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ACCOUNT-BASED
MARKETING (ABM)
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 3
What Is ABM? 4
About 13
Action Plan 32
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY HIGH PERFORMANCE ABM BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 3
Executive Summary
While it is well resolved that Account-Based Marketing is a desired
approach for today’s B2B marketer, what is less resolved is a grounded
understanding as to exactly what the practice is and how to do it in a way
that will maximize results.
More than a catchy phrase, a new top ten list, or a check box to indi-
cate a task complete, Account-Based Marketing is rooted in a solid
foundation of marketing strategy.
This guide helps marketers better understand the case for and best
practice in account based marketing. Marketers can then be armed with
the knowledge to buck the trend of failure and tip the odds that they too
will develop a high performance-ABM program.
WHAT IS ABM? HIGH PERFORMANCE ABM BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 4
What Is ABM?
To this point, confusion exists because most understand the practice The Account-Based Marketing Consortium has pooled their collective
of Account-Based Marketing based upon fragmented vendor conversa- experience to craft this working definition of ABM:
tions focused on cool new point solutions or narrowly cast articles in the
trade press.
On the other hand, those who measure lead generation success by Directly aligned with sales objectives and targets, Account-Based
volume will have a difficult transition as their entire approach will require Marketing is a two-party effort designed to narrowcast marketing initia-
a strategy redux. tives to focus on precise companies with agreed upon objectives.
WHY DOES ABM MAKE SENSE TODAY? HIGH PERFORMANCE ABM BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 5
Even though they source content independently, they share it and they
work with each other to form conclusions and select solution options. In
this reality, the ten visits and downloads can represent a highly engaged
buying decision.
WHY DOES ABM MAKE SENSE TODAY? HIGH PERFORMANCE ABM BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 6
In a marketing world focused on producing and widely distributing Once an early stage activity, requestions an array of product demos from
content to help serve buyer needs, increasingly buyers are seeking the top vendors, today’s buying groups are self-educating and forming
early-stage content to form their point of view from sources outside of deeply rooted beliefs regarding their desired solution path all on their own.
vendor websites. It’s not that content is unimportant, it’s just that vendor
CEB measured the current state for this outreach, 57% of the way through
produced and hosted content doesn’t have the same top of funnel
the buying process. Personal sales efforts and relationships are pivotal
impact any longer.
to successfully close business. Having said that, the need for sales and
In fact, The CMO Council identified last year that while 88% of B2B buyers marketing efforts to align has never been greater. From both sides.
value content in their vendor selection process, only 9% of them trust the
content produced by vendors.
In any case, the fact is that buyers are looking beyond vendors during early
and influential phases of issue research and vendor selection. Because of
this, existing marketing systems cannot even sense many of the buyer
content engagement because it’s occurring outside of their purview.
Developing a New ABM Program Once selected, apply the remaining Capability Framework activities to
these selected accounts. Focus on reaching as far as possible to the high
Key Advice – go narrow but deep, don’t boil the ocean. maturity approach found in Table 1.
When starting a new program, identify and focus on one core audience. While this matrix should include retention and cross / up sell engage-
Drive to excellence on this narrow objective. Follow the Capabilities ment strategy, unless these are already developed marketing efforts
Framework and execute your program in a deep and meaningful manner, within your organization save those efforts for a future stage.
engaging them to your best ability.
They are critical but will present an additional array of considerations
Plan a series of meetings between sales and marketing leadership. outside of ABM in order for you to execute properly.
These initial meetings will fall into three general buckets:
High maturity programs have done so many things well. Hats off to you!
You are truly thought leaders.
This is really about having the right kind of account centric, multichannel
analytics to be able to optimize the relationship between account marketing
plans, content strategy and media spend.
Physically test those content and measure impact. If not already, consider
the application of predictive analytics as a means to add more, higher
value accounts into your selection process.
This focus will enable greater target audience engagement and will result
in concrete business focused results to share with top management.
About ANA
Founded in 1910, the ANA provides leadership that advances marketing excel-
lence and shapes the future of the industry. The ANA’s membership includes
more than 1,000 companies with 15,000 brands that collectively spend or
support more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually. The
membership is comprised of more than 750 client-side marketers and 300
associate members, which include leading agencies, law firms, suppliers,
consultants, and vendors.
Further enriching the ecosystem is the work of the nonprofit ANA Educa-
tional Foundation (AEF), which has the mission of enhancing the under-
standing of advertising and marketing within the academic and marketing
communities.
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THE EVOLUTION OF SHOPPER MARKETING HIGH PERFORMANCE ABM BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 15
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