted based on an account’s maturity, challenges, and technical abilities.
ABM Isn’t Your Regular Marketing Strategy
ABM is a strategic approach where the marketing and sales teams share their insights through the account interactions of everyone in an account. Then they collectively reach out to the whole buying team rather than targeting just a few individuals. ABM takes a detailed look at the target account and aligns your business with your prospects’ needs and pain points, and this easily surpasses a regular marketing strategy.
Circling Back
ABM in EMEA is still evolving. Therefore, organizations need to make special efforts to implement ABM effectively, keeping the target accounts in focus and understanding the attributes of ABM in detail to get the most out of it.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | August 23, 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
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Account Based Data
Article | August 19, 2022
Sales and marketing have transformed. Marketers have had to adapt, modify their activities and lean into more collaborative interactions with sales teams in a way they haven’t done before. As events and direct channels are on the minor list of concerns, sales teams have become a principal marketing channel to reach accounts.
A quick look at Google trends shows you how Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has revolutionized the world of B2B marketing. It happened by going from non-existent to extremely popular in the last several years and hiked during the pandemic. With today’s buyer journey becoming progressively digital, B2B organizations are interested in ABM to deliver exceedingly personalized and focussed marketing campaigns.
The secret behind the burgeoning popularity of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is how confident and versed marketers feel now while using it. While ABM persists as the hot MarTech topic since 2019, its influence grew during the pandemic. While it may seem all geek to new users, ABM offers rewarding opportunities for marketers.
As per the ABM evangelist, Sangram Vajre of Terminus, “If marketers embrace ABM methods, they will earn desired revenue in their businesses. I want to do everything I can to help make marketers heroes.”
As per The B2B Lead, ABM directly inscribed sales and marketing alignment and challenges 50% of the time when sales wasted time against unproductive targeting.
ABM Drives Revenue, and Here’s the Proof:
If you are putting together an ABM strategy, such numbers would be handy. This blog gathers ten powerful Account-based Marketing stats that every marketer (you) should know as we land in 2021 (the post-pandemic era). So, to show you how beneficial account-based marketing can be, here you go.
10 Account-based Marketing Stats
92% of Marketing Leaders are More Focused at New Selling Process
Marketing leaders are now selling with vision to the executive level than what they did some years ago. As per a recent ITSMA report titled, “Engaging the C-Suite: 2019 Sales and Executive Engagement Survey Report”, 92% of marketing leaders mentioned that selling at the executive level is more critical to their sales strategy.
In today’s time, marketers are relying on ABM capabilities to capitalize on new market prospects. In addition, B2B businesses are designing and deepening their relationships around ABM to engage C-level executives more effectively.
90% Role of Marketers in ABM Today is Strategic
The role of marketers doing ABM is more strategic on particular programs. As per Alterra Group’s report, marketers need to demonstrate deep account and industry-specific expertise to create seamless ABM campaigns. To create account-relevant marketing messages, companies are bestowing more resources and snowballing the expenditure on ABM. Such expenditure is predicted to exceed that on other marketing technologies rapidly.
A Sturdy ICP has a 68% Higher Account...
Organizations with a strong ICP have 68% higher account marketing win rates. Modern marketing teams are now being measured on pipeline and revenue, not leads. This way, they are staying more focused on productive revenue growth at every stage of the funnel.
A Total Economic Impact report by Forrester found that prospects see an average 313% ROI by bringing go-to-market teams practicing account-based marketing tactics together to make marketing efforts efficacious.
69% of Top-Performing Account-Based Organizations have Dedicated Leaders
69% of top-performing account-based organizations now have a dedicated account-based leader. The Account-based marketing stats reflect that 70% of marketers who started their account-based initiatives in the past six months have dedicated leaders who are entirely dedicated to the market, having particular and focused accounts instead of a sea of buyers.
60% of Users Reported an Increase in Revenue
When ABM picked its pace in at least a year, 60% of its users reported a revenue surge of at least 10% & 19%, termed an impact of 30% or greater. In companies with a stout ROI from ABM, 75% measure pipeline generated and revenue, 67.5% measure meetings and target account pipeline are set, and 63% measure marketing qualified leads are gained.
As a result of this, approximately 70% of B2B marketers will pilot or launch full-sized account-based software and programs to target and engross groups of buyers in selected accounts.
62% of Marketers are Being Optimistic
They can easily measure the positive impact of account-based marketing tactics since adopting ABM. This has been the most efficient benefit of ABM observed up until now.
Forrester envisages that by 2025, the term "ABM" will evaporate as account-centric becomes the distinct way for B2B organizations to identify, plan, manage, and measure buying and post-sale motions for prospects.
80% ABM Budgets are Intensifying
After B2B companies saw the success of early programs, budgets devoted to ABM amplified by 40% year over year, from 20% in 2019 to 28% in 2020. This surge in investment reflects a confident attitude in return on ABM initiatives.
42% B2B Companies Favor Keeping Accounts in ABM Strategy between 50 and 500
As per the Demand Gen Report, 18% of B2B companies try to keep their accounts list under 50, 19% target a broad set of accounts, ranging between 1,000 and 5,000.
For a focused ABM approach, the report found that 42% of B2B companies try to keep their account list between 101 to 500. However, as this quantity varies depending on the size and scope of individual company deal sizes, these results will vary based on industry and product.
Companies Executing ABM Amplified ACV by 171%
B2B companies that have implemented ABM perceived a 171% rise in their Annual Contract Value (ACV) more significant than the pre-ABM ACV. In addition, ABM offers a boost to the pipeline rate, thus, enabling marketers to target prospects belonging to new revenue goals.
75% of B2B Buyers and 84% of C-level Executives Use Social Media
B2B buyers and C-level executives progressively rely on social media to harvest more information about products and services before making purchase-based decisions. 80% of buyers who had not yet used social media to research purchases are willing to use the right platforms.
As online mediums have become a progressive information preference of buyers, companies create profitable account-based campaigns to ignite the initiative.
A recent Social Buying Study from International Data Corporation (IDC) concludes that B2B buyers are the most active in using social media to support the buying process by having 84% superior budgets that made 61% more purchase decisions. This significantly influenced a greater span of purchase decisions than those buyers who did not use social media for their purchase process.
A Note About the Account-based Marketing Stats and COVID-19
April 2020, was just when all businesses were beginning to feel the effects of the pandemic. As a result, the COVID-19 impact has altered several perspectives, including budget, headcount, and prioritization. Yet, ABM programs have shown results with significant improvements in pipeline growth.
“If economic obscurity continues, these programs should persist as a core element of the Marketing strategy.” – Todd Berkowitz, Practice Vice President, Gartner
While COVID-19 is changing B2B organizations’ ability to stimulate sustained growth, it’s hoped that an account-based approach will significantly benefit your organization in the following ways:
Focus on your limited resources (budget, time, and personnel) on those companies to do business.
Target the accounts you already know. This will enable you to spend less money on demand-gen campaigns to generate new names.
Make the most of your team’s efficiency by scoring sales and marketing campaigns that work together to create the best buyer experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are account-based marketing stats measured?
Marketers use close rates when required to measure ABM efforts. Typically, the stats are gainedby measuring the reachability of target accounts or specific contacts at those accounts. This gives you a percentage or a conversion rate by account, which further estimates how successful ABM efforts have been to date.
What are good ABM metrics?
The good ABM metrics are:
Marketing-qualified accounts
Real engagement of account
Velocity of Pipeline
Average selling price
Customer engagement rate
Why should we measure account-based marketing stats?
It is because ABM delivers ROI. For example, when there is a greater emphasis on defining Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), a properly structured approach to selecting account and value is aligned with what a prospect’s business needs. This results in gaining higher win rates.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | August 23, 2022
B2B buyer intent data provides insight into a user’s purchase intent. With this information, you can identify when a prospect matching your ICP is actively considering buying your product, or similar products or solutions. This intent data is collated from different digital sources that use cookies to analyze key intent search terms to zero in on when a prospect is in an active buying journey. With this information, B2B companies like yours can make campaigns that are very specific to these prospects and are more likely to convert them.
Let us take a look at how B2B buyer intent data can assist sales teams to achieve their revenue goals.
Identify High-Intent Target Accounts
In account-based marketing, a target account list has companies and accounts that are most likely to buy your product. This target account list helps your sales and marketing teams concentrate their efforts to push high-quality leads through the sales funnel. Using B2B buyer intent data, the sales team can know which prospect is showing key signals of purchase intent. These B2B intent data key signals include downloading resources, reading blog posts, signing up for a free trial, booking a demo, viewing the pricing page, and revisiting your website after the first interaction. Your sales team can segment the target list based on this information. Every lead can be broken down into three segments: high intent, medium intent, and low intent. Now that your sales team has the high intent leads, they can target these leads and convert them without wasting time on low intent leads that may not be ready to buy.
Your Sales Cycles Are Shorter than Ever
Salespeople often struggle with closing deals faster. The reasons behind this could be anything from wrong contact details to chasing imprecise, low-qualified leads and cold prospecting. Reaching out to accounts that do not show any intent to buy is a waste of time your sales team cannot afford if it wants to meet the revenue targets. With the help of B2B buyer intent data, your sales team gets actionable data insights on the accounts that are in the market and what they are looking for so they can approach these accounts confidently. Popular intent data providers provide more than 95% accurate contact information, company structure, and buyer group details on accounts so your sales team can connect with decision-makers directly and close deals faster.
Lead Prioritization is No Longer a Struggle
Prioritized lead scoring effectively puts sales managers and salespeople in a position to see real opportunities. B2B buyer intent data allows them to see what other paths leads can take even if they do not visit your website. They can understand which leads are in the final stage of the sales cycle in real-time. Leveraging this information, sales managers can align sales representatives based on the comprehensive overview of accounts without worrying about the initial ranking of the account with the help of intent-based marketing. It helps the entire sales team take advantage of the foresight that intent data provides to create an agile method to capture demand accurately.
Improved ABM Implementation
Enriching the B2B buyer journey with hyper-personalized content to target ICP in marketing as a part of intent data marketing becomes easy for your marketing teams. They can prepare content for each stage of the buying funnel, which consists of awareness, consideration, and decision-making stages. In the awareness stage, you can help your prospects narrow down their search and lead them to your brand. In the consideration stage, your sales teams can get in touch with the decision-makers who respond the most to your marketing campaigns and are in the stage to purchase your product. In the final decision-making stage, your customer support and sales teams can provide the prospects the assistance they need through content on crucial pages via a product guidance tool or a chat service. This way, your B2B account-based marketing strategy can be implemented with added accuracy.
Final Thought
Saving costs, generating more leads, and boosting sales becomes easier with the help of buyer intent data. Rather than letting your sales team wait for prospects to stumble upon landing pages, your business can leverage B2B intent data to gain a competitive edge by finding them first and offering them solutions to their problems through your products using buyer intent data strategies.
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