Buyer Intent Data
Article | March 6, 2023
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
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How does ABM work?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "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."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Who uses Account-Based Marketing?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "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."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Does account-based marketing work?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "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."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How to use ABM?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "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"
}
}]
}
Read More
Buyer Intent Data
Article | June 20, 2023
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.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How are account-based marketing stats measured?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Marketers use close rates when required to measure ABM efforts. Typically, the stats are gained
by 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."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What are good ABM metrics?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "The good ABM metrics are:
Marketing-qualified accounts
Real engagement of account
Velocity of Pipeline
Average selling price
Customer engagement rate"
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "Why should we measure account-based marketing stats?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "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."
}
}]
}
Read More
Account Based Data
Article | June 29, 2023
This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.
You can’t work in the marketing industry these days without constant talk of data. Data-driven marketing. Big data. Marketing analytics. Facebook is worth more than $650 billion, and it’s not because cat pics and grilled cheese sandwich selfies are so valuable. It’s because Facebook is just a big ol’ bag of user data.
But I must admit and you might find yourself in the same boat using data doesn’t come naturally to me. I work in marketing because I’m a creative, not a statistician.
If you feel the same way, here is an analogy that changed my mind. I was interviewing Wharton’s Peter Fader and Sarah Toms. We were discussing how Electronic Arts used data to improve the product. “When they realized the power of the data that Pete was just talking about, they had a bit of a crisis about identity. They're like, ‘but we're a creative company. How can we now be all data, all the time?’” Toms said.
Zach Anderson, the chief analytics officer at Electronic Arts, won over those creative hearts and minds with this analogy: Cooking competitions shows where the chefs are doing incredibly creative things with ingredients that are given to them.
So data is really just another ingredient you have at your disposal as you make your creative take on a classic matzoh ball soup or marketing campaign.
“Data is actually a good thing that they should be embracing because it allows them to be even more creative,” Toms said.
So with that approach in mind, let’s look at a few examples of using data as a force for the good while improving marketing results.
Example #1: Focused view of data helps nonprofit that sells through ecommerce identify the best opportunity for revenue increase
Data can quickly become overwhelming. So many numbers. How do you find the opportunity?
TenbyThree© is a nonprofit that actually sells products. The charity sells baskets created by artisans in rural communities of developing countries to help the artisans pull themselves out of extreme poverty.
And it had a whole lot going on with its team pulled in many directions. Where to focus? That focus because particularly important with the rise of COVID-19.
TenbyThree mostly sold these baskets in brick-and-mortar locations like Whole Foods Market, Disney theme parks and specialty retailers. But with the pandemic came a massive drop in foot traffic and thus sales, so the nonprofit has tried to increase ecommerce sales through its website.
The MECLABS Institute team (parent organization of MarketingSherpa) worked with TenbyThree to determine where to focus its conversion optimization discoveries.
This data analysis uncovered an opportunity hidden in plain sight product tags. Each basket sold in stores had a tag with information on how to connect with the individual artisan who created the basket by going to TenbyThree’s website.
Very few customers were using this feature. If the tags could be optimized to get more people to use the website’s artisan lookup feature, that increase in traffic would also likely help produce an increase in sales through the website.
In The Marketer as Philosopher Episode 2, The Data Pattern Analysis: 3 ways to turn info into insight you can see the methodical approach used to uncover this data insight to help you identify more opportunities in your own data. The episode also teaches viewers how to use a Data Pattern Analysis Tool (you can download the tool for free here).
To get more data help, you can participate in a Live Coaching Session with Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute, on Thursday, August 20th 2020, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT. In this Q&A session, participants will learn how to set up and use the Data Pattern Analysis Tool, simplify their data with three key dials, and apply the principles of The Marketer as Philosopher: Episode 2 to their own company.
Example #2: Targeted database helps tent maker pivot
It would be an understatement to say that COVID-19 has forced businesses to make significant changes. We’re all living it, we all know the impact.
But some changes are more difficult than others. When that change is to focus on a new ideal customer, it can be difficult to pivot quickly. Many companies have built their customer base and customer contacts over many years.
This is where external data can be helpful.
For example, TentCraft sells tents to event producers for concerts. But the events industry halted worldwide in March. While the team always knew they were too narrowly focused on just one industry and should diversify the business, they never got around to acting on it.
But as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
Suddenly they needed to pivot their entire go-to-market approach and find a new target customer quickly. The team came up with the idea to turn concert tents into drive-thru COVID-19 testing facilities, but they never sold to hospitals and didn’t know any hospital administrators.
The team looked for a way to quickly enter a new market without increasing overhead. They worked with ZoomInfo to get data and insights for hospitals and other healthcare systems.
They used the company and contact search to quickly execute a layered approach. The marketing team would start with a broader approach to outreach building an outreach list of 2,000 to 3,000 contacts. Based on open rates, responses and conversations, they learned not only about the specific roles they should be targeting but also what their pain points were.
The sales team would use this information to create a more targeted outreach list of 100 to 200 contacts and then tailor messaging and visuals to demonstrate how TentCraft could address the specific pain points.
The click-to-open rate for the broader emails ranged from 15% to 28% while the more targeted lists typically ranged from 35% to 45% with a handful nearing 60%. Keep in mind, when you see those numbers, that this was all cold outreach.
Because they had phone numbers, job titles and location data, the marketing team was able to supply this information to the sales team in real-time when emails were being opened and links being clicked. This helped the teams prioritize, move to conversation quicker and shorten the sales cycle.
Over $600,000 in revenue disappeared in March alone, but during the first two months of this pivot the company booked more than $2 million in revenue, and April was the biggest revenue month in company history (during a pandemic with the core revenue shut off). They are now 12% ahead of last year’s pace. In the first month of the pivot, they went into contract with more than 100 healthcare facilities which, remember, is an industry the tent maker had no prior experience with.
This pivot was reactive. And while it has worked out thus far, the mindset in the company has now changed.
“A big takeaway for our team is that we need to always be pivoting to new markets, new products, features and partners. That means pairing speed and agility with execution,” said Matt Bulloch, President, TentCraft.
Example #3: Test data shows the benefits of value sequencing for HR software
There may be many elements of appeal in your company’s value proposition. But your customer may not be ready to receive them all at once. That’s why effective value sequencing is so important.
Where in the customer journey should the customer be introduced to different elements of your company’s value? Data can help show you the way.
David Richter wanted to use marketing data to discover how to position his company’s brand and the messaging used at each stage of the marketing funnel.
Richter works for CIPHR, a software platform that serves HR departments. “It’s a crowded market, and in any one year we find ourselves competing with upwards of fifty different vendors. In terms of functionality, it’s incredibly rare that any one provider has a distinctive edge over the entirety of the market. If functionality does get developed that is a game changer, then it’s quickly replicated by other similar providers,” said Richter, Director of Marketing, CIPHR.
The one thing that sets CIPHR apart, according to Richter, is its attitude to integrating its people management platform with specialist, third-party tools. Since larger competitors have strategically acquired complementary businesses, they are less incented to integrate with third-party tools they don’t own, Richter says.
However, Richter had concerns about leading with this “connectivity” in marketing communications.
“Connectivity is the USP (unique selling proposition) that CIPHR has hung our hat on in our marketplace and the position we want to build a strong brand around,” he said. “The trouble is that, at the initial point of engagement, most HR professionals, when looking for an HR system, aren’t thinking about what it can integrate with.”
Including terms like “API” or “integration” in subject lines cut the HR SaaS platform’s email open rate in half. Approximately two-thirds of all sales leads are generated through CIPHR’s website, so getting the messaging optimized for conversion is essential.
To prove to the senior leadership that CIPHR should tailor the focus of its messaging through each stage of the sales cycle, Richter’s team decided to try different messaging on various landing pages on the website. The landing pages were only used for PPC traffic from the same, exact match keywords with the same ads displayed to generate the click.
Landing page headline #1 — Generic HR Software with benefits message, e.g., “HR Software that reduces admin and helps you to work more efficiently,” converts traffic to inquiry at 14.1%.
Landing page headline #2 — HR Software with connectivity message, e.g., “HR Software with brilliant connectivity,” converts traffic to inquiry at 10.2%.
Landing page headline #3 — Connectivity message with no mention of HR Software, e.g., “Connect your people data throughout your organization,” converts traffic to inquiry at 6.4%.
Armed with this data, CIPHR’s leadership is now happy to lead with relevant, product and benefit-led messaging on the website (pre-engagement) that positions connectivity as the differentiator. “We now also have a strong lead nurturing campaign to educate leads about the benefits of connectivity,” Richter said.
Example #4: Online meditation school’s A/B testing on blog doubles student enrollment rate
If you engage in A/B testing, you can learn from real customer behavior to serve your customers better while improving results. Here’s an example.
“In building our platform, we have seen immense success from using a data-driven approach for most of our marketing decisions,” said Kyle Greenfield, Founder, TheJoyWithin.org. “One example is how we used Google Optimize testing combined with heatmap and flow data from Hotjar to improve our blog layout.”
The online school for meditation, happiness, and personal empowerment discovered that less than 1% of blog readers were signing up for a free meditation course. The bounce rate was between 79-81% even though most readers were spending three to five minutes on the site.
The team tested two elements of the blog's layout the sidebar and one inline internal ad placement.
The team tested a new approach to be more direct about different options new students have on the platform. They moved away from a banner ad with the headline “Discover a Clear, Modern Path to Bliss” coupled with a list of potential benefits. The new approach was a direct question to the user, asking “How Can We Help?” coupled with a one-sentence explanation of what was offered, and three possible paths: “learn how to meditate,” “increase my happiness,” and “manifest my dream life.”
They tested different variations of this idea, and ultimately found that making the message clearer and more direct, with fewer graphics and design elements, resulted in better conversion.
This change was combined with testing of the placement of the inline ad. It began as a top-line insert before the post. But the team discovered that users were more engaged when the ad was placed a few paragraphs into the blog post. The previous data informed this decision, since the team knew users were already reading the content and scrolling down the page.
With this change, the team was able to more than double student enrollment rates and reduce bounce rate by 12.5%, to 70%.
Example #5: Incubator generates 300 leads to help the fight against hunger
For marketers looking to do good in the world, sometimes they overlook a data basic your website should have a landing page with the ability to capture data from those interested in helping the cause.
For example, Not Impossible Labs (NIL) describes itself as a one-of-a-kind technology incubator and content studio dedicated to changing the world and making the impossible possible for individuals faced with a range of problems (what it calls “absurdities”).
Most recently, NIL tackled the absurdity of hunger, made all the more pressing by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, NIL began working with Salesforce and Postmates on a prototype platform to feed insecure people at scale. The incubator created a text-based service that connects people in need of food with pre-paid, nutritious, to-go meals from nearby restaurants. A child or family in need of food can text “hungry” and the solution connects them with nearby restaurants with extra food that would likely go to waste.
In March of 2020 when the pandemic hit the United States, NIL was in the midst of deploying programs across the country to serve some of the 42 million people, of which 15.9 million are children, who go hungry each year.
How did they make it possible or should I say, not impossible to fight hunger? A marketing landing page.
Verndale and Sitecore offered pro bono help to create a landing page on the site to capture information from visitors in a form connected to a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to store the data.
“We kept everything simple, from messaging and experience design, to providing several frictionless pathways to get involved. More conversion points created more opportunities to engage,” said Ross Lucivero, Manager Director of Verndale's Los Angeles office.
NIL was able to gather data on approximately 300 leads who were ready to give, partner, spread the word, nominate a new city or get involved in their local community.
“The newfound capability to capture individual leads as well as scale our ability to re-engage audiences is a game-changer,” said Joseph Babarsky, Director of Strategy & Partnerships, Not Impossible Labs.
That re-engagement relies on the ability to have the data about who has visited the landing page previously and then present another marketing message to them a call-to-action on the Not Impossible homepage for those who have visited the Hunger campaign page but had not converted through a form submission or donation. “This customized prompt re-engages informed visitors and drives them back to the campaign environment to take action,” said Liz Spranzani, EVP of Technology, Verndale.
“If you have an open mind the seemingly impossible can become possible. You can see this proven time and again through the work Not Impossible Labs has done to help individuals with a range of disabilities and, of course, with their hunger project,” said Paige O’Neill, CMO, Sitecore.
Example #6: The inner workings of a customer review site
Most discussions I’ve seen about data use in marketing focuses on categorizing how the data is collected. First-party data is collected by the company itself, and third-party data is sold to you by a company that aggregates data from many other companies.
In addition to how data is collected, you should also consider how customers experience data. I would categorize that data in two ways data you control and data you don’t.
The data you control might be in your advertising or your website, like “Nine out of ten dentists recommend Brusha Brusha toothbrushes.”
The data you don’t control can be shared in the press or social media, and especially on review sites. One example is a site called Best Company.
“The entire mission of Best Company is to harness data to improve the decision-making process for consumers across several industries. As a company, we believe we are changing the world for good by empowering consumers to make the best possible decisions with their money. We are a truly independent and impartial review site, promising accurate rankings and honest reviews and refusing to reward unmerited ranks for money,” said Rebecca Graham, Content Manager, Best Company.
What this means for your company is that customers’ product and service experience is also part of your marketing. The more you can control and optimize the experience, the more you can optimize this type of data for your brand. “When reviews are available for all to see, companies practicing business with high value and integrity will naturally emerge as reputable leaders, whereas less trustworthy companies drop lower in rank,” Graham said.
You can also learn from these websites as well. They provide valuable customer intelligence about how your brand is being perceived by real customers as well as opportunities for social proof and third-party credibility you can leverage in your marketing. “For example, on business lender Lendio's reviews page, prospective clients can see breakdowns of the star ratings on 400+ verified customer reviews, including the ratings of sentiment criteria like value for your money and customer service. Lendio, which currently has an average of 4.7/5 stars from customer reviews, can leverage the data referenced above by sharing on social media and through content marketing and email marketing copy,” Graham said.
So pull out your company’s value proposition, take a look at how you express it in your marketing, and then see where customers agree and disagree. Where can you learn from customers to express elements of value in your marketing that customers are experiencing but you’re not communicating well? For example, Cotton Mask Co. discovered that its face masks were especially helpful to hearing aid wearers by monitoring customer reviews, and pivoted its marketing accordingly.
But also, take a good hard look at the reviews and determine where your brand falls short. Is it because customers assume your company has a certain element of value that isn’t part of your stated value proposition? If so, change your marketing to clarify. Or is it just that your company is not living up to its value proposition? In that case, you have the data to show why the marketing department should get involved in the customers’ product and service experience to improve it.
Since consumer reviews platforms provide data to customers when they are considering a purchase decision, it is important for brands to understand how they operate. So I asked Graham for a bit of an inside look at Best Company. There’s some she couldn’t share (like how their algorithm works), but I hope the below mini-interview helps you get a better understanding of how this data about your company ends up online and a little more about the companies that put it there.
MarketingSherpa: How do you make money? What is your business model?
Rebecca Graham: Our two revenue streams come from:
1) Lead generation for affiliate partnerships
2) Business Suite subscriptions.
Like many sites, we may be compensated through affiliate relationships with the companies on BestCompany.com. But we do not have any relationships with companies that guarantee or impact their ranking or score and we never will.
A basic profile is free for any qualifying company in the United States. The purchase of our B2B Business Suite reputation management product can't bump up your brand's rank, but it can provide traffic-based insights regarding your profile page as well as enhance it for improved visual aspects and thoroughness, such as featuring product images and videos, adding an FAQ section and highlighting how you stand out from your competitors.
MS: How do you get reviewers? How do you verify them?
RG: Best Company receives thousands of review submissions each week. Every review that is submitted goes through a very thorough moderation process to ensure its accuracy prior to it being published on BestCompany.com.
Reviews are generated in four ways:
1) Organic and direct traffic, i.e., from users visiting our site
2) BestReviews, our review generation process in which we collect reviews from customers on behalf of the company. We offer fully managed email and phone review solicitations for companies with customer contact lists as well as a custom form for companies to utilize for outreach themselves.
3) Reviews from charity and fundraising groups
4) Reviews solicited from our members
ALL reviews, whether organic or company-solicited, are subject to our review moderation process, which include email address verification and analysis via our fraud threshold algorithm (the details of which we do not divulge in order to prevent companies from trying to “game” the system).
Furthermore, Best Company reserves the right to reject or remove reviews that violate our standards, which includes content that does not relate to the company or company's service being reviewed, appears to be incentivized, or contains false information.
We also encourage consumers to resubmit reviews with their most up-to-date experience with a company.
MS: How do you ensure your data isn’t manipulated by companies to make themselves look better?
RG: Here are a few of the protocols we have in place to ensure accurate claims regarding the data on our site:
Companies are not given a numbered rank until they have at least 10 reviews on their profile.
Badge accreditations are only made available to companies meriting them (such as #1 ranked company or a position in the Top 10)
A company cannot hide or delete negative reviews from their BestCompany.com profile
Best Company believes the moderated reviews published on its site to be valid unless proven otherwise by the company with factual evidence of false information, moderation errors, or duplicate reviews. More information regarding disputes can be found here.
Example #7: Independent financial adviser cites his sources to build credibility
This next example is a bit of a different take on using data in marketing, but I thought it was worth bringing to you because I’ve noticed the marketing industry has a rampant problem with crediting sources.
There are so many bold-faced marketing claims that shout and brag. But why should anyone believe those claims?
Alec Tuckman shared with me the story of a seminar he was conducting about stock market performance. He was frequently challenged by an attendee.
“Not wanting to make him look bad in front of his spouse, I did not get confrontational or upset, I simply pulled out a thick notebook full of Wall Street Journal clippings I have compiled over the last five years,” said Tuckman, owner/operator, Wealth Management Partners of Los Angeles.
Every one of those articles was supportive material for the statements Tuckman made about the market. While he didn’t get the business from that particular attendee, Tuckman felt that it gave him instant credibility. “Data is the best marketing tool,” he said. “Being able to cite a credible, well-known source gives you credibility.”
But don’t just cite any data, or you may end up hurting your brand’s credibility. “Make sure the data is from a reliable source. I wouldn’t recommend quoting something you read from a friend on Facebook IM when you’re trying to prove you are an expert on a particular subject like the stock market. Make sure you are sourcing material from credible sources like Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Bloomberg,” Tuckman advised.
Read More
Account Based Analytics
Article | December 18, 2021
Many marketers define ABM as good B2B marketing. Targeting the right accounts at the right time with an appropriate message is the golden aim of account-based marketing (ABM). ABM ensures not only reach but also accuracy.
In an interview with Media 7, Ryan Phelan, Marketing Chief / Fractional CMO at Origin Email, talked about the importance of ABM technology and the challenges in marketing after the COVID-19 pandemic began.
"B2B companies should adopt ABM technology to level up their communications and react quickly."
ABM technology enables marketers to hit pipeline and revenue targets swiftly while working alongside sales teams.
Salesforce provides ABM automation to its clients using AI Einstein technology in their Customer Success Platform. But what does Salesforce’s ABM platform look like? How are they finding accounts that need a sophisticated AI-run ABM marketing platform?
How Salesforce Created Its ABM Program
Salesforce considered B2B buyer behavior (purchase intent and engagement) to deliver a solid marketing and sales experience for each of its strategic accounts. Accordingly, it took the following steps to kick-start its ABM program:
Defining ABM
Salesforce ABM marketing team handles campaigns that target 300 or fewer accounts.
An ABM program can have many approaches. It can be 1: Many, 1: Few, or 1:1. The smaller the radius of the process, the more hyper-focused the campaign, content, budget, and customer journeys are.
By simply aligning their approach strategy with defined ABM, Salesforce achieved larger deal sizes, higher sales win rates, higher ROI, and faster revenue growth compared to other marketing strategies. It suitably approached accounts that it thought were high value and showed buyer intent for their products and services.
Choosing a Suitable Account-based Platform
Salesforce was aware that it would have to engage a variety of vendors and platforms to run its ABM program smoothly. It had to go beyond building a foundation for its program. For that, it needed dedicated tools and resources. Without account-based partners that could provide them with these tools and resources,it would be difficult to implement their program. They chose RollWorks as their account-based partner, to set up their ABM program.
Putting Together a Dedicated Team to Ensure ABM Program’s Success
Creating a single team to support and execute the ABM program was crucial before launching the ABM campaigns Salesforce had planned. They had teams who knew what ABM was all about; they even ran campaigns in silos. So, Salesforce pooled its ABM resources and formed a single team to carry out ABM-related operations.
Identifying Strategic Target Accounts
With the support of technology, Salesforce validated the list of target accounts and filtered out accounts that weren’t such a good fit using their first-party data. They made sure they looked at all the possible data they had, including third-party, so there was no scope for error. As a result, they had a list of high-value accounts with an ideal customer profile (ICP).
Engaging the Target Accounts
After the target accounts were identified, Salesforce ran campaigns of highly customized content for each stage of the sales journey to entice prospects. Once the prospects entered the sales pipeline, hyper-personalized messages, ads, and emailers were sent to them using AI.
Using Data for Continued Engagement
Salesforce ABM campaigns used all available data to create new or repurpose existing content assets like customer stories, consultation forms, research reports, and blog posts to nurture the leads at every stage.
Cultivating Customer Relationships
Using a specially created ABM dashboard, Salesforce monitored its campaign results to understand which content its leads engaged with the most. Then, it removed the content that did not generate engagement to streamline engagement with previous unengaged leads. The secret was to create humane content that didn’t have buzzwords, consistently maintain brand voice and tone, and make special content that the leads could resonate with.
Educating and engaging the leads increased the deal sizes and customer lifetime value. Holistic reporting helped them evolve their ABM strategy continuously.
By creating a robust ABM program that took care of its targeting accounts’ evolving needs, pain points, and expectations, Salesforce saw a 24 percent faster revenue growth and an 87 percent higher ROI.
How Salesforce Got a 30 Percent Close Rate by Using ABM Technology
While promoting their Boston World Tour Series, Salesforce used ABM campaigns to get registrations. One out of their fourtarget accounts engaged with their content, and an average of five contacts per account engaged with them. In six weeks, they got in touch with 410 target accounts, of which 110 engaged with them. They achieved a 30 percent close rate for their campaign.
Creating an ABM Program like Salesforce
Salesforce has come a long way by using ABM technology to expand its offerings. It has AI-powered products, tools, and services that provide ABM automation to other companies. For example, their ABM Salesforce Marketing Cloud product has helped brands like Herman Miller achieve a 200% increase in their email revenue.
To create an effective ABM program like Salesforce, you can use their steps as a blueprint. These steps apply to all kinds of businesses, but if you still don’t know how and where to start, find the answers to the following questions to comprehend what you can do next:
Do you think ABM is right for your business?
Are there any customer accounts that require special attention?
Can your business fund expert consultation for ABM and eventually an ABM program?
Once you find the answers to the above questions, you can take your first step towards building an effective ABM program that can help you scale your business.
Conclusion
ABM technology is revolutionizing B2B marketing by harnessing AI and targeted approaches, personalization, and automation using high-quality intent data. Implementing an effective ABM strategy is crucial to driving ROIs and growth.
FAQ
How does ABM differ from a traditional lead generation marketing strategy?
ABM helps you target high-value accounts with hyper-personalized content, instead of presenting generic content to unclassified accounts.
What is an ABM platform?
An ABM platform is a technology that helps marketers run their ABM programs at scale.
Why is ABM important in your marketing efforts?
With the help of ABM, marketers may be able to shorten their sales cycle, increase their marketing involvement in the sales funnel, and achieve a high ROI.
Read More