Account Based Data
Article | August 19, 2022
Account mapping is the process of identifying and structuring your target accounts, as well as the important individuals within them, for your ABM strategy. This stage comes after you've established the objective of your ABM strategy. After you've chosen and sorted your target accounts, you can develop a communication and engagement strategy to influence them.
Account Mapping for B2B Marketing
For B2B marketers like you, account mapping comes in handy to gain insights into the budget cycles of target accounts. This helps your marketing teams run their campaigns based on the time of year where customers are more likely to have the budget to spend on new solutions. Apart from this, once you identify target personas and buyer personas relevant to your ABM strategy, your marketing campaigns can precisely target these personas. As a result, your campaigns will be relevant and successful and can bring you the conversions you desire.
Effective Account Mapping for ABM Success
While mapping account for ABM strategy, you need to follow these four crucial steps:
Identify the Target Account’s Key Decision-makers and Influencers
Target accounts with department structures are usually complex and have multiple influencers. The larger the company and the account, the more difficult it is to identify the decision makers or the buying group committee that makes the purchase decisions. Collecting contacts, documenting details, and understanding the buyer roles and responsibilities of these decision makers is the first step. Once you get this information, create a visual map of the decision markers for your team and the sales teams so your targeting strategies align.
Investigate Your Target Account’s Critical Pain Points
Gather information on the key accounts and stakeholders in the target account. Determine their requirements, pain points, challenges, and frustration. Discovery calls, search intent, social listening, Google Alerts, and press releases are some ways to find out this information. You can also engage ABM platforms and solutions providers to get deep insights into the account and the group of decision-makers. You should closely collaborate with sales so they can share insights on the challenges customers and prospects share with them. Once you have all the data you need on the target account’s pain points, move to the next step: designing a content strategy to address these pain points with solid solutions.
Develop Content and Messages that Appeal to Decision Makers
Find the right channels to approach decision makers; determine what time of the day or what days of the week they prefer to connect; and when they are likely to consume content on a particular channel. After you find this information, you know when and where to connect with them and how to engage them in a productive conversation.
Create Content and Messaging that Aligns with the Decision Makers
Each person in the decision-making group (buying group committee) may consume content differently. You need to tailor your content to target each of the decision makers to influence their buying decisions. You might not need to create all the content from scratch. Repurposing existing content in a relevant way can save you time, money, and effort. However, you need to make sure that your content is convincing enough to influence the buying decisions of the buying committee members.
Final Thoughts
Account mapping is vital for ABM success and to maintain market competitiveness. It helps you determine who the decision makers are in your target account, so you can build the right communication plan and content to convert the account into a long-term customer.
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Core ABM
Article | June 20, 2023
The disruption from 2020 has forced many companies across different industries and verticals to improve their digital potential, including technology adoption. Among the industries, account-based marketing practitioners had to adapt to change in 2020 – and fast because it created a host of challenges in B2B. Industries and businesses had to find the right technologies that allow growth, as companies now have to operate in the only digital world.
But, even in the time of uncertainty, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has gained traction. This is good news for enterprise tech vendors. Gartner estimates that expenditure on technology will rebound in 2021, with the enterprise software market predicted to surge by 7.2%. This seems to be a year of growth, improvement, and success for those organizations deploying account-based marketing as part of their B2B strategy.
In addition, one of the global data leaders, Acxiom, has experienced rapid sales growth from its technologically blended ABM program. Before considering a fully technology-based ABM strategy for 2021, it is crucial to understand how technologies fuel ABM growth.
Technologies are Fueling ABM Growth
Well, it's easy to understand and see how and why the technology-fuelled revival of ABM is taking hold. Let's see where B2B marketers are gaining profits. They are :
Driving improved deals, higher close rates, and earning more revenue
Winning strategic accounts in their industries
Getting higher ROI
Reaping benefits from additional marketing strategies
The 2019 State of ABM study by SiriusDecisions validates this trend in ABM results in:
91% of the B2B companies realizing larger deals by adopting technology in ABM.
92% seeing a higher percentage of qualified opportunities in ABM accounts than in non-ABM accounts.
More B2B marketers are moving towards tech-enabled ABM programs, where it was 62% in 2020 compared to 40% in 2018.
ABM in the overall marketing budget of companies surging rapidly.
With the rise in internet usage, which accelerated digital marketing, it was challenging to understand individual behavior. Now, marketers are empowered with account-centric targeting, measurement, and personalization across all their digital channels. Because marketers dedicate more budget to their ABM programs by upgrading technology stacks. It plays a significant role in making ABM scalable.
So, explore the critical technology trends propelling ABM today and shaping its future for marketing purposes in this blog.
How much does your tech stack matter?
The most influential tech marketing programs invest more in data, insight, and analytics. And that's because you have no hope of successfully engaging with your target accounts.
Despite the rapid acceleration of digital transformation in 2020, few organizations already have a mature tech stack. 25-39% of them used it for content syndication, sales automation, evaluation as third-party data, and reporting software.
By this, you must have understood that investing in technologies or technology that is attributing results supporting your ABM efforts is essential. But this doesn't mean the more tech you have, the more successful you will be. It's more a case of having the proper fundamentals (tech-wise) in place that deliver value.
Likewise, other tech fundamentals like intent data fully functioning (and ABM-ready) CRM are perhaps the most important tech pieces to have in place. They are listed under the top planned investments for 2021.
Here are five tech trends for ABM that will make a tangible difference in your business.
Automation Reduces Risks
To execute account-based marketing, marketers need to introduce automation to engage accounts through a handful of channels. Marketers can engage all the named accounts of the sales team and their long tail of target accounts through automation. This allows the marketing team to create demand in the accounts they're pursuing and alleviate the risk of putting all sales requirements in one place. This is possible by continuous demand generation through different channels, probably the less expensive ones (and alerting accounts from time to time to decrease the risk of missing out).
This way, your business will witness a more consistent and coordinated engagement of accounts between sales and marketing. So, ABM automation is a crucial aspect in reducing risks.
AI Introduces Personalized Customer Understanding
Businesses are witnessing the transformational impact of AI throughout the process, particularly in marketing. While marketers can easily get started with ABM by targeting a list of accounts, AI puts more power enabling them to confidently and precisely identify the accounts to pursue.
With AI, marketers can get their ideal customer profile (ICP) at a granular level. Tech-savvy marketers are using AI to analyze their historical sales and implement new strategies to achieve more in the coming years. In other words, AI helps marketers to leverage more information significantly from both internal and external sources to draw more precise models for their ideal customers.
AI is also enhancing engagement. According to The State of Engagement, 72% of marketers are expected to prioritize personalized messages and content to engage with customers. Nearly 40% of marketers plan to leverage AI and machine learning to enhance content used throughout the customer journey. So, through AI, marketers can personalize communications in a one-to-one way. This way, they can predict the content that most likely to convert readers across multiple channels.
As marketers continue to realize the potential of AI, you will see more rules-based ABM activities that AI enhances. This way, your marketers can efficiently target the proper accounts, engage accounts across channels to get insights to optimize programs.
Advanced Analytics Provide Attribution
Is your ABM strategy working? One way to find out this is by measuring its impact on the business through advanced analytics. With automated attribution reporting, marketers can find more opportunities, a longer pipeline of accounts, and higher revenue generation in the ABM context.
But why? Here are three reasons:
Marketers need to show that their partnership with sales to the target audience is working efficiently.
Advanced analytics will allow you to compare the efforts and results of one account vs. another to optimize the ABM program.
Most marketers plan multiple or blended marketing strategies. So, marketers running an ABM or practicing a blend of it, such as inbound marketing, need to know which investments are working. Advanced analytics can help them to allocate a budget for strategies being used for their business.
Therefore, it is expected to witness more touchpoints and data brought into advanced analytics becoming increasingly easier for marketers to consume in the future.
Chatbots' Demand in ABM
As per Salesforce, 69% of U.S. consumers prefer using chatbots when engaging with brands as it yields a prompt response.
A chatbot on your website can answer customers' basic questions every time. AI-powered chatbots can be used for customer support, expanding contact strategy dramatically with a controlled message. These chatbots have become so lifelike that many customers don't even know the difference. And chatbots offer the added benefit of gathering, analyzing, and providing actionable data to improve the customer experience.
How Can Marketers Harness This Potential?
As per SiriusDecisions' survey, more marketers are doubling their budgets and moving their ABM journey effortlessly. So, irrespective of where you are on your journey, you also need to make sure you always move ahead.
When it's time to include technology, be sure to select an ABM platform that supports your marketing journey now and in the future, as well. This means it should support multiple channels and marketing strategies, giving the flexibility to adapt and discover what works best for your organization.
Conclusively, look for a platform that can serve as the hub of your ABM technology stack. The ablest place to start is from a platform that will give you the ABM essentials and connect a wide range of technologies to encourage you to grow over time. This way, you can shape your future in account-based marketing in the best possible ways.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ABM work?
Identifying which accounts (companies) you can target is the first step after creating a buyer persona. The next step is to market them using campaigns to attract potential clients. And then, measure the activities of your account-based marketing campaigns. Metrics, such as clicks, impressions, and page views, are easily measured.
Why is account-based marketing important?
ABM helps to assemble marketing efforts through multi-channels and analyses key accounts' status to drive more revenue. It also maximizes the efficiency of your B2B marketing resources and aligns sales accordingly.
How is AI used in ABM?
AI solutions in ABM can help the marketing team to make firm data-based decisions faster than before. The usage of chatbots helps to answer many common questions about marketing efforts and benefits. Also, AI tools can be used to track intent data as well.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | September 11, 2023
ABM implementation may be commonplace in the B2B domain, but the application of fundamental ABM concepts is not consistent. This inconsistency can impact the success of an ABM strategy. So, how can you ensure the success of your ABM?
Follow these four simple steps:
Look for Potential in Target Accounts
Your sales team must investigate the target accounts' potential. The sales team must act confidently when a buying group becomes active. Your team should build relationships with unengaged buying groups. This helps inspire new buying initiatives. It may also increase the buying group's proactivity.
Go Beyond the Lead-based Approach
Your sales and marketing teams must move past their lead-based approach for ABM to work properly. Leads alone won't deliver the desired impact and may even have negative effects. Sales management must understand the subtleties and motivate change in mindsets and processes.
Participate in Buying Group Marketing
Your sales team needs better group and individual monitoring technologies to implement buying group marketing to ABM. Quality purchase intent data can provide insights into the behavior of target account individuals. Appropriate intent data can show which solutions and purchase-related topics resonate with each buyer. Your team can then create better tactics and outreach.
Upgrade Your Sales Approaches
Present a high-value offer (HVO) that combines insights into the buying group's needs and interests, as well as their business. Address the challenges that you are facing in ABM execution with this HVO. Bring together your marketing, sales, and account executives to chalk out relevant processes, roles, and responsibilities.
With an Empowered Sales Team, Your ABM Engagement Rises
An enabled sales team can help you drive improved revenue from a defined set of target accounts if it has the right approach and flexibility to optimize its processes and responsibilities.
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Article | April 13, 2020
Intent is an indicator that an account is interested in a certain topic, based on the content consumption of people within an organization. I know that sounds a bit abstract, so let’s look at how it actually works. Let’s say that Gio is looking at some content on marketing attribution. Gio is a Marketing Operations Specialist at Whale Enterprises, and he’s considering buying some new software. Gio’s research is creating intent data that can be tracked by intent providers, who can then let marketing attribution providers know that Whale Enterprises is showing intent to buy a marketing attribution solution.
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