Page 15 - Engage - no.9 - Summer 2017

SIX PRIME CONSIDERATIONS FOR
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It is imperative that marketing and sales work as one through the process of identifying target accounts. They should both understand how and why each account has been placed on the high-value key account prospect list.
Sales teams are in the eld every day and are most likely to be in tune with the pain points and needs of your prospects. Marketing must consume and leverage this very vital information as they develop the marketing materials that will be part of the ABM plan for each account.
ABM is not a one-size- ts-all approach. Account-based marketing is powered by high-quality, targeted, personalized content. Assess your current content and o ers and determine where they will t in the journey map for each prospective account. Identify gaps and create messaging and content to bridge those gaps.
Match the content to the recipient. A CEO may be inclined to read unsolicited marketing materials that deliver insight and ideas that are relevant to the overall industry, while a CFO may be more inclined to glance at an infographic that puts speci c data in visual context for quick consumption.
Create an engagement map for each contact within each account so that your entire team is clear on which content ts where into their speci c overall plan.
As content is delivered, sales must be ready to respond with appropriate messaging when a contact is engaged. Not every engagement should be viewed as a sales pitch opportunity; rather, some should be seen as a relationship- and credibility-building opportunity.
may be wasting 99 percent of their time, energy, and resources marketing to people who may never pay your company a dime.” But don’t
toss all your current marketing plans out the window just yet. The practice of account-based marketing is highly strategic, is very specific to targeted accounts, and takes time to develop. ABM presents a highly collaborative environment for sales and marketing to “flip the funnel” and effectively engage more people—decision-makers, key influencers, and executives.
For ABM to take hold and impact your business, everything starts at the top. Vajre says the executive team must agree that marketing isn’t about lead generation but about engaging accounts and retaining revenue, going beyond the typical B2C purchase decision to a comprehensive account’s journey. That also means the entire organization must agree on an ideal customer profile. “You have to identify the ideal accounts
for doing business with your company, and every department in your organization—marketing, sales, customer success, product, engineering, etc.—must be focused on how to service those accounts,” he says.
You have to identify the ideal accounts for doing business with your company, and every department in your organization must be focused on how to service those accounts.
Modern consumer marketing, of course, features a much more personal approach, in which brands try to forge a relationship with a consumer and can tailor messages to groups of people or even individuals. ABM takes a page from this newer, B2C, personalized-experience strategy, but in B2B there are often many more
ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING SUCCESS
people involved in the final decision-making process on the account side. These decision-makers, key influencers, and executives may all be different than the end users. “We have to think about the entire group of stakeholders and influencers, then tailor our marketing activities, strategies, and content to different personas and not just the end user,” Vajre says. “It’s a B2C way of personalizing marketing for multiple people in the same organization.”
HOW TO DO IT
The first step to becoming an account-based marketing organization is to build your ideal customer profile. Once you have that, your marketing activities, tactics, and programs will be much more focused on accounts that fit that profile
best, and you will more easily identify who they are. Rely on your CRM data to help with the process. Next, expand the data you have with contact information that matches with the buyer persona of your ideal customer profile. Vajre recommends having three contacts with the correct information in your CRM. Once you do, it’s time to craft a strategy for how to engage with the people you’ve identified. Some of the potential tactics Vajre recommends:
• Advertising – Sponsor posts on social media.
• Content marketing – Publish e-books, white papers, infographics, and blog posts; host webinars or virtual events.
• Email – Pull your CRM data into your
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