Account-based marketing: a simple guide

Never let it be said that the marketing industry does a poor job of cloaking a simple idea with impenetrable jargon. 

Take account-based marketing as an example. The concept is breath-takingly simple: focus marketing efforts on specific named accounts rather than on broader ‘segments’, ‘audiences’ or indeed the world at large. You wouldn’t know this from the way the subject is normally talked about, but that’s the size of it.

It’s also worth noting that there’s nothing new about the concept. Companies that sell to large organisations have always been aware of the need to operate at the account level whether that means creation of bespoke content or focusing resources on communicating direct into the account.

What has changed is the relatively recent ability to target digital marketing spend at specific accounts, and track the results of that activity at the account level. More on that below, in part 4 of this deliberately simple five step guide to implementing ABM in your organisation:

Check it’s for you

It’s a fact of life that marketers like trying out new things, and ABM is definitely a new-ish thing. But it isn’t for everyone. If your typical deal size is small (less than 50K for example) and you tend to have a diverse enough range of customers, then you might find the broader approach is more appropriate. On the other hand, if you sell to a reasonably restricted group of accounts, your customers all fit into that category, and your deal size is large, ABM is worth looking at. Don’t forget of course that the two approaches can operate side by side.

Build out an ideal customer profile

To focus your marketing efforts on target accounts, it’s necessary to know who those accounts are. That means your first step is to build out an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) as detailed here.

Once the ICP is in place you can proceed to find those organisations that fit the profile and build out your database. This stage is absolutely key. Everything depends on having the right target customers: garbage in, garbage out was never truer than when it comes to account-based marketing.

Consider your positioning and content strategy

It’s a given that great positioning should start from what your prospect wants to achieve rather than what you have to sell them. Take that attitude and get as granular as you possibly can. Fortunately for you, most organisations are open and honest about their key priorities, or at least they are if you read between the lines.

Take the time to understand the goals the account has, and also the goals any specific individuals within the account that you wish to target have. Build out content (including any communication or advertising you will use) to reflect those needs. Take the time to personalise for the individual account. 

Communicate

Firstly, make sure that sales and marketing organisations work together to deliver integrated communications that support and reinforce each other. Try to avoid replicating effort however: nobody likes to talk to a machine and a human at the same time (they prefer the latter btw, if you have to make a choice).

Most importantly remember that the old rules for evaluating digital marketing channels no longer apply. The only question that really matters is “does this channel enable me to speak to specific individuals in specific organisations?”. Some of our oldest, dearest friends (Google AdWords, PR, SEO) don’t fare particularly well on this measure - they simply don’t have the targeting capability ABM requires. Others, LinkedIn being the most obvious example, do.

And the most targeted, effective method of all? The phone call or email. Rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated: when used in a thoughtful way as part of an ABM program they remain a fantastic way to reach out to prospects and win them over.

Measure

Measurement is a given when it comes to marketing. But ABM asks us to rethink how we measure and what we measure. At the most basic level - if we’ve added our key targets into an existing CRM, in what sense can we consider them a ‘lead’ when I have probably already reached out to them? 

Instead, it can be more helpful to think in terms of overall engagement from the account. If a click on an email, a phone call, a visit to a key webpage, or a chat at an event are all considered a ‘touch’ (and can be scored differently of course), then measure the total touches for each account in any given week or month. That becomes the key target of an ABM program, rather than the usual focus solely on inbound leads.

Whatever you do in account-based marketing, do it thoughtfully and interrogate everything you do through the same set of questions:

• Is this communication reaching target individuals in target accounts?

• Is is related to the things they want to achieve?

• Is it working to move them closer to a deal?

  
  

Good luck!