Account-Based Marketing or ABM is a focused B2B strategy that is designed to align sales, marketing & customer success teams in how they approach customer acquisition, retention & advocacy.
A key principle of ABM focuses on delivering the right content & messaging to the right people, at the right time.
But what does all that really mean?
That's exactly what we're going to cover.
So, without further ado...
What is ABM?
Why you should consider ABM
During the brand identity survey, ReToNature chose several factors which differentiate them from the competition.
Buzzwords ahead.
"ICP"
"1 TO 1"
"Flip the funnel"
"1 TO MANY"
"Tier 1,2,3,4"
"Fishing with spears not nets"
"TEAM Framework"
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87%
of B2B marketers surveyed by ITSMA reported their ABM initiatives outperform their other marketing investments in terms of ROI.
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70%
of B2B marketers surveyed by HubSpot reported using an Account Based Marketing strategy in 2021. Up 15% from 2020.
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91%
of companies using ABM increase their average deal size according to Forreseter. With 1 in 4 reporting an increase of +50%
These are just some of the terms you're bound to encounter on your ABM discovery journey so we thought we'd offer a warning.
That said, not all buzzwords are meaningless frustrations.
A tale of two fishing methods....
Fishing with nets
Fishing with spears
This refers to traditional lead generation strategies. Casting a wide net of content and messaging in the hope that you're going to land some high-quality prospective "fish" (accounts) into your funnel.
Once those accounts are in the boat, you head back to land and try to offer them to sales, but unfortunately, sales aren't happy with the catch!
Some of them fell off the boat on the way back, some slipped through net, and worst of all, sales were looking for cod when you brought back mostly herring! Disaster!
The spear fishing approach speaks for itself.
You spend more time & resources focussing on the fish that you want to land in the boat.
And the best part? You've already agreed with sales on the types of fish you want to go after!
Some key components of ABM happens well before you get out to sea.
It starts with account targeting.
Identifying the accounts that would be your most high-value, low maintenance customers that fit your Ideal Customer Profile or ICP
(more on this later) and most importantly, consensus and and internal by-in on the strategy itself.
VS
The key components of ABM
1. Define/redefine your Value Proposition
If you have a firm grasp on the true value that your product/service delivers and if that sentiment is shared with your customers than please read on.
If not, taking a deeper look is critical. Value propositions can take time to define and companies often end up with an outcome that looks something like the below:
Quantifiable Metrics
"Our product or service delivers a 4.3% increase in annual fish yield"
If this statement can be proven and supported by your customers than your onto a winner and about to please a swathe of board members.
However, if not it risks becoming yet another baseless statement lost in the marketing abyss.
Unquantifiable Metrics
"Our product or service improves fisherman staff retention & satisfaction"
Once again, proof is key and how you communicate that proof helps to strengthen your resolve. Though value propositions that lack quantifiable metrics are often at odds with decision makers and signatories. Therefore incorporating flavours of both quantifiable & un-quantifiable metrics which are proven and supported, can be a strong combination, but not the only combination...
Enter: Unique Value Proposition
The essence of a unique value proposition sits with the jobs & tasks your customers have to perform, the pains they run into in trying to execute and how your product and service relieves them of said pains.
To use Paretos law: What is the top 20% in 80% of all the customer pains your solution solves?
To put it another way, if you look at your most high-value, low-maintenance customers. What is the common thread of pain relievers these companies find in using your solution? A great way to nail this down is in using something like a Value Proposition Canvas, execute this on the aforementioned customer group and their individual personas, then summarise in a way that makes it palatable not just for sales and marketing to communicate, but for the entire company.
2. Internal buy-in & consensus
A fundamental yet critical component of ABM needs to happen well before you get out to sea. Without internal consensus between marketing, sales & management your ABM voyage could be doomed before it begins.
Within these department's, buy-in from individual stakeholders also weighs heavily on the success of the strategy. Especially between sales & marketing...
But why? We get along just fine!
We don't doubt it. However, that doesn't remove the expectation from sales to be receiving a continual stream of leads from marketing. Nor does it negate the impression from marketing that sales need to be jumping on the leads they're serving up.
We've all heard or experienced the aforementioned.
A statement that will most likely follow often sounds something like:
But what about Lead Generation?
"
Good news! Lead gen isn't going anywhere - strictly speaking.
It's just receiving an upgrade.
The idea of LEAD GENERATION VS ABM needs a reframe.
Using the fishing analogy once again, net fishing need not be a pointless exercise so long as it's executed in the right way i.e. intelligence on where to fish, where they are in their hunger journey, what kind of fish are likely to be there, and at what time.
The outcome of your lead generation with respect to ABM should mean more high-quality leads for sales to work with or in metric speak: A higher conversion rate of MQLs to SQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads to Sales Accepted Leads)
3. Audience Segmentation & Prioritisation
ICP
Your Ideal Customer Profile or ICP is the fictional representation of your ultimate customer type best suited to your solution.
These characteristics are often taken from your current, high-value, low maintenance customers.
But they can also be things like revenue size, proponency toward your product/service, location, company size etc.
One of the best ways to do this is to think about procurement opportunities you missed out on.
When was the last time you were baffled that a seemingly perfect fit prospect overlooked your company for an RFI/RFP?
This kind of reflection helps to point you towards the kinds of companies that make up your ICP.
With your ICP defined, it's well worth understanding the personas that exist within each account.
We're not talking the standard "Data Dave" with ABM we're primarily talking about the buying personas.
Each of these personas need to be understood and addressed, relative to the complexity of your solution.
For example, if you're selling an enterprise SaaS solution, marketing & selling to one or two individuals is fraught with false expectations and most likely resulting in a "closed lost" deal.
But by understanding who the buyers, signatories, technical and blocking personas are, you're able to tailor your messaging & communication efforts more effectively throughout a campaign which will bring a much higher success rate.
Personas
Account Tiers
Account tiers or scores, enables you to segment and prioritise your target accounts. It's a great idea to work backwards from your ICP. If you identify your Total Addressable Market (TAM) to be made up of 100 accounts, and you identify that 10 of those are the closest fit to your ICP, congratulations, you've just discovered your Tier 1 accounts to target.
But don't overlook factors that might be known regarding where an account is on the buying journey.
If you can use any 1st or 3rd party data on an account be sure to apply it eg. If you have a missed call from a T3 that's just filled out a demo sign-up form & downloaded a resource... I'd say it's time to show them some T1 treatment.
What is the T1 treatment?
Back to the spear fishing analogy.
Going after your T1 accounts would be the equivalent of equipping your boat with brand new motors, drones to identify the precise location of your target fish and a heat seeking spears that hunts said targets.
In the real-world, it's about tailoring specific content and messaging that resonates with the personas within each individual account, addresses their pain points and deployed through various channels.
What does an ABM campaign look like?
Applying tactics to tiered accounts, deployed through various channels, targeting individual personas.
Your campaigns consist of tactics which are the marketing activities deployed across your tier groups which should speak to the personas within.
It's important to note that ABM and ABM campaigns will look somewhat different in each organisation.
But the activities you deploy should take into consideration the 1:1, 1:FEW, 1:MANY thinking. For example the tactics you deploy towards your T1 should be ultra-personal and tailored to the individual account, the internal personas & problems identified. Whereas for the T3 accounts you're taking a more general/demand generation approach.
Queue infographic for visual context:
Why are more B2B organisations adopting this strategy?
In the words of our customers:
"Yeah, this approach just makes logical sense"
CS Function
Yes, ABM is a highly effective approach to target and nurture the right kind of customers throughout your sales cycle but it also holds value for you in helping you manage, expand and most importantly reduce the churn of these accounts once they become customers.
€/$ Savings
If you stayed on the highway in the image to the left, how much money would you throw at the wall until an ideal customer sticks? How much time do staff have to spend creating content without any way to measure true impact or ROI?
Pictures really do say a thousand words.
But what else can ABM offer?
How we work with ABM
ONE-TIME
ONE-TIME
ON-GOING