Account Based Marketing (ABM) is the talk of the town in B2B marketing. And not without reason, when done properly, it contributes to success in many different ways.
But first… what’s ABM? (Gartner) ABM is a go-to-market strategy targeting certain accounts with a synchronized, continuous set of marketing and sales activities. ABM activities engage those accounts and individuals through all stages of the buying journey.
For many organizations doing ABM, the promised magic success stays out. There can be many reasons, but let’s focus on data today. 3 tips:
- KPIs – What defines success for you? Are you mainly looking at the number of hand-raisers? Like you do for measuring success running lead generation campaigns? In this case, you might have hidden success. Add account influence to your KPIs. Besides people filling in a form, this can be based on the number of eBook reads, web visits, and ad & email clicks on account level for example.
- Accounts – Maybe you were too opportunistic when selecting your ABM audience. Organizations are in rapid change. Impact due to corona and the war in Ukraine makes it in many cases impossible to predict future buyers. Some ABM strategies are based on focusing on a fixed list of accounts for a certain timeframe like a year. It can be of interest to switch to a dynamic ABM approach. Your ABM target accounts will be based on set criteria like ideal customer profile, product fit, and intent data. A dynamic ABM approach makes it easier to increase the number of target accounts needed to make your numbers as well.
Intent data is the collection of behavioral signals that help interpret B2B purchase intent.
- Sales – Are Marketing and Sales working on the same accounts through all stages of the journey? It happens that ABM strategies don’t include opportunities from accounts that were not selected as being ABM target accounts. My advice is to include those as well to remain working on the same accounts and increase the success of your ABM efforts.
ABM can be a successful strategy to matter more to prospects and customers. When you need a hand or experience optimizing your demand generation, let me know. I’m available on an interim basis, interested in your challenges, and happy the share ideas in a call (free of charge).
