There are dozens of strategies and frameworks for B2B marketing, with more popping up like mushrooms after rain. Yet, why does Account Based Marketing (ABM) stand out and repeatedly prove its worth? I see three clear reasons behind ABM’s success as a strategic choice in modern business marketing:
- New tracking and targeting technologies continually provide more tools for ABM implementation.
- Maximizing marketing resources and efficiency through precise targeting and monitoring is essential.
- Modern companies consolidate marketing and sales organizations into efficient units, recognizing the value of defining the customer lifecycle.
But what does ABM entail in practice, and most importantly, how can it be integrated into a company’s culture and daily operations? As a strategic choice, ABM aligns perfectly with the ideology of lean marketing. In this blog, I’ll walk you through 5 proven steps to practically integrate ABM into marketing and sales processes and daily activities.
1. Strategic alignment and goals
For ABM to function effectively, a strategic alignment must interpenetrate the entire company. Integrating marketing and sales functions strategically and purposefully is critical. This process defines the customer lifecycle, the progression of marketing and sales pipelines, and the goals for measuring development and success at various touchpoints.
Aligning with business objectives guides actions throughout the process: sales and marketing goals should be set in line with these overarching business goals. Depending on the company’s growth strategy, goals may include:
- Focusing on new customer acquisition.
- Improving efficiency.
- Expanding service offerings.
- Promoting customer retention and upselling.
2. Identification of target company profiles and key accounts
Who are the ideal customers for the company? Profiling existing customers and ideal clients is usually a good starting point for mapping customer profiles and defining key accounts. It also requires honesty, as ABM encourages leaving behind customers who may form a significant part of the market but whose profitability is weaker than other customer groups. The old aphorism that 20% of effort brings 80% of results holds true here as well, and companies should focus their efforts on the most profitable customer groups by defining and focusing on their Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP).
3. Tactical and technological choices
The first question often is, what tracking technologies do effective ABM implementation require? Choosing the right, purposeful, reliable, and transparent tracking technologies is critical because they play a crucial role in the success of ABM and can cause a lot of harm or waste resources if they go wrong.
The toolkit for tactical choices grows as technologies evolve, and starting with something simple is worthwhile. Starting from a simple basis enables the development of the entire marketing pipeline on a solid foundation, after which various technologies and methods can be tested.
Read more about tactical planning.
4. Right message at the right time: customer lifecycle
A successful customer lifecycle process requires three things:
- Defining the customer lifecycle and touchpoints of the marketing and sales pipeline (in the strategic-tactical phase).
- Monitoring and identifying the stages of the customer journey (potential customer → prospect → lead → customer).
- Targeting the right content at the right stage.
The most common marketing sin is uniformity of marketing communication and “salesy” content throughout the process, regardless of where the potential customer is in the customer journey. Many models define content stages, and the Intent Centric Marketing framework is a good way to define the right actions at the right stage of the customer lifecycle.
In summary, during the initial encounter phase (See), the content must be intriguing and offer added value to the target individual. In the convincing phase (Think), content reinforces the company’s expertise, and solutions-oriented products/services are gradually introduced. The decision-making phase (Do) is the most critical juncture for sales and marketing, requiring continuous engagement, persuasion of identified prospects and key decision-makers, and overcoming obstacles to purchase.
Is your sales funnel stuck? How to boost the B2B sales & marketing pipeline.
5. Measurement, analysis, development, and sales
Lean marketing processes and ABM go hand in hand precisely because they involve continuous improvement and rapid yet thoughtful and planned decisions. The progress of activities and results must be A. reliably monitored, and B. reacted agilely based on the lessons learned.
Learn how to build up a meaningful measurement for B2B marketing.
The ultimate purpose of ABM is to efficiently target marketing and sales resources to the most potential customers, and the role of monitoring is to identify and eliminate waste in accordance with lean principles.
Weekly joint meetings between marketing and sales have been found to be essential to successful ABM marketing monitoring and development processes. Information must flow seamlessly in both directions, and all stakeholders must grasp the big picture to achieve process efficiency. Ideally, a leanly implemented ABM process fosters self-directed, efficient teams from marketing and sales organizations working towards common goals.