How to Establish an Account-Based Marketing Strategy

A Gartner benchmark study found that programs with high pipeline lift allocate an average of 32% of the total marketing programs budget to ABM, versus an average of 21% for programs observing no or moderate pipeline lift.^[1]

Allocating a quarter of your budget to ABM might seem like a big undertaking, but research confirms that effective account-based marketing strategies live up to the hype. ABM programs generate strong lift across multiple sales and marketing metrics compared with traditional demand generation and prospecting programs^[2]: 

• In marketing: improved conversion rates throughout the funnel, increased web traffic, and improved advertising and email performance. 
• In sales: higher win rates, faster sales cycles and increased deal sizes.

Changing your entire business mindset toward ABM doesn’t happen overnight. This article will help you establish the foundation for your ABM strategy in 3 simple steps:

Step 1. Formalize your account selection process
Step 2. Coordinate across your sales and marketing teams 
Step 3. Fortify your tech stack and enlist third-party targeting tools

Step 1. Formalize your account selection process

Everything in an account-based marketing strategy depends on a deep and reliable understanding of the accounts and audiences you’re targeting. ABM requires marketing and sales teams to strategically select accounts to target and nurture through customized engagement and support. 

But how do you know which accounts are the right ones to target? The short answer is a combination of:

• Intent data to identify accounts interested in you. B2B Intent data interprets software buyer behavior to predict which companies have the highest intent to purchase your software.
• Fit data to identify accounts you’re interested in. These accounts match your ideal customer profile (ICP) and point out the characteristics of enterprises that produce the largest share of your wallet.

Marketing teams should design target company personas based on the high-value clients most likely to convert and/or grow. Evaluate what business objectives and values these target accounts tend to share, as well as what major steps in their buying journey precede purchase.

Step 2. Coordinate across your sales and marketing teams

With strong, data-backed target company personas in place, the next step is planning a pipeline strategy. An ABM strategy looks very different from traditional lead generation. 

Traditionally, when sales accepts a lead from the marketing team, marketing-led outreach stops and the client engagement process is executed by the sales team. For ABM strategies, successful account engagement instead requires proactive, ongoing coordination between marketing and sales teams.

From the very first interaction, marketers and sales reps must work collaboratively to build a sophisticated, personalized campaign across multiple channels. Gartner recommends continuing this joint effort throughout the sales process, maintaining a strategic marketing presence within digital channels beyond the moment of the traditional sales team handoff. 

This prolonged communication gives your marketing team further opportunities to offer personalized content as your target customers continue to gather information and seek purchase help.

Marketing and sales teams should work together to evaluate existing marketing and communication channels, identifying those best suited for recurring personalized outreach, communication and retargeting.

In collaboration with the sales team, marketing leaders should build a list of planned and executed engagement and nurture tactics over time, and use the list to tweak their ongoing ABM strategy's outreach and engagement activities.

Get ahead with reaching the right prospects across channels with insights from our on-demand webinar: Using Intent Data for LinkedIn Matched Audiences.

Step 3. Fortify your tech stack and enlist third-party targeting tools

The right software stack and technology investments are vital for account-based marketing success. 

ABM software is designed to fortify each critical step of an ABM strategy from account selection through engagement and nurturing, with reporting and analysis capabilities to inform any necessary adjustments to the strategy as it evolves and matures. 

There are two ways to equip marketing and sales teams with the tools they need to run a successful ABM program: Adopt an end-to-end ABM platform that provides all necessary functions across each step of the process, or establish an ABM program using your existing martech stack, adding other tools as needed to scale.

Teams interested in supplementing their existing marketing technology with tools that address individual steps in the ABM process can identify solutions specializing in capabilities such as enhancing audience management, proprietary intent data, or even sophisticated reporting and data modeling.

Intent data, for example, can supplement existing customer data with a rich set of proprietary, third-party user data. Integrating this specific tool into existing sales and marketing tech stacks empowers teams to create buyer personas using a treasure trove of demographic and behavioral data. 

As you plan your account-based marketing strategy, we recommend making both a short-term and long-term plan. Consider which technology strategy (end-to-end or supplementary) your team will need to run a pilot ABM program, as well as what it will take to run your program at full scale. 

When choosing between a full end-to-end ABM service or supplementary tools to bolster existing marketing technologies, remember there typically is no one right answer. The key to success is open collaboration with key stakeholders to determine the approach that makes the most sense — and offers the greatest ROI — for your business.

Sources

1. 3 Traits of High-Performing ABM Programs, Gartner
2. Plan and Manage a Successful Account-Based Marketing Program, Gartner

Samantha Bonanno

Samantha is a Senior Specialist Analyst for Gartner Digital Markets, where she offers insight and thought leadership on marketing trends and best practices for small and midsize businesses. An Upstate New York native, Sam spends her free time backpacking with her dogs and holding snobby opinions on craft beer and single-origin coffee. Connect with Samantha on LinkedIn.