Buyer Intent Data
Article | October 7, 2022
We all know that account-based marketing means targeting the best customer accounts, creating personalized marketing campaigns, and getting to the conversion stage.
Though these steps may sound easy, it takes a lot of brainstorming to implement them to convert the accounts that matter the most. To know more about these steps, you can read six hard-hitting lessons for the ABM strategy.
This article will talk about the best and correct ways to implement ABM plans with examples.
But first, let us briefly inform you about ABM and how it works.
Brief Introduction to ABM
Account-based marketing is a marketing strategy implemented by B2B marketers to concentrate on their exclusive clients. First, the sales and marketing team collaborates to collect the maximum data about specific clients. Then these clients are targeted with personalized marketing campaigns on various platforms.
Thus, account-based marketing allows you to utilize your workforce and resources efficiently. It also helps to market your products to a handful of customers who have a 90% chance of conversion.
Now, let us see the correct ways to implement ABM for various B2B industries.
Ways to Implement ABM Plans with Examples
We have specifically chosen the four best ways to implement ABM in B2B marketing strategy. These are the core strategies that have worked for B2B and are sure to work for you too.
But first, look at these wise words from Maliha Aqeel, Director of Global Communications at Fix Network World.
'One of the most common mistakes companies make is implementing a brand strategy that isn’t aligned to the organization’s overall business goal.'
So before implementing any marketing plan, ensure that your brand strategy, marketing campaigns, and everything else aligns with the overall business goals.
Identify Exclusive Accounts
It is the root of your ABM strategy. Your fruits of labor will be decided by the correct places you plant these roots.
So basically, when you are filtering your clients/customers for ABM, here are the key factors to be kept in mind;
Choose the correct industry.
Know the size of the organization.
Identify the needs, challenges, and pain points of the organization.
Know the timelines and hierarchy of their decision-making process.
The answers to these questions will help you to recognize the target accounts precisely.
Example:
Vidyard is a video platform that helps businesses transform communications and drive more revenue through the strategic use of online video. It collaborated with SmartBug Media to change the video experience for users worldwide. Thus, they can target the correct customers on Hubspot. In addition, they help customers to make videos an integrated part of their marketing campaigns and other processes.
Craft Tailored Content
Every filtered account for ABM will have unique needs, demands, challenges, and pain points. Thus, you have to craft content to address the customers directly. They should instantly recognize that you understand them and have built solutions exclusively for their challenges.
You should also be ready with different content for different stages of the buying journey. And remember to design content for customers even after they convert. It helps you to be ready for the retention stage.
Like Mark Emond, Founder and President at Demand Spring quotes;
“Content is at the heart of great marketing today. It needs to educate, inspire, and convert. It must be tied to the unique rational and emotional needs of each target persona.”
Example:
Intridea executed an excellent content strategy to target the advertising giant Ogilvy. First, they rented a billboard right across Ogilvy’s Manhattan office. The billboard said, “Ogle this, Ogilvy.” Intridea also placed its logo and company URL at the bottom of the quirky line. This exclusive content got them an appointment with Ogilvy’s CEO!
Use Marketing Automation Tools
There are various personalization tools available to assist you in ABM. These tools provide centralized data collection and data analysis. They also coordinate your marketing campaigns across all platforms.
Example:
Growsteak is a Vietnamese company that provides advertising and digital marketing solutions. However, it faced several challenges like lead generation and competitor analysis. Thus, they incorporated Hubspot’s Partner Program. It not only helped them overcome their challenges but also generated 5,166% more leads overall.
Measure the KPIs
You need to measure the metrics once you implement ABM. It is one of the essential factors of a successful ABM strategy. However, these metrics are different from traditional marketing. Thus, you need to keep a hawk’s eye on them.
Some of the KPIs to consider are;
Is the current coverage of key clients sufficient and, is it growing?
Are there known or anonymous visits to your site? Have they increased?
Is the incoming traffic getting converted?
How much is the depth of engagement?
Has the strategy made it easy to get appointments of the target accounts?
Wrapping Up
The success of account-based marketing depends on research and personalization. The more effort you put in to know your clients, the closer you get to convert them. Thus, make use of the abundant data and accurately target your potential customers!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ABM more successful than traditional marketing?
Yes. Compared to traditional marketing methods, ABM has proved to create wonders and save a lot on time, resources and workforce. It has also guaranteed a better success and conversion rate for the sales and marketing teams.
How important is personalization in marketing?
Personalization plays a prominent role in ABM. A trust factor builts if you can address the challenges and pain points of the client with personalized solutions.
Also, personalization ensures a higher rate of getting appointments and conversions of the targeted accounts.
Can SMBs also implement ABM?
Of course. SMBs have a higher chance of growing if they plan their marketing strategy along with ABM. It will allow them to understand the market and their customers from the very beginning. And once they have converted the customers, retention will be an easy task.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | June 20, 2023
Metrics, Analytics, and Insights in ABM
It is a fact that ABM gives a higher ROI as compared to other marketing strategies. If you are a marketer who has painstakingly built an ABM strategy from scratch, you would understand the amount of time it takes to execute it and for it to show measurable results. How do you measure the success of your ABM strategy? You need to understand the metrics, analytics, and insights. Marketers use these terms interchangeably, but there is a difference between them.
By using raw data points, metrics show you the incremental changes in how target accounts interact with your brand.
Analytics compares the metrics over time to show you how your ABM strategy is performing.
Metrics and analytics together help you gain insights into what is working and what isn’t.
Insights help you take action to improve your ABM strategy.
To measure the success of an ABM strategy, you need to use ABM Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) metrics. ABM KPIs track the performance of your strategy with respect to customer service, marketing, efficiency, revenue, and employment statistics.
In an interview with Media 7, Abhi Yadav, Founder & CTO of Zylotech, talked about the importance of customer intelligence in marketing:
Tracking every point of engagement is critical in delivering a holistic view of where buyers are actively engaged and what’s working.
Defining ABM KPIs
Use the SMART criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of a KPI. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound.
By identifying how well the KPI fits into these criteria, you can define it. Find answers to the following questions to define your KPI:
Is your goal specific?
Is your goal measurable?
Is it attainable?
Is it relevant to your business?
Is the goal time-bound?
A well-defined KPI should be a part of your marketing analytics strategy to accurately track the performance of your ABM strategy.
KPIs You Should Measure to Track ABM Success
Sales Funnel Metrics
Measuring sales funnel metrics can quickly pinpoint where your ABM strategy has fallen out of alignment with your business goals. They can be classified into three types:
Upper Funnel Metrics
Upper funnel or top-of-funnel metrics track the engagement rate of the leads within your target accounts. They assess the time taken for a lead to complete specific actions like opening your emails, receiving, or responding to direct mail, visiting your website, and more. You can pinpoint which leads are closer to buying based on the increase in engagement. These metrics also help you know which accounts don’t know anything about your company. You can improve your strategy to capture these accounts.
Is there a huge gap between the products and services your target accounts want and the ones you offer? This gap is the white space. Find your white space by identifying where you lack engagement within your accounts. Should you consider targeting different accounts? Eliminate the white space once you find the answers to these questions. Your goal should depend on the size of the company and the number of ICPs you are targeting.
Middle-of-Funnel Metrics
These metrics help measure the impact of your campaign on your top accounts. Are your target accounts having productive meetings and engagements with your sales team? Swiftly moving your leads to the sales team is an indicator of an effective ABM campaign. Also, you should measure the quality of the campaign based on how many leads move to the next stage of the funnel.
Bottom-of-Funnel Metrics
For the bottom-of-funnel metrics, measure average selling point (ASP) to gauge if you have targeted the right accounts with your campaign. If you have a higher close rate within your ABM accounts that means your campaign is performing well. As compared to other marketing strategies, ABM helps businesses increase their close rate.
Customer Churn Rate
The customer churn rate, also known as the attrition rate, is the number of accounts that have stopped doing business with you over a period. It should be as low as possible. It is a metric to measure the quality of the relationship you have with an account. ABM is a qualitative marketing strategy. If your churn rate is high, then reevaluate your products and services and confirm that you are targeting the right accounts. Understanding your target accounts better is the easiest way to decrease your churn rate.
Content Engagement
Content management is of paramount importance while running an ABM strategy. With this KPI, you can track the engagement each piece of content brings. The pieces that don’t perform well should be scrapped or improved to better suit the needs of your target accounts. Email open and click-through rates point towards ineffective subject lines, content, and CTAs.
Form Fills
Form fills are important for collecting data that helps with nurturing and engaging leads. Track your form fills to confirm if you are gathering information effectively. Adjust your campaign if you are not getting the expected results.
Conversions during the Customer Journey
A good way to show your customers that you care about them is to give them several opportunities to buy or sign up. It's important to keep track of the conversion rate for each CTA so that you can figure out where customers are losing interest in the sales process. Having this information will help you improve the customer journey.
Phone Calls and Scheduled Demos
Keeping a record of your phone calls and scheduled demonstrations is crucial to measuring your ABM success. You are creating a personal connection while interacting with the customer so they may take you closer to converting a deal.
Conversion Rate
Every ABM strategy’s aim is to drive sales and acquire new customers. As a metric, the B2B conversion rate is important because it helps you evaluate the success of your campaign and compare your performance to the previous year.
Customer Retention
Assess the health of your accounts by measuring customer satisfaction. A Net Promoter Score (NPS) can determine how satisfied your accounts are with your product or service. You can seek their feedback and use it to create better customer experiences and, in the future, design products and services to cater to their needs so you can retain your customers.
Average Deal Size
This KPI is primarily used by sales managers to understand how well they have utilized the opportunities that have come their way. It is calculated by dividing your total monetary amount of deals by the total number of deals that were converted. It can help the sales team understand what the average deal size is that they are looking at and what they can aim for.
Popular ABM Analytics Tools
The most popular and widely used ABM analytics tools are Microsoft Excel, LeanData, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Marketo, Engagio, DemandBase, and Terminus.
How ServiceMax Saw a 300% Increase in Their Conversions Using DemandBase
Using DemandBase’s Forms solution to collect user data, AI-powered DemandBase Site Optimization for data personalization, and DemandBase Analytics to understand traffic trends, bounce rates, conversion rates, and other critical website metrics, California-based Service Execution Management company ServiceMax, witnessed a 300 percent increase in their conversions, a 70 percent decrease in bounce rates, and a 100 percent increase in page views per session.
Key Takeaways
Measuring the success of your ABM strategy is crucial to understanding the strong and weak points of your strategy. A lot of trial and error goes into creating an effective ABM strategy. Define and measure your ABM KPIs to optimize your ABM strategy for better results.
FAQ
What are the most important ABM KPIs?
Some of the most important KPIs are upper funnel metrics, customer churn rate, and conversion rate.
What are some popular ABM analytics tools?
Popular ABM analytics tools include Salesforce, Google Analytics, Marketo, Engagio, DemandBase, and Terminus.
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Core ABM
Article | June 20, 2023
B2B markets are more competitive than ever. They’re crowded, commoditized, noisy, and everybody is trying to knock on the same doors. So how do you break through the cacophony?
The key is to not wait and reach out to your accounts with everyone else but to reach them when they are still early in the buyer’s journey. And that’s where leveraging intent data comes in.
With intent data, you can see who is showing interest in your company or your competitors before they respond to your marketing efforts through form fills for content downloads or event RSVPs. You can create orchestrated plays as soon as they are in-market when they are searching. So you can deliver fresh ideas based on knowledge and understanding of an account’s industry and unique business issues before everyone else.
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Core ABM
Article | February 22, 2022
Since the introduction of account-based marketing, B2B marketing has evolved. According to Forrester, as of 2025, "account-based marketing" will be overtaken by "account-centric marketing," which will be the way most B2B companies find, plan, manage, and measure purchase and post-sale actions.
A Brief
The marketing departments of multibillion-dollar corporations were early users of ABM. Over the years, they have made significant investments in their ABMprocesses and technologies. The exercise worked flawlessly for them. Their business circumstances made them ideal candidates for ABM, for instance lengthy sales cycles, high transaction sizes, and several decision-makers in purchasing committees. They have now realized that shooting in the dark and probably what sticks around is not the ideal method to develop a sustainable GTM process for their organizations. Moreover, they're debating whether to maintain their investment in inbound marketing methods and alternatively abandon it entirely!
On the other hand, smaller businesses are lagging behind in ABM implementation. They are aware that their existing spray and pray procedures are inefficient and require immediate improvement. They are powerless to ignore the continual buzz about the benefits of ABM and the larger good it may unlock for their firm. And yet, they are confused about how to begin. Additionally, they will learn how to integrate ABM into their current marketing processes. They exist in a perpetual state of contradiction, torn between the fear of missing out and the danger of prematurely disturbing the apple cart (the switch to ABM). Their meager marketing budgets and resources do little to aid them in decision-making.
As a result, marketing teams (large and small) are faced with a fundamental question: "Should I abandon inbound marketing methods in favor of ABM?"
The answer is a strict no! Both are essential.
Why Are Marketers Skeptical of the Efficacy of Inbound Marketing Strategies?
Current inbound B2B marketing practices are fragmented and generic, attracting the wrong types of leads. With a heterogeneous set of digital touchpoints, each with its own data silo, insights are dispersed throughout the organization, owing to multiple native dashboard management and data collectors.
What's behind the inbound demand funnel?
Inbound marketing is majorly concerned with attracting users or customers to your business's offerings. Three stages comprise the inbound funnel: attract, engage, and close. It enables marketers to communicate with each of these categories on a value-based basis. Things get muddled when there are a lot of digital touch points for inbound marketing strategies, like search engine optimization, social media marketing, digital and offline branding, and so on. This results in the decentralisation of insights. Marketers increase interaction through the use of social media and landing sites.
The sales team generates leads through email campaigns.
Client Relationship Managers respond to inquiries via automated content management systems.
Due to the dispersed nature of the touchpoints, the issue is ensuring that communications are consistent and personalized across the various account segments.
What's behind the ABM funnel?
Identify: Identify the accounts that most closely match your company's ideal customer profile criteria.
Engage: Use personalized and specialized content to reach out to and nurture those accounts, and urge them into conversion.
Establish and Expand: Attract new customers and uncover possibilities to expand existing accounts through a variety of customer marketing methods such as cross-sell, upsell, and retention.
ABM & Inbound Marketing - the Convergence of the Funnels
A common misunderstanding is that an ABM funnel and an inbound funnel are opposed. ABM and inbound marketing are not mutually exclusive strategies. Indeed, they complement one another. Both are facets of the same coin.
B2B marketers use ABM and inbound demand generation to have maximum impact. These two tactics combine to create a new funnel known as the "dual funnel." The dual funnel strategy entails maintaining a high-volume demand generation funnel in addition to a highly targeted account-based funnel. Both funnels function in tandem to engage a target demographic with a high level of intent and an inclination to buy.
This dual funnel strategy enables the identification of target accounts and the provision of tailored experiences through account-based approaches.
In a mature ABM program, marketers keep an eye on target accounts, retire underperforming ones, and replace them with new high-intent clients found and qualified through the inbound demand generation funnel, which is how they find and qualify new clients.
Conclusion:
When these two procedures are integrated, inbound marketing successfully generates leads. Additionally, account-based marketing focuses on customizing and delivering one-on-one messages and engagements to target accounts. Optimize your inbound marketing approach to generate the highest quality leads across all channels. When you set up your ABM funnel, only use it to get the most qualified leads. Then, use it for highly personalised and targeted marketing.
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