How to kickstart your Account Based Marketing strategy

Core ABM

Article | June 20, 2023

Buyer intent data is sourced from either internal or external parties. When combined, it provides a comprehensive picture of how your targets behave online. Internal marketing teams provide first-party intent data through your company's website, automation platforms like CRM, or other in-house applications. Third-party data is gathered from buyer intent data tools. According to a Gartner study, more than 70% of B2B marketers will use third-party intent data to target prospects by the end of 2022. In an interview with Media 7, Laura Goldstone, Director, Communications and Branding Strategy at AdDaptive Intelligence, talked about the importance of correct messaging in sales and marketing once you know your audience. “I think the newest trends revolve around being a strategic resource, aligning marketing and sales, and using analytics to tailor messages to your audiences’ preferences or funnel stages.” Buyer intent data tools provided by intent data providers like Bombora, Slintel, and ZoomInfo collect high-quality intent data to help you identify the accounts that show buyer intent, making it easier for you to understand their requirements and deliver solutions through effective content. Let's find out how intent data can help your ABM strategy by making sales easier. Buyer Intent Data: 5 Impactful Ways It Can Help You Boost Sales Let us look at five benefits of buyer intent data that can help you boost sales: Create Effective Content In ABM marketing, the marketing team supports the sales team by generating qualified leads through effective content that addresses the prospects’ needs. There are more than a billion websites competing for a prospect’s attention. Focusing more on engaging your intended audience than on your search rankings could translate to more sales. This B2B intent data will allow your marketing team to analyze the volume and quality of responses to various online 'triggers' like keywords and social engagement. This way, the marketing team eliminates the guesswork in analytics and content research. B2B intent data can assist your marketing team in its intent-based marketing endeavors. The team can develop hyper-personalized, relevant, and timely content that can be used in your sales process to engage with new leads. Identify Buyer Groups In the B2B domain, multiple decision-makers sign off on purchase decisions. Your key accounts might have buyer groups, and this may pose a problem for your sales strategy. You will need to appeal to multiple personas who will then make unanimous decisions when purchasing your products or services. When combined with accurate, up-to-date contact information, intent data can assist in segmenting the purchasing process into relevant stages. Buying intent is useful not only for tracking and analyzing individual target prospects, but also for tracking and analyzing entire organizations. Overall, sales teams can craft perfect messages for any target persona that crosses their path, thanks to quality intent data. Improve Lead Qualification After your sales and marketing teams have developed an ideal lead generation strategy, you'll want to target leads with purchase intent. The majority of leads generated may not completely align with your ICP (ideal customer profile). If your product or service isn't even remotely relevant to what they're looking for, an automation system that is a part of your ABM services can remove them from your lead list. By delving into their product research activities, using intent data in lead management and outreach helps remove some of these roadblocks. It is critical to have a nurturing system in place and implement a lead scoring process. Intent data reveals where these leads fall within your segmentation, how interested they are in your solutions, and how their purchasing process works, so your effort or time is not wasted. Increase Customer Retention The same buyer intent technology that is used to find new prospects and customers can also be used for customer retention. According to Brain and Company, a 5% increase in customer retention can result in a more than 25% increase in profit. Monitoring intent signals can help you identify when a current customer interacts with a competitor or looks for alternatives to your product. It allows you to engage with them earlier and provides you with another opportunity to maintain your customer relationships. Boost Team Productivity According to HubSpot research, 40% of salespeople say prospecting is the most difficult part of their job. Buyer intent data eliminates prospecting (such as connecting on LinkedIn, getting past the gatekeeper, and sourcing emails), which results in more sales for your company. The most effective buyer intent software solutions can provide not only company-level intent information but also contact information for key decision-makers (all whilst complying with GDPR rules). This means your sales team can get right to the point and use the most up-to-date business intelligence to engage in more conversations with the right prospects. B2B intent data keeps your sales team on top of their game by allowing them to analyze and comprehend prospects on a more granular level. Cloudera Generated over 30 Significant Business Deals Using Intent Data Cloudera, an enterprise management company, harnessed intent data from Bombora and Just Global to run a hyper-targeted account-based marketing strategy across its sales, advertising, and marketing teams. As a result, it generated over thirty significant business deals. Conclusion B2B buyer intent data can help you boost sales by accurately identifying target accounts that show buyer intent. Using buyer intent tools that give clean intent data can help your sales team generate revenue and scale your business. FAQ How does intent data help with sales? With the help of intent data, your sales team can target and qualify leads swiftly and accurately as it provides all the crucial background information on the leads. Accurate targeting translates to more conversions and sales. Where does the intent data come from? Intent data is usually provided by third-party data providers through buyer intent data tools. These tools collect intent data from data-sharing points like B2B websites, media publishers, and other relevant sources. How is intent data beneficial for improving an account-based marketing strategy? With the help of intent data, you can personalize your website, focus on your inbound leads with respect to their engagement with your content, nurture leads with email marketing, and identify prospective customers who haven’t engaged with you yet. These factors can enhance your ABM strategy.

Buyer Intent Data

Article | March 6, 2023

The only constant thing about account-based marketing (ABM) is its evolution. ABM goes beyond plain sales and marketing. It is a strategic and dynamic approach to marketing. It influences B2B buyers who are savvy, digitally native, and educated buying committee members who are otherwise difficult to target, let alone convert. ABM has evolved from pure one-to-one ABM to one-to-few and one-to-many. We know how ABM is now ABX, which harnesses intent data and programmatic advertising for better results. Consider a company that wants to implement account-based marketing on its key accounts. If every aspect of this organization revolves around the needs, demands, and requirements of its key accounts, it becomes an account-centric enterprise. In the first part of this article, we will discuss how an account-based approach on an organizational level can enhance your ABM strategy and help you create relationships that deliver mutual value and growth. Building an Account-Centric Organization Transforming an entire organization into an account-centric one is overall an eight-step process. Let us look at the first four: Two-fold Approach: Check Your Foundation Examine your foundation before implementing an account-based strategy. Ensure that your tech stack is optimum and that the right employees handle the right responsibilities. Secure the internal buy-in needed to get your ABM program up and running. Adaption: Make Your Changes Eventually Make changes to your current strategy only when required and over time. It is unnecessary to completely revamp your organization to align it with your ABM efforts. Ideally, make changes based on your performance. Always focus on the target account so all your teams— demand generation, events, sales, and marketing teams— will have the mindset to target your ICP. The correct approach is to enhance your processes as you go. Awareness: Train and Educate Your Teams Your entire team should live and breathe ABM. Align your sales and marketing teams. Other teams should match their processes to best suit the target accounts’ needs. Train and educate your teams, so they can easily adapt to new ABM processes and don’t feel blind-sided. Analysis: Data Matters a Great Deal Understand your data. Constantly review, acknowledge, and adjust your processes based on the data at hand. Then, support it with the knowledge of your salespeople. Get their input and advice on which accounts to engage with for optimal results. Then, bring them into the decision-making process for outstanding results. It’s a Process Building an account-centric organization requires time and commitment. In the next part of this article, we will discuss important aspects that impact and govern the success of your ABM strategy. Stay tuned to read the next part of the article.

Programmatic ABM

Article | June 9, 2022

The pandemic has changed the marketing world to a great extent. Customers have tremendously adapted to online buying. The pandemic has forced B2B customers to adapt to new ways of buying and selling. Customers are ready for online meetings and connecting digitally as far as the buying approach is concerned. The only thing that matters to them is that the solutions should answer their hurdles or challenges like personalization and strategizing marketing so But for the selling process, B2B marketing strategies needed creativity. Companies had to put their heads together to convince a buyer through conversations on digital platforms. It was not easy. But B2B companies have taken up the challenge and managed to come out with flying colors. Let us look at the changed scenario of B2B marketing. The Changed Scenario for B2B Marketing In 2020, when the world came to a standstill, people expected it was just a break, and they might return to their lives in no time. But this myth was busted when people had to adopt the new normal instead of going back to normal. Every industry faced challenges, including the B2B industry. Imagine the industry, which had the habit of meeting decision-makers and convincing them with presentations, had to do all the work digitally. But they found solutions after some months of struggles, and the businesses were back on track. Of course, there were difficulties on the way, but they answered every obstacle with time. B2B marketing best ideas include account-based marketing, conversational ABM, personalized campaigns, correct use of data, and more. These paved a path for successful B2B marketing amidst the pandemic. Thus, learning from them, we have curated a list of tips for successful B2B marketing. Tips for Successful B2B Marketing These best ways to market B2B are listed after diving deep into the struggles of B2B marketing. The experts of this area have experienced hurdles and implemented these solutions. Have a Buyer-centric Approach In an interview with Media7, Dmitry Chervonyi, Chief Marketing Officer at Belkins, stated that, “If you don't solve your customers' problems and make their lives better, then it is a waste of time to do this kind of business.” So, you understand how essential the customer is! These days it is more about the customer than about sales. Therefore, you must have a 360-degree alignment with the customer’s needs and preferences. Through this, you have better chances of conversion. Take Risks The market is very unpredictable post the pandemic. The companies that you thought may not require your service can be the ones changing the game. So, do not refrain from taking risks. First, of course, calculate the risks, but they take them. For example, before the pandemic, some businesses may have invested massive resources in digital marketing. As a result, they might not see the results immediately. But meanwhile, the pandemic erupted, and Boom! They were the only ones who survived in the market. Thus, the results of a calculated risk may be harmful or positive, but you either earn profits or learn something valuable from it! Implement ABM If you are a B2B marketer and have not implemented ABM in your marketing strategy, you need to do it immediately. Account-based marketing has the best conversion rate compared to the traditional methods. And this is the best strategy to be implemented post the pandemic. The reason is that companies have various challenges and need immediate solutions. Thus, if you filter the best clients, address their struggles, and target them, they will waste no time in approaching your sales team. But this is possible only when you design the best ABM strategy. Click here to know more about account-based marketing for B2B. Have an Agile Approach Clive Armitage, CEO at Agent3, believes that, “We have to act as the eyes and ears of marketing innovation for our clients; they trust us to help them navigate the pace of change in the way that the process of marketing is evolving.” It means that Agent3 changes its strategies and services as per the clients and market demands. They also keep the clients in the loop of the changes and innovations happening in the market. Thus, have an agile approach. Be ready to change your marketing growth strategies and plans according to the conditions around you. Be Future Ready The example set by the rental car company Hertz shows how future-ready they are with their latest investment. Despite their business being affected by the pandemic, it resurfaced itself through trusted investors. But instead of following the age-old techniques of rental cars, they ordered 100,000 Teslas to electrify its fleet. Not only did Tesla’s shares hit sky-high but, Hertz was all over the news. This critical investment defines how Hertz is making itself future-ready as it knows the future is electric cars. This example explains how important it is to invest for the future, considering the changing customer demands. Hence, implementing the latest technologies like AI and machine learning in marketing campaigns can make you future-ready. Plus they also create a great impression in the mind of the customers. And We Conclude Remember, marketing is all about understanding your customers and delivering what they want. Once you know your customers, you have hit the bull’s eye. So hit targets by taking risks, investing in technology, and developing a personalized approach. And most importantly, adapt to the changing world to thrive in it! Frequently Asked Questions How to identify a successful B2B marketing plan? Analyze your marketing performance Perform competitor analysis Define your marketing goals Identify your marketing budget Implement the latest B2B marketing trends How successful is ABM strategy in B2B marketing? Account-based marketing guarantees a better conversion than traditional marketing methods. Plus, it is one of the most trending strategies in B2B marketing. As a result, companies have saved many resources and fulfilled their sales targets by incorporating account-based marketing. Does ABM guarantee a 100% success rate? Well, ABM guarantees a success rate that may be not 100% but surely more than any other marketing strategy. 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Article | April 15, 2020

Understanding how a B2B buyer’s journey naturally progresses is key to designing a digital marketing program that works in any economic climate. When we do this with our clients, it allows us to see their marketing as a whole, rather than looking at isolated marketing tactics and getting overly focused on minor issues. Once we understand what’s already working for a client, we can then apply an informed strategy to amplify their successes. Occasionally, we may also recommend that a client step back from a few marketing tactics that might not be working well enough.