The Clear & Complete Guide to ABM

The Clear & Complete Guide to Account Based Marketing Second Edition

Introduction B2B demand generation has completely reinvented itself over the last decade. The collision of inbound, content marketing, lead nurturing, marketing automation, analytics, email, search, social media and native advertising has transformed the discipline from a dark art to an increasingly data-driven science. But there’s a problem. All of these tactics and technologies are optimized When it comes to helping to land and expand But ABM doesn’t require you to unplug all that for a specific kind of deal: higher velocity, lower these major deals, today’s marketing teams you’re doing now and start over. Instead, it’s a value deals often driven through by a single buyer. are seriously handicapped. complementary strategy that works alongside your existing demand generation processes — sharing As a result, today’s B2B marketing departments The Clear & Complete Guide to Account resources, data, tools and technologies with them. struggle to support the most important deals of all: the Based Marketing (Second Edition) is your guide long, complex sales that involve many stakeholders, to solving this problem. We’ve seen Account Based Marketing in action departments and disciplines. The biggest deals. across a wide range of companies, and we’re It will take you, step-by-step, through this fast- convinced that this is the way virtually all big deals emerging discipline, showing you how to align your will be won and grown. Those who don’t practice it New in this Edition sales and marketing team around a strategy that’s will lose to those who do. This second edition incorporates everything optimized for the biggest, most important deals. we’ve learned over the last three years working If your company depends on large, complex, with 100s of B2B companies. With over 70% As you’ll see, ABM is not a magic wand. Instead, long-cycle deals — landing and expanding them fresh content, it brings all-new best practices in it’s a powerful combination of people, process systematically, efficiently and measurably — account tiering, sales and marketing alignment, and technology that, deployed intelligently, this could well be the most important guide multi-channel orchestration, multi-touch will out-perform every other demand generation you’ll ever read. attribution, and more. initiative in your company. Let’s get to work.

Part I From lead-centric to account-centric marketing

Part I From lead-centric to account-centric marketing Today’s marketing stacks — and It’s time to recognize that we’re not marketing marketing departments — are built and selling to a lead. We’re marketing and selling around the ‘lead’, the individual buyer to an account. who progresses along your funnel until Lead-centric marketing isn’t designed he or she is ready to buy. to handle accounts: But in most cases, the buyer is never a single person. • It wastes time, budget and effort filling the funnel He or she is almost always part of a buying team. with prospects that aren’t associated with any And the bigger the deal, the more people, departments target account. and disciplines get involved. • It can’t connect individual prospects with their colleagues across the account. That’s why so many B2B companies have hit a wall • It can’t map the relationships between the decision- with their demand generation efforts. makers and influencers within the account. • It can’t track the state or level of engagement of the entire account at any given time. “ Salespeople talk about accounts, they • It can’t coordinate or synchronize interactions to deliver consistent messages to the entire talk about customers… they don’t talk account buying team. about leads. Salespeople think about That’s where Account Based Marketing comes in. how they’re going to win accounts in the first place, then how they’re going to keep and grow those accounts.” Megan Heuer, VP Research, SiriusDecisions 5

g in t e It’s called k o r t a c i m r c t i n r t ‘business-to-business’ ce n - ce ad - e t l n t I m ou r c a ro c not ‘business-to-lead’ P F a In every complex business-to-business deal, You also need to track the aggregate level there are many buyers involved: the decision- of engagement across the account and know Sales has always used an account-based maker, the end user, the influencer, the CFO, when that engagement level changes. approach. Now marketing is getting on board. the procurement department and so on. Gartner research has found that on average, Because, in B2B, you’re never just selling 12 to 14 individuals participate in larger to an individual. technology purchases. Each of these people has different motivations IT – 8 LOB – 8 and pain points. Each is rewarded differently, Average and each evaluates your products or services Number of Influencers from a different perspective. 16 To support selling into a large account effectively, it’s critical that your team understands how each Enterprise Data & Web IT Enterprise Servers/ Desktops/ software Analytics apps Cloud Services software Security Storage Networking Laptops individual fits into the larger account and has a sense (SaaS) (non Sass) of the relationships, influences and connections IT 12 10 10 10 10 8 8 6 6 5 that bind them together. LOB 11 9 9 9 8 9 7 6 5 5 That means your marketing team needs to understand the context of the account relationship to decide TOTAL 23 19 19 19 18 17 15 12 11 10 how to interact with any new person that comes into the system. IDG Enterprise Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker survey, 2014 6

Salespeople never talk about how many leads they’ve closed. They talk about how many accounts they’ve closed.

g in t e k or ta c i m rc ti nr t Account Based cen -ce ad- et ln t Imou r c a roc Marketing defined P Fa As ABM gains traction, a lot of definitions are starting to emerge — all pretty much describing the same thing. Here’s our definition: Account Based Marketing is a go-to-market strategy that coordinates personalized marketing and sales efforts to land and expand target accounts. 8

Account Based Marketing defined GTM strategy: A fundamental business strategy to drive revenue; not a simple campaign or tactic. Account Based Marketing is a Marketing and Sales: ABM is led by Marketing in close collaboration go-to-market strategy that coordinates with Sales. personalized marketing and sales Personalized: Built on account- efforts to land and expand specific insight, content, and messages for Land and expand: maximum relevance target accounts. Driving business at new and resonance. accounts and expanding within existing accounts; Target accounts: opening doors and Focus more resources deepening engagement. on the most valuable accounts. That’s our definition. But we also like some of the other definitions we’ve seen out there. 9

g in t e k o r ta c i m r c t i n r t Some more cen - ce ad- e t ln t Imou r c a roc definitions of ABM P F a “ Account-based marketing (ABM) is a “ The strategic approach marketers strategic approach to designing and use to support a defined universe of executing highly-targeted, personalized accounts, including strategic accounts marketing programs and initiatives to and named accounts.” drive business growth and impact with SiriusDecisions specific, named accounts.” ITSMA (who coined the term) “ A coordinated program to target and engage a defined set of identified “ The coordination of highly valuable, accounts and individuals across personalized experiences across all simultaneous inbound and outbound functions that impact the customer channels across all stages of the (e.g. marketing, sales development, buying process.” sales, and customer success) to Gartner drive engagement at a targeted set of accounts.” TOPO One-to-One B2B In many ways, ABM parallels the movement in business- to- consumer marketing, as it gravitates away from mass marketing to 1:1 marketing. Both focus on the depth of the relationship and use deep understanding to personalize each interaction. 10

Things ABM practitioners do ABM encompasses everything that B2B marketers do to support sales at target accounts, from selecting accounts to gathering intelligence, creating personalized interactions and: Working with sales %Working with outside %to define account agencies or service 74 goals and plans 38 providers on ABM %Gathering Working with other account and/or %marketing teams to 67 contact info 46 get support for ABM %Executing plans for %Building plans 62 accounts for individual 52 large accounts ABM %Selecting accounts %Creating 59 for ABM content for 56 ABM needs %Building plans for a group of %Creating online 59 named accounts This SiriusDecisions data shows the engagement strategies top ABM activities being practiced today. 56 for accounts 11

“I see ABM as a response to inbound marketing. Inbound is great, but you don’t have control over quantity and quality. You also can’t afford to wait until those named account targets happen to find your content and download something.” Matt Heinz President of Heinz Marketing 12

The benefits of ABM Efficiency Close rates ABM focuses time and resources on accounts ABM increases the close rates of your most likely to drive revenue toughest deals It’s a ‘zero waste’ strategy that targets 100% of time, Research shows that the systematic discipline of budget and effort on the named accounts your ABM significantly out-performs the more ad hoc or company decides have the greatest potential. unaligned approaches of the past. The SiriusDecisions 2017 State of Account Based Marketing Study found Big wins that 91% of responders said ABM accounts had a ABM deal sizes are bigger higher close rate, with 2/3 of responders reporting An ABM success can outweigh multiple of smaller more than 20% better close rates. deals sourced through traditional demand generation. And ABM deals can be bigger than normal ‘key Acceleration account’ selling too: they’re more likely to have ABM deals proceed faster buy-in from a wider team; to lock out or constrain Because they actively target all of the buying influencers competitors; and to reach higher into the account. and decision-makers — instead of leaving hidden When ABM wins, it wins big. influencers to chance — ABM deals move faster and get stuck less. In fact, according to TOPO research, the Average Contract Value (ACV) for companies post-ABM Alignment was 171% larger than the pre-ABM ACV ($195,294 ABM tightly integrates your sales and “M arketers doing ABM are 40% more vs. $71,941). marketing teams likely to report alignment with their By definition, it requires sales and marketing to sales team compared to marketers The SiriusDecisions Command Center™ shows focus on the same accounts with clear and agreed- that 91% of respondents say that deal size is upon criteria. Sales highly values any marketing not doing ABM.” larger for ABM accounts and 1 in 4 say it is over team that spends its budget gaining traction in 50% larger. It also found 30% of marketers that named accounts. Bizible’s State of Pipeline Marketing worked in an account-based manner reported Report 2016 increasing engagement by more than 2X with their C-level targets. 13

g in t e k o r t a c i m r c t i n r t ce n - ce ad - e t l n t I m ou r c a ro c P F a Sales excellence Account penetration and expansion “ ABM delivers the highest Return on ABM enables the challenger sale ABM guides intelligent account expansion Investment of any B2B marketing Sales wants to have challenger sales conversations at existing customers strategy or tactic. Period.” that ‘teach for differentiation and tailor for resonance’. Many companies get more revenue (and revenue ABM provides the ideal strategy and framework growth) from current customers than from new ITSMA for this — and delivers the account insights that ones. With large deals, it’s all about ‘land and help make it happen. expand.’ ABM delivers smart, personalized account orchestration for a greater share of Customer experience wallet and higher margin. ABM delivers the consistently relevant experience that customers demand The highly personalized nature of the discipline “Ri sing customer expectations means that all interactions are synchronized are the most disruptive trend across channels and highly targeted to maximize relevance. You look like one company with a single, in business today. Companies compelling story. that differentiate their customer In fact, 58% of respondents say that ABM plays a relationships on the basis of account- major role in making their entire company more specific insights and responsiveness customer centric, according to the ITSMA and raise customer expectations and ABM Leadership Alliance Account Based create competitive advantage.” Marketing Benchmarking Survey (July 2017). IDC 14

Data Snapshot ABM benefits How does ABM return on investment (ROI) compare % Reporting improvement from ABM to traditional marketing initiatives? % of respondents 84% % % % About the same 74 69 11 15% Somewhat higher Reputation Relationships Revenue Significantly higher (Brand perception, (Number of relationships (Annual revenue per account) awareness, and knowledge) across accounts) % ITSMA and ABM Leadership 30 Alliance Account Based Marketing Benchmarking Survey, July 2017 % The 3Rs: ABM provides benefits beyond revenue, also 66 improving reputation and relationships. ITSMA and ABM Leadership Alliance ABM Benchmarking Survey, July 2017 Benefits of ABM vs traditional marketing approach 55% Alignment Between Sales & Marketing 4.64 % Overall LTV 4.31 23 Upsell/Cross-sell 4.2 Return on Sales & Mktg. Investment 4.14 ABM beats traditional Close Rate marketing in every New to ABM Experienced 4.02 measured category, ( 2 years experience) ( 2 years experience) Initial Contract Value TOPO 2016 = < > 4 (N=35) (N=20) Customer Retention Rate 3.98 A whopping 85% of respondents with more than 1 2 3 4 5 two years of experience said ABM delivered a Traditional approach ABM and traditional ABM provides a much higher ROI than traditional marketing. benefit is much greater are the same greater benefit than the traditional approach 15

g in t e k o r ta c i m r c t i n r t cen - ce ad- e t ln t Im ou r c a roc ITSMA on ABM’s benefits P F a Here’s what ITSMA says about ABM’s benefits. Clients Marketing • Feel better understood from in-depth analysis • Aligns sales and marketing in a unified account • Understand vendor offerings, strategy and strategy solutions more broadly • Orchestrates coherent, relevant messages • Enjoy increased customer satisfaction • Increases marketing ROI • Experience a more tailored approach • Consistently tailors campaigns • Develop deeper partnership with vendors • Strengthens brand reputation • Tend to position and sell vendor across the • Secures more customer references organization Source: A Practitioner’s Guide to Account Based Marketing, Bev Burgess Sales and Dave Munn, ITSMA • Earns status of trusted vendor and partner • Has richer conversations “I t is my view that Account-Based • Aligns better with customer needs Marketing (ABM) is on the threshold of • Uncovers new opportunities revolutionizing the marketing domain. • Increases revenue, margin and wallet-share • Stays on the same page with the rest of the team It shows all the potential of bringing about a much-needed paradigm shift.” Professor Malcolm McDonald, Emeritus Professor, Cranfield University School of Management 16

ABM is not just marketing Despite its name, Account Based Teams that work in isolation are the ones that miss Hello, Account Based Everything Marketing is not exclusively a marketing opportunities, duplicate efforts, waste insights, Because silos hold back account-based success, function. Far from it. Industry experts drop the ball in clunky ‘handovers’ to Sales, and more and more sales and marketing leaders avoid inhibit every important metric from close rates to calling their initiative ‘Account Based Marketing,’ have all come to the same conclusion: deal velocity. opting instead for names like: ABM works best in companies where What really works in an account-based model • Account Based Management all revenue-generating disciplines are is the close integration of Marketing, Sales • Account Based Sales and Marketing closely aligned. Development, and Sales (plus Customer Success • Account-First Initiative for those who have the discipline). • Account Based Everything For this reason, the term ‘Account Based Marketing’ can be misleading and the wrong term The essence of all of these is that success comes to fully describe the process we’re talking about. “ ABM is a strategic business initiative. from orchestrating relevant interactions that span There’s a danger that it perpetuates the same If it’s only sponsored by marketing, multiple players in the account (decision-makers siloed marketing habits that hold B2B and influencers) across multiple channels (email, organizations back. it becomes a campaign.” phone, social, in-person, and demand generation) delivered by all departments (Marketing, Sales Jeff Sands, ITSMA Development, Sales, and Customer Success). When a business can achieve this, the results will always be greater than individual departments working in isolation. 17

g in t e k o r ta c i m r c t i n r t cen - ce ad- e t ln t Imou r c a roc P F a “I n Account Based Marketing, sales and “ Account Based Everything recognizes Account marketing work together to create an that it takes a village to zero in on Account Based always -on series of touches and key accounts; that all functions must Based Sales relationship-building activities aimed at be integrated, from marketing to Marketing Development these accounts. A meeting with an sales development, sales and account is just the beginning — not the customer success.” One central end — of an Account Based Marketing Tom Scearce, TOPO account program Outbound prospecting clearly based view works but it’s one channel into target accounts. The key piece that’s missing Account is marketing. The timing is right for the Account Based ABM movement — an aligned Based Customer Sales Success marketing- sales strategy to solve the target account pipeline problem.” Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder and Chief Analyst, TOPO 18

How ABM is different from demand generation Account Based Marketing differs from traditional It supports, but doesn’t source, the pipeline demand generation in important ways. In demand generation, marketing sources ABM or Demand Generation a significant fraction of the pipeline. In ABM, There’s no hard and fast rule about what It’s account-centric marketing influences the pipeline but directly percentage of your programs should be As already discussed, the ABM approach is based sources or discovers very little of it. dedicated to ABM or demand generation. on a fundamental shift from a lead-centric to an Instead, think of it as a spectrum. On one end are account-centric perspective. It measures different things companies selling to the Fortune 100. The vast Because of these differences, the way ABM majority of their efforts are going to be focused It’s outbound is measured is very different from traditional on ABM. On the other end are companies selling Demand generation is, at its best, largely an demand gen metrics. See the Metrics Section into the SMB market. The majority of their efforts inbound operation — publishing content that brings in Part 3 for a detailed discussion. are going to be focused on demand generation. a wide range of prospects into your funnel. Most likely, you’re somewhere in the middle, so With ABM, you don’t wait for target accounts to turn you’ll want to balance the two strategies. up in your lead nurturing system, you reach out s s s s n n ll m In fact, 64.9% of companies are currently using to your target accounts directly. This is r d e les r io io o a e t t se t e iti a m c n p lis a mix of ABM and traditional demand predominantly an outbound strategy, with an isi L n S o U e V tu t fa te g r s s e n generation programs — 27.0% use demand extended set of tactics — including account-specific i a o t R v p Cu a E generation only, and 8.1% use ABM only advertising, sales development, and direct mail. p S O (Engagio ABM Outlook Survey 2018). It’s ‘land and expand’ ABM should be leveraged when: Demand generation focuses primarily on generating net-new leads and opportunities; in fact, many • Teams sell to high-value accounts, marketing departments don’t even get ‘credit’ especially deals over $50,000 for campaign responses from existing leads and • Sales cycles are longer, taking months customers. In ABM, Marketing and Sales work instead of days together not only to land the account, but also to • Growth within the account is a business expand it over time. Marketing continues to work The Bow-tie: ABM focuses on existing customer success and expansion driver, such as renewals, upsells, or cross- with Sales after the deal is done. as much as, if not more than, new customer acquisition. sells into different departments • The team markets and sells to buying centers, not just to one individual 19

g in t e k o r t a c i m r c t i n r t ce n - ce ad - e t l n t Im ou r c a ro c P F a Traditional demand Account Based Marketing is generation is fishing with a spear. fishing with a net. You don’t wait for a target account buyer to wander into your net. You reach out to target accounts directly — going after the big fish You put your campaigns out there and start catching fish. with highly relevant, personalized outreach. You don’t get wasteful You don’t care which specific fish you catch, as long as you ‘by-catch’; instead, you focus all your efforts on the prospects you pull in enough of them every month. You then nurture need to reach. and score them until opportunities come out the other end. Spear fishing raises the bar on the quality of your data and the relevance of your marketing. ABM is laser-focused. 20

Why ABM is so hot Account Based Marketing is not a new Marketing and Sales are ready to work concept. In fact, ITSMA pioneered the together concept almost 15 years ago. The rise of marketing automation and lead nurturing have brought Sales and Marketing closer together So why has ABM suddenly generated so much than ever before. A more disciplined approach to activity and attention? A few good reasons: pipeline management has earned Marketing the respect of colleagues in Sales. And, new levels of The returns on inbound are flattening out transparency have made Marketing more aware of Traditional ‘inbound’ demand generation is hitting the real challenges the sales force faces. a wall. There’s too much content and it’s too hard The technology is in place to stand out. Companies need new engines to ABM has always been a viable strategy. But today, drive growth. the tools and technologies are in place to make The economics are better it much more scalable, including CRM, marketing Sales and marketing teams are discovering that automation, analytics and personalization. inbound is not very good at the biggest, most complex deals. Reaching high into larger accounts “ There is a greater opportunity to simply drives larger and better deals, those that tend to stick around longer and become more take advantage of ABM because valuable over time. As companies look to move today’s technology makes it much up-market, ABM becomes much more compelling. less labor intensive.” Megan Heuer, VP Research, SiriusDecisions in an interview with Demand Gen Report 21

g in t e k o r ta c i m r c t i n r t cen - ce ad- e t ln t Imou r c a roc P F a It just makes sense Part of the reason the Account Based Marketing trend is gaining traction is because an account- centric lens makes so much sense for B2B organizations: Sales has always used an account- based approach, and now Marketing is beginning to follow suit as well. In short, the time is right for ABM. The pent-up demand for the approach can now be fulfilled. Google Trends shows searches for ‘Account Based Marketing’ exploding. 22

Data Snapshot ABM momentum Recent research shows that the ABM market is heating up: A recognized need Technology investments surging % of respondents stated that ABM is very % of organizations are planning to purchase important or extremely important in new solutions in four or more ABM 1 93 2017, up from 87% in 2016 80 technology categories in 2018, driving a 28% 2 increase in ABM technology investments Budgets are growing A growing trend % of companies are planning to % of B2B marketers have already implemented increase ABM spending4 or are planning to implement ABM in the 72 73 next 12-24 months3 Account coverage expanding More companies going big on ABM % of companies are planning on % increase in companies allocating at scaling their ABM programs to least 30% of their marketing budgets 5 71 cover more accounts 6 57 to ABM during 2017 Significant investment % of the total marketing budget is spent on ABM (for companies implementing Growing sophistication 7 26 the approach) % of companies reported having ABM programs that were well underway 24 or advanced8 Sources: 1. SiriusDecisions 2017 State of Account Based Marketing Study 2. TOPO Account-Based Technology Report, 2018 3. & 4.ITSMA and ABM Leadership Alliance Account Based Marketing Benchmarking Survey, July 2017 5. ITSMA, 2018 Services Marketing Budget Allocations and Trends 6. & 7. SiriusDecisions 2017 State of Account Based Marketing Study 8. Engagio ABM Outlook Survey 2018

“I t’s clear that we’ve passed “Account Based the fad phase of ABM... Marketing Now, we’re solidly in the is red hot.” trend phase.” Craig Rosenberg SiriusDecisions Co-Founder and Chief Analyst, TOPO 24

Part I Conclusion ABM is here to stay So that’s why Account Based Marketing is quickly becoming the next big thing in B2B marketing. We hope you’ve discovered the power and inevitability of this strategy and have started thinking about how you can apply it in your company. Now it’s time to talk about how to do it. 2525

ABM Expert Q & A Kathy Macchi, VP Consulting Services, Inverta You’ve worked with some of the most Why is alignment so critical to ABM, and how Shared metrics between the sales and marketing innovative enterprise organizations helping can organizations go from talking about team is the final component that drives alignment. them implement ABM. How can smaller, alignment to becoming aligned? I would encourage team to expand beyond simply mid-market organizations get started with an ABM isn’t simply a marketing initiative: it’s a a revenue number, and think short, medium and ABM strategy? company strategy. long-term so you can show incremental progress My strongest piece of advice is this: it’s less about along the way. the marketing technology and tactics, and more Often times, Marketing will take an ‘if we build it, about understanding your target audience. Terrific they will come’ approach to gaining consensus, Reputation, relationships and revenue are the three ABM practitioners put time and effort into developing but without exclusive, enthusiastic and cooperative legs of the ABM measurement stool. Think about an unparalleled knowledge of the account, and buy-in from the sales and lead development short, medium, and long-term ways of measuring focus all of their efforts on using that knowledge to functions, marketing should not move forward. success in each area, and you’ll be well on your way communicate with the accounts in a resonant way. to better functional alignment and measuring the One approach to alignment is to build an ABM overall success of the ABM initiative. When considering ABM, the size of your company is leadership team. The ABM leadership team sets irrelevant. Any company can implement an ABM the tone for how the company is going to operate What should your ABM team look like? What program if they have a commitment to researching and interact in an ABM environment, and commits roles and responsibilities are essential to and understanding their target accounts and gaining to collaborate openly in service of the ABM charter. making your ABM program successful? alignment around those accounts. The leadership team consists of the Head of In addition to the ABM Leadership team described Marketing, Sales, and Operations. It could also above, I feel that the two roles that are most critical You must be willing to source customer insight: heavy include the Head of Support, Professional Services, are the ABM marketer and the account executive research, mapping, and monitoring that is necessary or other key customer facing roles. (salesperson). to establish yourself as a trusted advisor and potential solution provider to an account. Once insight is This leadership team also agrees on the target The ABM marketer is the consummate utility infielder. gathered, then messaging should be built on the account list and the approach to planning and By this, I mean he or she must have knowledge and understanding of the customer’s business, their execution. The leadership team gets as specific experience in all marketing specialties, good challenges and the stakeholder’s concerns. as to set the cadence of meetings and the content judgement and credibility, all while having the You should be able to articulate clearly how your that will be covered. The rigor in which this is leadership and relationship skills to promote and company can help in ways that others cannot. established and managed is integral to driving manage the ABM programs internally and externally. alignment and collaboration. 26

ABM Expert Q & A Kathy Macchi, VP Consulting Services, Inverta. This is an individual who can learn the target Business Acumen. The ABM marketer is first and When the discussion turns to questions about the audience’s imperatives, initiatives and stakeholders foremost a strategic role. It requires a person with quantity of marketing and the impact marketing is through research and through working with the a deep understanding of his or her own company having, it can difficult to reverse direction. Constant account teams. This individual can both develop and solutions, as well as the ability to understand and consistent communication about the cadence of an ABM strategy as well as write messaging, tweak the business model of the target accounts. They an ABM play and the success indicators is crucial to copy, or edit a presentation to ensure all interactions should understand industry-level trends and the furthering collaboration. and voices are aligned to the ABM strategy. The ABM challenges and imperatives of the target audience. team is not large, so many responsibilities and tasks They should have the skills to engage customers in Customer Focus. An ABM marketer should be fall to the ABM marketer. While some of the job duties discussions and offer insights and suggestions passionate about the customer and understand their may seem like a junior resource could handle them, internally and externally. needs first. ABM is about research, understanding, this job requires a seasoned marketer. The ABM being useful and solving problems for the customer: marketer is a marketing professional who must bring Interpersonal Skills. The ABM marketer is not selling. a large breadth of experience to the table. responsible for upholding the ABM strategy with sales and senior executives in a firm but respectful Sales Understanding. An ABM marketer is part of The account executive is the peer to the ABM way. Their ability to position ABM as strategic and the account team, and must demonstrate empathy marketer. Their role is to ensure the account team not sales enablement will help keep ABM a strong and understanding of what the sales role entails. is fully aware of the new focus and objectives and contributor to the bottom line. Apart from the sales Only when he or she understands the challenges where collaboration is needed to ensure the function, the ABM program requires many other and concerns of the sales function, can they build program’s success. Occasionally, this will mean a departmental contributors. The ABM marketer a program that works for both customer and sales shift in expectations around how they interact with needs the skills to maintain good relationships representative. marketing or the client. The account executive sets with all supporting groups to ensure the ABM the tone and ensures compliance. program runs on time and without error. Comfort with the Mundane. An ABM Marketer must be comfortable switching gears between strategic What should marketing leaders look for when Communication Skills. ABM can involve a lot of account planning and tactical logistics. An ABM hiring someone to lead their ABM efforts? change management. It can be a radical shift in the marketer’s breadth of experience will have them An experienced marketer with the following relationship between sales and marketing. When working in many capacities, and the best person for characteristics: ABM is a strategic decision, both sales and marketing the role will understand the importance of each task. are equals in the roles they play in driving account growth. Communication needs to be frequent and consistent throughout an ABM program or misconceptions and finger-pointing can occur. 27

Part II The styles of ABM

Part II The styles of ABM One of the most important things to We’ve also seen a fourth style that sits somewhere NOTE: the data in this section come primarily know about ABM is that one style does between ABM and traditional demand generation: from the ITSMA and ABM Leadership Alliance not fit all. The spectrum ranges from we call this ‘Targeted Demand Gen’ and it’s usually Account Based Marketing Benchmarking Survey appropriate for accounts worth less than $50,000 from July 2017 and October 2018. truly one-on-one conversations with a year. In this style, companies use traditional, the largest accounts, to programmatic non-customized demand generation tactics Account Based Marketing with frequently used in mass marketing such as ads, webinars, and more. These efforts are focused on hundreds of lower-value targets. a list of named accounts. We see three main styles across our clients: Handful (‘few’) – median 14 1. Strategic: One-to-one ABM with a very limited Style 1 – Strategic One : One number of accounts worth seven figures (or $1M++ more) annually. 2. Scale: One-to-few ABM for high-value accounts Focused (‘dozens’) – median 80 worth six-figures grouped into micro-segments. Style 2 – Scale One : Few 3. Programmatic: One-to-many ABM $100k - $1M for five-figure accounts that are worth some customization More (‘hundreds’) – median 725 and personalization. Style 3 – Programmatic One : Many $50K - $100K Many (‘thousands’) Style 4 – Targeted Demand Gen Mass Marketing < $50K The styles of Account Based Marketing. 29

M B f A s o e l y I t t I s r e a h Strategic ABM P T This one-to-one style of ABM directly Strategic accounts get completely bespoke • 1:1 attention: Involve the entire organization, engages strategic target accounts marketing. Your game plan for these accounts from the CEO down, to create executive with the highest revenue potential — should look like this: engagement and face-to-face meetings. This level of customization requires significant generally at least $1M a year and as • Deep research: Map out each buying center to investment: companies invest $36,000 to high as $1B+. understand areas of revenue potential $50,000 or more in marketing programs to reach (whitespace). Build out the organizational chart to each of these accounts. It’s not uncommon to Often, this approach is focused on expanding and ascertain which contacts you know and where you see one ABM marketer covering just a handful deepening the relationship with existing customers need to build relationships. Research key business (perhaps five) of these Strategic accounts. (84% of Strategic accounts are current customers). priorities and publish detailed account dossiers, Companies typically have between five and 50 integrated with Sales account plans. Consider But the investment is worth it for these high-value Strategic accounts, the median being 14. internal chat groups or forums for each account. customers. When ITSMA says “ABM delivers • Personalized content: Create customized more ROI than any other form of marketing,” marketing content, value propositions, and Strategic ABM is what it’s referring to. messaging. One company we met even hires an agency to come up with specific branding for each of these top accounts! • Dedicated programs: Drive executive briefings, innovation days, high-end experiences, and other marketing activities just for that one account. 30

Scale ABM Scale ABM is a one-to-few style for One dedicated ABM marketer can cover up challenging. But no matter what, you still want to accounts that are strategic but don’t to five or six micro-segments in this style. spend time making sure you have quality data at warrant top-tier investment — usually in The most effective tactics used in Scale ABM the account level, as well as for each of the key include executive engagement, e-mail marketing, people in each persona in the organization — and the $100K to $1M annual potential range. direct mail, custom thought leadership, and you’ll want a process to keep those insights fresh, roadshows / events. at least annually. Instead of completely bespoke marketing, this approach focuses on micro-segments of accounts Since these accounts are often smaller, mapping with similar characteristics and business out individual buying centers may not be as imperatives, e.g. credit card payment processors. Across the ITSMA study, this style is used equally for new business (51%) and for expanding existing accounts (49%). The median number of total Scale accounts per 0 company is 80, with each micro-segment typically 80 20 containing about 20 accounts. Companies apply 60 40 deep research to the cluster and modest levels of 0 0 personalization to each account, investing on 80 20 80 20 average $55,000 in marketing programs for each 60 40 60 40 cluster (a median of $2,750 per account). 0 80 20 60 40 Micro- segmented New Existing business accounts Median 31

M B f A s o e l y I t t I s r e a h Programmatic ABM P T Programmatic ABM is a one-to-many style that uses broad programs with Targeted Demand Generation vs. Programmatic ABM light personalization and Programmatic ABM is sometimes confused with Targeted Demand Generation, in which customization. marketers use traditional demand generation tactics but focus the effort on named accounts. The distinction is that in Programmatic ABM each account does get some Each account is generally worth less than $100K personalization, while there is no customization in Targeted Demand Generation. We see the per year, and a company can have hundreds at higher level of personalization becoming worth it for accounts over $50K a year, and targeted any given time (median: 500 to 725). About 72% demand gen being used for accounts in the $25-50K range. of the time Programmatic ABM is used to penetrate Common tactics in Targeted Demand Generation include email, advertising, events, and new accounts, 28% use it for expansion. These direct mail. Because there is no personalization, this style is scalable to thousands or even accounts are often clustered into groups of tens of thousands of accounts. Because the efforts are focused on specific named accounts 100 accounts or so, with an average program in the Ideal Company Profile (ICP), the ROI is often higher than untargeted demand investment of just over $1,000 a year per account. generation — but without personalization, the impact may be lower than ABM. While all styles of ABM can benefit from the use What’s in a name? of technology, Programmatic is the style that Some practitioners call this approach Account Based Marketing, others do not. We think that benefits most in order to drive scale and optimize regardless of what you call it, companies should use the right style of marketing for each measurement. Under this style of ABM, the most stratum of account value. However, we’ve also seen companies adopt only this style, call it effective tactics are e-mail, account advertising, ABM, and end up being disappointed by the results. No matter what style you use, it’s direct mail, account-based content syndication, important to know what you are getting and what you aren’t, so you can avoid overhyping and roadshows / events. ABM and any disillusionment that follows. 32

Entitlements Account Entitlements answer the We believe it is essential to define your question “What is the right amount of Entitlements before you select target accounts. time, money and resources dedicated to Whether it costs time or money (or both,) an Entitlement uses limited resources. This defines each account for each style of ABM?” the constraint on how many accounts you can afford in each style of ABM. In particular, they serve as the contract between Marketing and Sales, defining exactly what each A key mistake we’ve seen companies make in department will do to support the ABM effort for ABM is to pick and tier their accounts before each account. defining Entitlements. This often results in selecting too many ‘Tier 1’ accounts and an The Entitlements define the level of account inability to provide the right level of focus and research and planning (including data purchase customization to realize the full benefit of ABM and maintenance), executive support, marketing for those accounts. program investment, customized content, and account executive involvement at each stage of the journey. Programmatic Scale Strategic • Contact information for the top three personas at • Plans for each microsegment • Full account plans each account • Light personalization of content and emails • Account research hub • Lightly personalized content • Contact info and research about more key personas, • Bespoke thought leadership • Lower-cost direct mail and experiences (e.g. dinners) updated more frequently • Custom webpages • Limited Sales involvement until an account shows • High-end direct mail and experiences • Even more research into key personas, with even sufficient level of engagement • Account / territory plans from Sales more frequent updates • Annual ‘innovation day’ (custom) • Named executive involvement Simplified Account Entitlement Example 33

M B f A s o e l y I t t I s r e a h Account Entitlement worksheet P T In the spreadsheet below, simply find the type of program, enter the program name, and then fill in the appropriate Entitlement for each style of ABM. Type of Program Program Entitlements Style 1 (1-to-1) Style 2 (1-to-few) Style 3 (1-to-many) Account Plans Nurture Executive Support Partner Support Additional Tools / Software Additional Budget Direct Mail Field Events Tradeshows Personalized Plays Database Sends Targeted Ads Content Syndication Sales Outreach Appointment Setting Contact Discovery Custom Content Custom Hubs 34

How many accounts should you have? The right number of accounts in each tier of “ The challenge is to scale your ABM “ The right number of accounts your ABM program will depend on many factors, program so that you can address per rep varies widely, based on things including: internal requests from the sales team, like average deal size and the dynamics • The intensiveness of your ABM strategy but at the same time not lose the of the sales cycle. We’ve seen 200 (e.g. your Entitlements) unique approach of ABM and revert accounts per rep and 10 accounts • Your expected deal sizes back to the traditional kinds of per rep.” • The length of the sales cycle marketing. Salespeople are highly • Your available sales resources J.J. Kardwell, Then it’s a matter of applying your available competitive, and when they Co-Founder, Everstring resources intelligently. start to see their peers succeed in implementing a strategy like ABM, Health Checks they want to jump on that bandwagon • Are you investing too high a percentage of your really fast. You have to make sure you resources in too few accounts? scale appropriately.” • If reasonably successful, will these wins deliver the numbers your business needs? Jeff Sands, • Are you spreading your resources too thinly? Could more focus deliver better results? ITSMA 35

Part III T he 7 ABM processes

Part III The 7 ABM processes When you look at the most successful Select accounts ABM practitioners, a pattern emerges. Align sales and marketing around a list of target accounts most likely Most ABM journeys follow a seven- 1to deliver revenue, and tier those accounts based on Entitlements. step process: Identify people Fill out these accounts and buying contacts for key personas 2based on your ideal buyer profiles. Develop account insights L earn what matters at each account so that your interactions 3are relevant and resonant. Generate account-relevant messages and content C reate or adapt content and messaging that reflects your account insight 4and is targeted specifically at the buying teams in each account. Deliver account-specific interactions Manage targeted interactions that are personalized for each account. 5 Orchestrate account-focused plays Synchronize interactions into coordinated plays that align to account 6plans and goals. Measure account progress R eport on impact of ABM efforts in terms of account engagement, 7impact on pipeline and revenue, and program ROI. Let’s take them in turn. 37

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h 1. Select accounts P T The whole point of ABM is to focus Aligning Sales and Marketing on target accounts your sales and marketing efforts on a and Entitlements is to ABM what defining a Resourcing for success relatively small number of high-value marketing qualified lead is to demand gen — ABM is not just about picking the account list. accounts that have the greatest the core of all your alignment efforts. It’s also about aligning on the proportion of revenue potential. The goal of account selection resources that will focus on each tier. If you’re The goal of the account selection process is to putting 100% of your marketing effort into the That’s why account selection is a critical step optimize your sales and marketing resources — top 100 accounts, make sure you’ve built a in any ABM program. time, headcount and budget — by focusing them model that shows how those 100 accounts will on the accounts most likely to drive big revenue. help the whole company meet its growth goals. Get this right and you’ll get the maximum return If those 100 target accounts get 50% of on the next six steps in the ABM process. Get it Taking shortcuts during the account selection resources, then they should deliver 50% of wrong and you’ll either miss major opportunities, process incurs penalties throughout your ABM goals, and so on. waste resources on the wrong accounts, or both. program, chiefly: Missing out on deals you could have won “ It’s incredibly important to pick your If you leave prime candidates off of your account list, accounts wisely. You’re only going to you’re needlessly ceding big deals to the competition. “T argeting the right accounts is the have the bandwidth to effectively work Wasting effort on a poor fit single most important ABM strategy.” a certain number of accounts. And if Put the wrong accounts on your list and you’ll spend TOPO time, money and effort on low-potential opportunities you pick the wrong ones, you’re going while under-resourcing your best shots. to be wasting your team’s time on That’s why it’s so important to invest up-front leads that won’t amount to anything.” in a serious effort to align Sales and Marketing Sam Laber, around selecting the right accounts. Founder of Spoonful and previously of Datanyze 38

The art and science of selection The questions that guide the process include: Fundamentally, you want to look at two key factors Combining these two dimensions brings together when picking accounts: Fit and Interest. gut feel, historical performance and sometimes • Where have we sold most effectively predictive data science. in the past? • Which kinds of accounts have proven to be Criteria Core question Key activity Data most profitable over time? • What characteristics are most predictive Fit (Potential) Are we interested in them? How Define an ideal customer Firmographics of sales success? closely do they match accounts profile (ICP) and prioritize Technographics • What traits should rule out an account? where we’ve easily created accounts by ‘fit score’. • Which accounts do we already have significant revenue? an advantage in? Interest (Ease) Are they interested in us? Are they Measure and prioritize Intent (3rd party) • Which accounts do we already have showing interest in our category accounts by ‘interest score’. Engagement (1st engagement with? and / or our business? party) Recency • What accounts deliver the most value (which can include revenue as well as strategic value)? “ The two core criteria we look for when Driving Quality with FIRE selecting accounts for ABM: EverString uses the acronym FIRE for scoring 1. Is the market growing, and prospective accounts. It stands for: 2. Is the account manager committed • Fit to this?” • Intent • Recency Jeff Sands, • Engagement Senior Associate, ITSMA 39

s e s s e c o Using data for r M p B III 7 A t e r a h account selection P T Your ‘Fit’ data come from Firmographics and Firmographics Technographics Technographics. You’re looking to identify your What company characteristics best predict a What technologies do they currently use or are they Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), which takes into successful sales process and high-value customer? looking to invest in? account the value of the account as well as the ‘ease’ of selling to them. According to TOPO, ‘The Chances are, you already have a pretty good idea Depending on what you sell, knowing that a Ideal Customer Profile defines the accounts that about the kinds of companies most likely to deliver company uses Salesforce, Workday, or G Suite are most likely to buy from you at a viable the big deals that justify the ABM process. might make them a much more (or less) attractive economic threshold (e.g. CAC and LTV).’ candidate for your solutions. Knowing if they use Firmographic dimensions might include: competitors’ solutions is also valuable insight. Adding technographics to your firmographic data • Company size will further focus your ABM efforts. • Number of employees • Industry Dimensions might include: • Growth • Complementary technologies to yours • Number of locations • Technology that rules out your solution or makes investment less likely Your data sources might be LinkedIn; third party data vendors such as DiscoverOrg, Dun & Data sources can include: Bradstreet, or Clearbit; and / or a predictive data • Desk research: looking at forums, job boards, platform such as Lattice, LeadSpace, or Everstring. social media, etc. • Competitive intelligence firms — including HG Data • Web scraping — with firms like Datanyze and BuiltWith For some companies, technographics will be the single most important driver of the account selection process. For others — where complementary technologies are not important indicators — they will play a minor role. 40

Using data for account selection (cont’d) Engagement Data Sources include: “ Yes, you need to look for intent How engaged is your company with this account • Your CRM data signals. But I’d hate to try to build a right now? • Web analytics predictive model on it exclusively — • Marketing automation reports When selecting from a long list of potential target • Sales rep activity there’s just not enough of it in the accounts, it makes sense to consider your current • Email and calendar information market compared to companies level of engagement. That way, you’re not starting • Executive input that fit and companies you’re from zero. This can tip the scales in favor of one company over another. Tools like Engagio aggregate all this data at the already engaging with.” account level for you, making it easy to identify Dimensions include: overall Engagement (as well as its Recency). J.J. Kardwell, • Past sales into the company Co-Founder, Everstring • Rep activity levels Engagement is an important part of your account • Account engagement by persona selection methodology, but you still need ‘Fit’ data • Data coverage of key decision-makers to identify high-potential accounts. In general, use • Existing relationships and connections engagement to prioritize from a longer list rather into the account than to supply your entire list. • Executive entry points

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Intent Data (3rd Party) When an account is ‘surging’ on a topic you care • Anonymous data isn’t actionable. Even the Is the company showing signs that they’re in the about (e.g. your industry or a specific competitor), most popular intent data-vendors provide data market right now for solutions like yours? these vendors notify you that they suspect the time that is only partially actionable. It’s anonymous may be right to reach out to the account. This idea third-party data at the company level, without Some companies are using third-party intent data appeals to marketers and sales execs, as used details on WHO at the company is exhibiting the to augment their engagement data. This is correctly you can hypothetically reach the right behavior. Once you know a company is surging information collected about a person or company’s person at the right company at the right time. for a particular product, what do you do next? activity occurring on other sites, including specific That’s the holy grail of personalization, and it’s why Who do you go after? If you sell to large articles read, content downloaded, site searches, 33% of companies said they plan to invest ‘more’ enterprises, you need to know exactly which and more. or ‘significantly more’ in intent data monitoring contacts to reach out to. solutions over the next 12 months (SiriusDecisions Vendors like Bombora, Prelytix, and The Big Willow Command Center™, Oct 2017). • Low volumes. Most critically, the likelihood that work with ad networks to aggregate and track one of your accounts is surging at any given activity across B2B websites, while others, such But a word of caution: don’t rely overly on intent time is low. At Engagio, in any given two-week as Madison Logic, TechTarget and G2Crowd, track data for account selection. period, on average 2.46% of our accounts are content consumption locally on their sites. demonstrating they’re ‘in-market.’ If only 25 out • Matching inaccuracy. Match rates tend to be of 1000 are surging, what do you do with the between 40-90% between the data vendor’s other 975? “ All enterprise IT vendors sell hard report and your account list. This can result in to the same 5,000 companies. false positives, indicating the wrong account If an account is truly surging, then you really want is surging. to know about it. But, you simply can’t count on it So intent becomes key: get to them to reliably fuel most of your ABM efforts. when they’re actively thinking of • The taxonomy of surging topics may not match your kind of solutions.” your business. If you sell security software, it may not be helpful to know that a company is Henry Schuck, researching general security-related topics at CEO & Co-Founder, DiscoverOrg any given time. 42

Picking accounts Let’s look at how you can bring all this data Help Sales pick by ranking accounts together to choose and tier accounts. Applying a bit of marketing methodology will help Sales should ‘own’ the account selection ensure your process is more rigorous and therefore A key ABM lesson learned is that Sales should Manually picking your list of target accounts more likely to succeed. feel like they own the account selection for each The simplest way to select accounts for ABM is to tier. Alignment and buy-in is so critical to ABM let the sales reps draw up their own lists and Start with the entire territory for each account success. When Marketing does manage to combine them into a master list. In this scenario, executive, then score each account according create engagement at a target account, you they may be hunting for firmographic and to the Fit and Interest with your solutions. want Sales to feel excited. This is much more engagement data on their own, or Marketing can (The scoring can be based on a manual model likely to happen when they’ve picked the jump-start the process by providing Sales with or a predictive model.) Then, let the AE choose accounts. (It’s OK if Marketing helps and even basic data. (We suggest that you start with about accounts guided by your scoring. drives the process.) three times the number of accounts that reps actually need. The buffer allows them to add their valuable judgment and ensures buy-in.) In general, this list won’t be wildly off-base — reps Account MAP ABM Tool Employees Total Fit Engagement Sales Pick know their markets and they will have immediate Bioholding Marketo 50K-100K 107.72 102.59 87.27 P buy-in to the outcome. But, without further analysis, it will almost certainly miss some big Lexiqvolax Eloqua > 100K 101.93 101.93 31.11 opportunities and overvalue others. Openiane Pardot Leadspace 10K-50K 113.10 98.35 351.41 P Hottechi Oracle/Eloqua 1K-10K 106.01 96.37 191.48 Streethex Marketo Lattice Engine 0-25 95.84 95.66 16.25 Ganjaflex Marketo Infer 1-10K 99.46 94.72 81.12 Surnace Eloqua Demandbase 10K-50K 91.75 91.75 49.18 Example of an account selection spreadsheet used by Engagio. The AE reviews the ranked list of accounts for their territory and then applies their own judgement to pick the accounts they want to target. 43

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Scoring target accounts P T You could build a scoring model manually based on In this admittedly over-simplified model, three key “ The majority of ABM programs have firmographic and technographic data. Ideally, you dimensions are scored on a scale of 1-10, with the a list of targeted accounts in the 500 incorporate a ‘Sales Won Analysis’ to identify the score being multiplied according to the weighting to 2,000 range, so that’s still a lot of factors that led your best customers to purchase. of each dimension. See the table below. activity to track manually. Predictive That said, Predictive Analytics can incorporate far is one thing that enables companies more data to build models that may better predict to scale their ABM efforts, something Fit (quality). which was not possible even a few years ago.” Megan Heuer, VP Research, SiriusDecisions Tier Co. size (x2) Have right CRM (x5) Engagement (x1) Score Company A 10 (x2=20) 8 (x5=40) 10 (x1=10) 70 Company B 3 (x2=6) 1 (x5=5) 0 (x1=0) 11 Company C 10 (x2=20) 2 (x5=10) 5 (x1=5) 35 Company D 10 (x2=20) 10 (x5=50) 7 (x1=7) 77 In this example, Company A and D made the cut. 44

( ) Scoring target accounts cont’d How predictive scoring works “P redictive Analytics looks at indicators 3ft Predictive Analytics takes data about accounts at a level that humans just can’t that have progressed to a certain stage of the understand. It’s not realistic to expect buying process and uses it to highlight other that you will come up with your best accounts that look most like these. Just as Netflix predicts which movies you’ll like target accounts simply by having sales, 2ft based on the ones you already liked, Predictive marketing and product sit in a room. Analytics chooses the companies most likely to This reduces so much friction and buy by analyzing the ones who have already allows everyone to feel like you’re bought (or have become opportunities). making data-based decisions instead 1ft Predictive models will often include all the data that of having people bickering around you might use in a manual scoring model but will a table.” likely include many more dimensions and data points. In fact, a big part of the value of predictive J.J. Kardwell, vendors is they do the data collection and Co-Founder, Everstring cleansing work for you. T O N the usual suspects Predictive models don’t operate with any biases or hypotheses. They simply analyze the data, building the model around any characteristics that best correlate with eventual success. 45

s e s s e c o An account selection r M p B III 7 A t e r a h maturity model P T At Engagio, we think about Account Selection But the more data you bring in and the more using a four-stage maturity model. sophisticated your modeling, the better your Don’t overthink it. chances of optimizing your resources by laser- Regardless of selection process, You can start with the most basic approach focusing them on the accounts with the highest starting with a ‘good’ account list is — letting sales reps draw up their target list — propensity to buy. almost always better than waiting and still get real value from ABM. months to make it ‘perfect.’ Level 1: Reps Self-Select Based on intuition and experience Level 2: Basic Data Adding in manually collected data and simple scoring Level 3: Manual Scoring Adding purchased data and more advanced scoring or modeling Level 4: Predictive Scoring Sophisticated predictive scoring and modeling The ABM Account Selection Maturity Model starts with simple sales rep selection and progresses through to full predictive analytics. 46

Be patient ABM efforts take time. Once you’ve chosen your list of target accounts, stick with it for longer than you may feel is right. Sales reps may overreact to bad news and want to take an account off the list. But persistence can pay off. Just because an account is not ready to buy right now doesn’t mean they should be removed from your ABM program. Tip: don’t turn over more than 25% of your list each quarter. If your turnover is greater than that, you may be abandoning the ship too quickly. We find it best to review the account list once every six months, and definitely at least every 18 months. 47

ABM Expert Q & A Peter Herbert, CMO, FullStory How are you applying ABM to your own sales • Account data in CRM and ABM platforms: laser at the right people, and marketing efforts at FullStory? Segmentation, target tiers, account profile data, in the right accounts. For many companies, At FullStory, the goal of ABM is to be as thoughtful fit score, intent data, engagement data, account it’s a completely logical choice to implement and coordinated as possible as we work to create stage, MQA status these practices. personal experiences for the right people at • Account-centric measurement including: accounts that fit our ideal customer profile. ABM account funnels, ABM scorecard, Companies should be less concerned with ‘doing allows us to apply a laser focus on the segments of account-scoring (MQA) ABM’ than with creating the most effective go-to- the market that are an extremely good fit for our • Lead-to-account matching market approach. Since many broad-based, product. In addition to helping us intentionally • Sales and CS insight into account engagement volume lead-based, and inbound/outbound target segments of new customers, ABM helps us for both anonymous and known contacts in practices are so entrenched, there is change focus our resources on engaging and creating CRM. Account-based web engagement is a data management involved. Here’s some ways to more value for current customers. point while aggregated, detailed views per ensure you are set up for success: contact of anonymous and known people at From your experience at VersionOne, the account-level are true insight. 1. The entire leadership team must agree on Terminus and now FullStory, what is the key to change, including people, processes, systems success in ABM? This is all built to enable your go-to-market team and metrics. The single most important key to success is focusing to deliver the most optimized experiences for your 2. Clearly define and document the business case on operationalizing ABM to create great buyer and users, at scale. for ABM. customer experiences. It’s certainly not enough to 3. Identify ‘champions’ and ‘executive sponsors’ decide to execute one campaign, implement one How can organizations manage the change in each team. technology, or simply become ‘customer-centric.’ You that comes with ABM? 4. Create an ABM roadmap that identifies the have to wire up your system to help people do the right It starts with getting collective buy that is focused initiatives and projects across different themes things at the right time. Some signs that you’re on the on the sweet spot of the market. We now have new such as Training, Process, Metrics, Operations, right path are: frameworks and technology that enable more Programs. efficient, selective, and targeted, go-to-market 5. Measure from day 1 using an ABM scorecard. • Documented ICPs and buyer personas tactics. In addition, we have data platforms that are 6. Champion learning in your organization Invest in • A data-driven process for TAM identification, accessible for account building and that deliver the giving people time to be exposed to high-quality account selection, and account prioritization necessary data points and signals to point the ABM events, visiting experts, or even outside help. 48

ABM Expert Q & A ( ) Peter Herbert, CMO, FullStory cont’d How can organizations make sure they’re What are the 3 key things that organizations selecting target accounts correctly? need to do to get started with ABM? I recommend a data-driven approach. Take your ICP 1. Start with alignment across your executive definition, use data platforms to build as much of team. I advocate for the CMO to lead the effort your TAM as possible, and mark your high-fit and be the catalyst for collaboration. accounts in your CRM. Segment them by industry 2. Defined ICP that allows you to build your and size, so you can understand which segments database of high-fit accounts and contacts. may be the most valuable and where your best use 3. Invest in a platform that helps you operationalize cases apply. Then use signals such as intent and ABM across Marketing, Sales, and CS. engagement to help you prioritize. Marketing should pull together account lists, then sit down with sales to validate them at regular intervals, Use emerging data to quickly prioritize high-fit accounts that may not be currently be in an active status for targeting. This approach is often referred to as FIRE (Fit, Intent, Recency, Engagement), and it is a killer approach to improving tactics and sales insight that add up to dramatically better account conversion. 49

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h 2. Identify people P T The quickest opportunity for ABM Where to find contacts and enrich your data success is often simply growing the There are many sources of contact data, including: Who collects the contact data? number of contacts per account. • Your existing data — living in your CRM, Your Entitlements will determine who is Marketing Automation or ERP systems. responsible for maintaining accurate • Manual research — manually scraping sources contact data at target accounts. such as LinkedIn, media or event websites, As an example: industry forums and social media channels. • For Strategic accounts, the Account • Call programs — having Sales Development Based Marketer maintains all contact Reps call into the account to build out contacts. information, working with the AE. • List-building partners — an easy way to supplement • For Scale accounts, Marketing your data and add it to your contact profiles in your maintains data for the six top CRM (see Datanyze and SalesLoft Prospector). personas and updates it quarterly. • Email conventions — if you know a company uses • For Programmatic accounts, ‘[email protected]’, then you can figure out Marketing maintains data for email addresses when you only have names. two personas and updates it • Purchased contact data — buying laser-focused once a year. lists from reputable data providers such as • For Targeted Demand Gen accounts, ZoomInfo, Data.com, and Oceanos; DiscoverOrg there is no proactive contact even provides organization charts filled with generation; Sales Development Reps contact data. (SDRs) may source contacts in • Predictive personas — some predictive vendors, advance of a big calling campaign. like Leadspace, will determine the personas most likely to buy, and use that to supply you with additional contacts from your target accounts. 50

The challenge of Lead-to-Account matching The challenge of Lead-to-Account matching A common challenge in Account Based Marketing is the fact that Leads in Salesforce are not connected in any way to the Account object. This means you might have hundreds of people in your database that work at your target accounts, but no way of tying their activity to the right company. This is especially a problem when bringing in new leads from marketing programs (such as submissions from a website form or a tradeshow list). This is where Lead-to-Account (L2A) matching comes in. This identifies which account each individual lead should be part of. Once you’ve made a match, you can make the connection for the purposes of ABM programs and metrics, while keeping the record as a Lead (which maintains all your existing lead processes). Or, you can explicitly convert it to a Contact in the Account. Either way, getting this right is a critical step in all ABM programs. See Part IV, Building Your ABM Foundation, for more on Lead-to-Account Matching.

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h A persona-based approach P T In Account Based Marketing, you’ll “W hen I’m talking to a VP of sales, my Data quality matters be targeting messages and content messaging has to be different than Data quality is too often neglected in marketing in to specific members of the buying when I’m talking to a manager of inside general. In ABM, it’s especially important. With such team by role and seniority (as well sales. Knowing those roles, and mapping high-value contacts, you don’t want to waste money sending expensive, ‘dimensional’ direct mail twice as other dimensions). messages to them, is critical for an to the same person — or, even worse, look stupid Account Based Marketing strategy.” by personalizing a letter with the wrong facts. That means building detailed personas that Maria Pergolino of Anaplan tells the story of a sales represent each key member of the buying team Henry Schuck, rep that kept notes about contacts in the ‘first — probably 3-5 personas. Co-Founder and CEO, DiscoverOrg name’ field in the CRM system. Imagine getting an You’ll also want personas that might not be as email addressed to “Dear Mike (hates us)”! detailed for the second and third tiers of influencers; Investing in data quality processes and tools could the people who may not be on the buying team save you time, money and embarrassment later, by but who may have a significant influence in the removing duplicates, validating address information buying process. and standardizing company names You don’t want to let a deal come undone at the last minute because you completely ignored a key constituency (e.g. nursing staff at a hospital). Pro tip Look at how many contacts you could have compared to the contacts you actually have. This ‘whitespace’ analysis tells you where you need to focus your list-building efforts. 52

3. Develop account insights ABM works because it lets you invest Cut through the noise to engage with the more of your limited resources in the right people biggest accounts that are most likely In ABM, executives aren’t raising their hands, as to buy. The entire strategy depends they do with inbound marketing. They haven’t on doing your homework and learning expressed interest in you, as they do with lead- about target accounts (and key buyers based demand generation. at those accounts) so you can To engage these buyers, you must delight maximize your relevance and them, educate them, and always add value. resonance within each. B2B industries are more competitive today than Leveraged properly, account-specific insight will ever before. They’re crowded, commoditized, have a dramatic impact on every engagement: noisy, and everybody is trying to knock on the same doors. Buyers are overwhelmed by this • People will be more likely to open and noise, and will immediately throw away anything read your emails. uninteresting, hit ‘SPAM’ on emails that smell like • They’ll consume and share more of your content. sales, and ignore your ads (no matter how targeted • They’re more likely to attend your events they may be). and webinars. We need to break through all that noise to be • They’re more likely to take and return your successful with ABM. The best way to do that is sales calls. with insight-driven customization. • Your sales and customer meetings will be more productive and effective. • Your sales and cross-sell cycles will be accelerated. That’s the power of relevance and resonance — and that’s why insight is so critical to ABM success. 53

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Insight-driven customization is not optional According to ITSMA, the three most important ABM is an outbound activity. You need to knock in ABM factors in an enterprise sale are: on people’s doors. Without insight, these efforts We know from The Challenger Sale that the best are no better than cold calling. Powered by relevant B2B salespeople control the sales process and 1. Knowledge and understanding of my unique messages and content, you can open doors and follow these practices: business issues. build relationships. 2. Knowledge and understanding of my industry. • Teach: offering unique perspectives to their 3. Fresh ideas to advance my business. prospects, they are great at two-way “5 0% of customers are more likely to communication. This is the same as The Challenger Sale — teaching purchase from a vendor when they • Tailor: understanding the prospect’s value with fresh ideas and tailoring those ideas to the drivers, they craft messages to their business and industry. personalize their sales and marketing economic motivators. materials to a customer’s specific The new outbound business issues.” This approach is far more specific and tailored Insight-driven ABM applies the best concepts from than generic ‘thought leadership.’ In fact, it’s demand generation to targeted, outbound prospecting: ITSMA survey, 2014 something far more valuable: customized commercial insight. These salespeople don’t just • It’s content driven — not product-led claim an understanding, they prove it and back it • It’s helpful and valuable — providing real up with evidence. They also disrupt the prospect’s utility to the audience world view, breaking the frame of reference to • It’s focused on the buyer — not your expose a flawed assumption, and so challenging company’s agenda the status quo. Approached this way, your ABM interactions are ABM applies the same concept to marketing. personalized and super-relevant — and that’s what ITSMA studies show 75% of executives will read opens doors. unsolicited marketing materials if relevant to their business, but the key here is that it must be relevant — which means tailored to their business. 54

What kind of insight are you looking for? You want to know as much as you can about: Your connections to the account An ABM Account Insight Checklist Your existing connections to the key contacts; The information you need to collect The target account’s market previous deals; customer service experiences; The market dynamics, news, trends, growth drivers your experience with their close competitors; The Market and inhibitors, M&A activity, etc. LinkedIn connections to people you know; £ Industry dynamics university or past company ties, etc. £ Key trends The target company £ Competitors Their stated strategy, their strengths, weaknesses, Insight at each level will translate directly £ Growth drivers and inhibitors opportunities and threats; competitors (and which into relevance and resonance, which drive similar companies use your solution already); their engagement and, ultimately, deal success. The Company org chart and unique buying centers; which buying £ Financial health centers own your products, which own competitors’, £ Growth areas vs ‘cash cows’ and which are open (whitespace analysis); any “I w ant to know what the £ Renewal risk recent sales triggers (new funding, new hires, etc.); VP of HR has for lunch.” £ SWOT their culture and values. £ Initiatives and organizational priorities HR software vendor £ Triggers (funding, acquisitions, The target personas personnel moves, etc.) The agenda of each member of the buying team; their priorities, prejudices, preferences, styles, tactics; The Buying Centers where they’ve worked in the past (and what systems £ Org chart that company used), etc. £ Key buying centers £ Whitespace within buying centers The relationships inside the account How each key contact relates to the other members Relationships and Connections of the team; who reports to whom; who holds £ Key contact profiles budgets; which are the influencers, blockers, £ Relationships to each other mobilizers, enablers, etc. £ Relationships to your company (relationship map) £ Attitudes, preferences, biases 55

s e s s e c o Where your insights r M p B III 7 A t e r a h will come from P T As an ABM practitioner, you’ll use a Blog posts — more and more senior executives wide range of sources to build up a are blogging, either on the company site or on other complete picture of the target market, industry forums. Always read their posts and capture account and persona: the insight. Market data — articles and analyst data on the Direct conversations — captured by your SDRs, market and competitors give you essential context salespeople and event staff. for your messages. Existing connections — someone in your company The content they consume — seeing what blog — or inside your partners, suppliers or customers posts, articles and eBooks a prospect reads tells — may have deep experience with the account or you a lot about their current interests. Track this the people in it. engagement on your own site with marketing automation, and partner with vendors of ‘intent Social media — the information people share on data’ to help track it off your site. social media can be pure gold: it’s timely, relevant and personal. Monitor LinkedIn profiles, Twitter feeds Surveys — when in doubt, ask. Run your own and participation in online forums. Social monitoring surveys to find out what you don’t know and to tools can help. validate what you do. Or leverage existing surveys to add credibility and weight to your messages. Official company information — annual and quarterly accounts, letters to shareholders, investor calls and every page on the website are all solid sources of insight (it’s surprising how little they’re consulted by salespeople). 56

How you can generate your insight When it comes to ABM insight, there Scale Identify your insight resources may be some shortcuts but there’s no • Deep research on each micro-segment — Insight generation has to be somebody’s job substitute for hard work. trends and issues or it’s nobody’s job. Consider these tips: • Lighter research on individual companies One of the biggest challenges is to scale your insight • Compensate — incent your SDRs on insight generation efforts appropriately, so you can focus Programmatic collection metrics your efforts where they’ll make the most impact and • Basic profiles: 3 facts for selling in under • Offshore — hire talent to complete and enrich automate when it makes sense. 3 minutes (a tip from Vorsight) your insight base; use Mechanical Turk to assign • Map key pains by industry or segment repetitive tasks Tier your insight program • Know competitors and their product usage • Outsource — buy in your insight collection You can’t throw the same intensity of resources at • Possibly automate insight collection using (from vendors like BAO or Salesify) a smaller, non-named account as you can for your data partners • Purchase — buy whole org charts (DiscoverOrg); biggest enterprise accounts. CRUSH reports from Avention (for IT only); Sales Set insight goals triggers and insights (InsideView, Agent3); insight Depending on your Entitlements, your insights may Insight can stagnate without goals. Agree on some reports (LeadBridge, Artesian, Boardroom look like this: targets and metrics to keep the machine whirring: Insiders, etc.). Strategic • Number of new profiles per quarter You’re going to have to spend some money • Full account profiles • Profile updates per month to be really good at Account Based Marketing. • Quarterly updates • Account updates per month It’s worth it: these are the accounts that will • Dedicated insight team per account • Organizational chart completion percentage make you the most money. • Internal Slack or Chatter group per account • Relationship map completeness, etc. • Weekly snapshot alerts per account • Supplement as needed via data partners 57

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Activating your insights Generating insight isn’t enough. You need to activate Scaling insight that insight by getting it into the right hands and One company we work with has a four-person translating it into action. Here are some insight- team that creates Value Hypothesis documents sharing tips: for each of their 1,400 target accounts, including: • Create an ABM Insight Factory — with a dedicated • What they think the account should be team of researchers (see sidebar) worried about • Spin up an Insight Base — using a web collaboration • Examples of similar companies that tool or intranet they’ve helped • Issue regular update reports — highlighting new • Content they’ve researched about them insights or developments (e.g. quotes from their CEO) • Set up ad hoc alerts — for breaking news that • Entry points — content or messages that can be acted on can be sent directly to start dialogs • Integrate insight into your CRM profiles — or into your ABM management tool These are customized by account but can be based on segment-specific templates. 58

Craig Rosenberg’s tips for social media insight “S ocial intelligence tends to be the best intelligence. The Quick tips: information someone shares on social media is something • If the prospect is on Twitter, follow them and they care about and can make for easy connections. You can retweet or quote their tweets with a comment. truly personalize the message with this kind of information. Everyone likes to be retweeted. ‘Congratulations on your recent product launch’ or just • Consider putting a personal message in the something in their LinkedIn profile.” retweet. If you have a great piece of content that ties with their content, forward it to them. • If the prospect is on Facebook, you can like a “A BM also gives social teams an ideal mission. Go to your status update. social media manager — who may have been tweeting out • Use LinkedIn InMail as a touch in prospecting — generally — and say, ‘Give us Microsoft insights and deliver it often out-performs email. • Keep your own social profiles strong — and make content to 2,800 Microsoft marketers daily.’ That’s a great sure each SDR and sales rep has a complete and social brief.” up-to-date profile. Heat maps show that the headline, photo and summary are the most viewed. Any insight is better than no insight One company, Network Hardware Resale, lifted email conversion rates simply by mentioning the local weather in the opening sentence! 59

ABM Expert Q & A Megan Heuer, VP Research, SiriusDecisions How can marketers scale the insight Is content creation a major burden in ABM? How personalized does ABM content need generation needed for ABM? It’s only a burden if Marketing hasn’t done the work to be? The first thing is to understand how your accounts to improve content strategy and is too focused at We see a lot of content still targeted at the top of the are segmented, because there’s a different level of the top of the funnel. funnel for overly generic personas. This happens insight needed for major strategic accounts, versus, when marketers say, “We sell into 20 industries and say, a broad base of mid-market or SMB type It’s a must to tune content development to buyer we’ve got 5 different personas in each and 5 sales accounts. Then for each of those account types needs and all buying stages (not to mention stages and we can’t develop content for all of them.” there will be different insights required to prioritize customer needs and post-sale lifecycle stages, but So people throw up their hands and write something focus and determine what actions to take. This is the that’s for another discussion), and to target the for CIOs in general and call it thought leadership. idea of account personas, where you understand the types of accounts that Sales wants to reach. different sizes and types of accounts in your What happens next is the overly generic content audience and build from there. Smart marketers have already started to develop a goes to Sales and can’t be used because Sales content agenda that maps better to buyer personas and says, “I’m calling a CIO in this specific industry and With segmentation in place, the next step is to use buying stages. Some also layer in industry or other he only cares about these two things.” tools to automate insight gathering and analysis. account-type considerations. These content You need technology that helps you bring together a inventories, when done right, are a starting point to build So marketers really do need to go back to the bunch of different data sources and serve it up in a what’s needed to reach the right contacts in buying drawing board, inventorying their content in a much way that helps Sales and Marketing make good centers in target accounts. So the raw material that the more account-oriented way and identifying holes in choices and timely responses. ABM folks can pull from is getting better. From there, it’s coverage — then creating content that will reach, not customizing so much as configuring new content. hopefully, more than one account. In addition to automated data feeds, there’s also a role for traditional phone-based insight collection. I suggest that marketers worry less about scale Of course, when you have very, very large strategic Generally this works better with a third-party doing it, when it comes to content in ABM, and be more accounts with massive deals, that’s often going to rather than inside tele-functions. Companies who do concerned about relevance — there’s too much be a completely customized content effort. this type of profiling on a regular basis get more content being created for a need that doesn’t exist. information about the accounts than an internal ABM folks need to connect with the people defining business development team can get. the content agenda to make sure that the content will ultimately be useful to help Sales bring value to the accounts that the business cares about growing. 60

ABM Expert Q & A Megan Heuer, VP Research, ( ) SiriusDecisions cont’d What are the obstacles to ABM? A third one is if Marketing goes in and says, “Hi How big a culture change does ABM demand? ABM can be the victim of its own success. If you start Sales, we want to do ABM — what do you want?” I often have marketers come to me when they’re with one or two people being asked to ‘take on’ ABM and it sounds like they’re asking Sales to tell them starting down the ABM road, nervous about having and it works really well, then Sales will want more. But how to do their job. Then Sales just asks for the that first conversation with Sales. marketing leaders can be reluctant to shift resources things that they’ve always known — some nice away from the things that they’ve always been doing. events, a bit of content. Or they say, “No thanks, I’m And what I say to them is this: Sales is going to good. I’m already working with this account. I really be really happy to hear you talking their language When that happens, ABM marketers aren’t able to don’t need you to do anything.” — talking about accounts, talking about support scale their teams or their work as quickly as they’d like for relationships, talking about changing the and they get a bit frustrated. It’s a real issue. The last failure point is starting with tactic selection. way you engage with them to better fit their When marketers say, “I need to scale ABM, and I go-to-market model. Have you seen any ABM programs that don’t have marketing automation and email to use so instantly work? we’re going to do ABM with email nurture streams,” It’s actually other marketers that you may have a hard Once in a while we see a team that doesn’t get off and not look at the bigger picture, it doesn’t work. time convincing. Because you’re asking them to stop on the right foot. Maybe they made assumptions ABM is not about email alone — or any one tactic thinking about general concepts or segments and about what Sales want, rather than going and really for that matter. stop trying to do everything to reach everybody. working with Sales. Then they walk in with a beautiful account profile and say “Happy Birthday” Marketing needs to act in a consultative role that You’re actually asking them to change the way they and Sales says, ‘What the heck is this?’. really showcases the profession, coming to the table plan — to base plans on actual insights about to say, “Hey, this is what we know our buyers prefer actual accounts and the actual people in them. Also, marketers can put Sales a bit on the defensive, and here’s what I recommend we do with this account That’s a dramatic change and it will be the hardest going in and saying, “We’re here to help, give me all of to meet the goals that you told me you have.” thing in ABM: actually changing the mindset of your account plans and I’ll come back to you with a marketers. marketing plan.” Sales isn’t accustomed to handing over their account plans (and maybe haven’t been so diligent about building them) and all of a sudden they’re being asked to turn over the keys to the kingdom and that sort of puts Sales on the defensive. 61

s e s s e c o 4. Generate account-relevant r M p B III 7 A t e r a h messages and content P T The insight you generated in Step 3 is “I n a shift from the volume and What kind of content is right for ABM? only an asset if you use it — in every velocity model, where templatization Every kind of content you’d use in a normal interaction and in all of the messages, is key and low value offers such as sales and marketing process will be effective offers and content you send into the whitepapers create low conversion in your ABM program — as long as it’s targeted and relevant — including: buying team in each account. rates, Account Based Marketing Emails, eBooks, webinars, white papers, web pages, The idea is simple: requires companies to deliver relevant, blog posts, SlideShares, videos, infographics, personalized, valuable experiences to podcasts, social media posts, interactive content, Every sales process is the sum of its engagements. specific buyers.” surveys, quizzes and graders, etc. Dial up the relevance and resonance of your Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder and The key is to focus on tactics and formats that interactions and content and you’ll increase your audience engages with. Some personas read the quantity and quality of your engagements. Chief Analyst, TOPO eBooks widely, while others don’t. Some will happily watch half-hour videos; others won’t even watch a 1-minute video. Pro tip Not every piece of content has to be focused on the business. You can add humor and aspects to engage the buyer as well. The goal is to connect with them on an intellectual and emotional level. 62

Relevance resonates ITSMA research shows that 75% of executives will read unsolicited marketing materials that contain ideas that might be relevant to their business. Would you read unsolicited marketing materials Would you pay attention to these marketing that contain ideas that might be relevant to your materials even if they were from solution “ You need to create stories that business such as success stories, research reports providers you had not previously done business the right people in your targeted and webinar invitations? % of respondents (N=346) with? % of respondents (N=258) companies would actually like to read and share.” % No 25% 8 No Johan Sundstrand, VP Sales, Jabmo % % 75 Yes Yes 92 Source: ITSMA, How Customers Choose Study, North America, 2007 63

s e s s e c o Personalizing the r M p B III 7 A t e r a h executive conversation P T At the highest level, ABM is about reaching the right senior executives. You don’t maintain a conversation A personalized email: at this level with generic messages — or with slick This excerpt shows how a salesperson created a compelling, personalized content that signals ‘generic marketing.’ Data from story by taking the extra step of showing how their technology could specifically McKinsey & Company shows that personalization help the target company (in this case, Starbucks). Based on this email, reduces acquisition costs by as much as 50% and the company was able to set up a meeting with the CEO, Howard Schultz. increases revenues by up to 15%. Even if the ideas aren’t 100% right, they show you’re thinking about their Instead, your ABM programs will include business in an intelligent way. personalized emails, reports and content that use everything you know about the company to prove you understand their most pressing challenges. …share some ideas I had on how Starbucks could leverage : • Seeing a relevant article and popping it in the mail • Mobile app distribution — reduce friction by allowing your website with a post-it note pointing out its relevance is visitors to download your mobile app by texting the download link a quick way to establish contact and credibility. to their phone. We intelligently detect whether a phone is on iOS • For account-expansion, a great piece of content or Android OS and send them to the right app store. might be a case study showing how another • Picture message a coupon to your customers on their birthday. division or group within the same company is Why tell them how good a frap will be when you can show them using your solution. the gooey ribbons of caramel? • Mentioning your connection to the prospect • New VIP service: text your order in to your local Starbucks. is a strong opener for ABM conversations. Get your favorite thirst quencher sooner. “Bob Apollo mentioned you in a conversation • Picture message Starbucks coupons w/QR codes to your friends about XYZ yesterday…” on special occasions. These messages are most powerful when they • Leverage geo-location services to MMS special deals to consumers come on behalf of your executives. This kind of when they are in close vicinity to a Starbucks. executive-level interaction will often out-perform … your more automated marketing (even when the latter is personalized). 64

Content personalization The ABM Leadership Alliance reports Instead, think about a balanced mix of content, that ‘developing campaign assets that with each piece falling somewhere on the content are mass customizable to allow scale’ personalization spectrum: is the #1 challenge faced in ABM programs. Fortunately, not every piece of content has to be specifically created for each target account — that approach wouldn’t scale. The Content Personalization Spectrum 100% personalized Highly personalized Highly customized Customized Industry-specific Multi-sector Generic Created just for this Created for multiple Existing content, Existing content Content targeted Targeted to a cluster Broad content for all account AND persona personas at a single heavily adapted with lighter spin to one industry of related markets targets, but still target account for one account for one account (e.g. insurance relevant to the account and banking) 65

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Simple vs super-personalization P T Simple personalization You can turn a relevant but broad piece of content into a super-relevant piece with some simple tweaks, including: • Targeted title or subtitle • Imagery that reflects the target industry • Case studies from the target market • Tweaked introduction and conclusion • A targeted landing page and email This allows you to scale up your content personalization efforts without breaking the bank. “Pe rsona plus Industry is “ You can create a message for 50 or where the magic happens. so in an industry then add something That’s powerful targeting.” personal, but it takes care of 80-90% Johan Sundstrand, of the initial effort.” VP Sales, Jambo Andres Botero, CMO, BlackLine 66

Simple vs super-personalization (cont’d) Super-personalization However you create it, a custom report is often Content prepared ‘just for you’ can be the most an irresistible offer: TOPO on high-value offers. compelling of all. Consider using your company’s “ High-value offers are a key component of unique expertise, resources or assets to produce “I j ust ran this. Here are some of the creating a valuable experience for the buyer. The a special report specifically on the target account recommendations. Can we set up a 15-minute idea is to present prospects with an offer that is and its key challenges. call to discuss the rest of the report?” so valuable that they need to engage with you. For example, OpenDNS created a custom visualization These offers are typically focused on a high- of the network for each target account and used that “I f something reads like it could have priority challenge or opportunity confronting the in their campaign. target account (or segment of accounts). They been sent out to 100 other [people], are often personalized to the target account and A network security company would get meetings by then chances are that’s exactly what provide prescriptive insights and best practices scanning a client’s network, finding vulnerabilities, has happened.” to the buyer.“ highlighting some of them and asking for a meeting “ High value offers can take many forms from to go over the rest. Adam New-Waterson, assessments to account-specific onsite Other vendors make highly personalized Head of Global Demand Generation, workshops, but they should always be relevant to ‘Annual Reports’ for each major account BloomReach the account and deliver tangible value. For (especially powerful for existing customers). example, Marketing might develop a proactive assessment for top tier accounts and provide a While these may be labor-intensive exercises, summary of the assessment as part of the you might also find an automated approach. promotion of an account-specific workshop. This For years, Hubspot’s ‘Website Grader’ is a highly customized, account-specific offer was a top-performing content asset that that delivers valuable insights and auto-generated a report from the target’s recommendations.” website URL. 67

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Tier eBook Infographic Webinar Mini-Case: A print run of 12 Tier 1 Accounts [Account Name] Guide How [Account Name] Can See How [Account Name] Can The wholesale division of a European telephone Highly Personalized to Predictive Marketing ROI with Predictive Marketing Generate More Leads with network supported a pitch to a mobile operator w/custom copy Predictive Marketing with a highly-personalized printed book and eBook. Tier 2 Accounts [Account Name] Guide How [Industry] Can See ROI How [Industry] Can Generate Personalized by to Predictive Marketing with Predictive Marketing More Leads with Predictive In it, the top executives of every department Account Name and w/name only Marketing addressed their counterpart in the prospect Industry company by name, addressing the top concerns of Tier 3 Accounts A [Industry] Marketer’s Guide Custom hub featuring How [Company Size] Can each executive and committing to solve them. Personalized by to Predictive Marketing relevant infographics Generate More Leads with Industry or Predictive Marketing Whether it was because of this innovative Company Size approach or the one-to-one mindset behind it, Source: Rachel Lefkowitz, LinkedIn they got the deal. “ The same kind of predictive analytics you used in your account selection can guide your personalization for emails, advertising and content. It’s about the intimate understanding of a persona.” Doug Bewsher, Leadspace 68

( ) Simple vs super-personalization cont’d Don’t forget PowerPoint Content Hubs “ 80% of clients have a huge content The sales presentation is still a critical pivot point Freya News, the ABM marketing agency, library. We look at what they have, then in most sales processes. recommends industry-specific content hubs that personalize it.” contain content for all personas and buying stages. ABM teams can help arm each salesperson with Uberflip, a content marketing company, creates Jeff Sands, the most informed, relevant and insightful pitches content hubs for specific named accounts. Senior Associate, ITSMA that speak directly to each audience and match everything the prospects have been seeing from If you use this approach, you could then use the company. targeted advertising, email and social media to drive your ABM contacts to the hub, where they Using a generic corporate deck to follow-through find the right content for them. on a highly-personalized ABM process would be nothing short of malpractice. 69

s e s s e c o Your ABM content r M p B III 7 A t e r a h creation process P T One of the primary uses for the insight The ABM Content Creation Checklist you generate is to create content that The ABM content creation process looks like this: will be super-relevant to the key people Conduct a content audit inside your target accounts. £ Discover all the potentially relevant content you have right now £ Tag it by account, persona, purchase stage and issue £ Identify content gaps that need filling Adapt existing content £ Pick content that’s relevant and usable as-is £ Identify content that needs simple revisions to make it account-relevant Create new content £ Prioritize themes and issues for the account based on your insight £ Identify sources: subject matter experts, existing content, etc. Create an editorial calendar for content creation £ Create content briefs and assign to internal team or agency 70

5. Deliver account-specific interactions You’ve identified your target accounts “ To grow your business, you have to “I t’s not unusual to see 5, 7 or 9 touches and mapped contacts to them. reach out to people you don’t know and to get a prospect to move to the next who don’t know you. If they aren’t stage of conversion.” You’ve worked hard to generate downloading content, then you have to insights about each one. try something else. Welcome to reality.” J.J. Kardwell, Co-Founder, EverString You’ve created relevant content and Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder & Chief messaging that reflects that insight. Analyst, TOPO Now it’s time to get this targeted messaging in front of the people you most need to meet. This is where ABM gets active. Because, instead of promoting content widely and sitting back until people come and get it (the inbound way), you’re going to actively get out there and make sure your target contacts see and absorb the messages you’ve prepared for them. And, instead of spending your budget trying to reach everyone in your market, you’re going to laser-focus your resources on the named people in the key accounts that matter most. 71

s e s s e c o Tactics to r M p B III 7 A t e r a h activate ABM P T The tactics that ABM marketers use the most include: Yes, there are other tactics — and new ones emerging all the time — but these are the staples • Field events of any ABM program. • Direct mail • Human outreach (AE, SDR, executive) This is where ABM gets activated. • Account advertising • Web personalization Let’s look at them in turn. 72

Field events in ABM Events are still the area of largest Tips from Maria Pergolino of Anaplan spend across B2B markets. No one does ABM-style events better than Maria. Who should do the inviting? Here are a few tips: In traditional marketing events, Sales They’re valued because a high-quality, face-to-face • Do an event for just one account — holding it in wants Marketing to do the inviting interaction will always be the most powerful way to a venue close to their offices (or even in them!). (because they want new prospects) initiate a discussion, deepen a relationship or • Get a top executive from a target company to speak and Marketing wants Sales to do the accelerate a deal. at an event — it’s a great way to attract others from inviting (because they have the For the same reasons, events are a core component the company. relationships and will invite people of most ABM programs. But with ABM, the target • When a buying center does their go-live, more likely to attend). audiences for all these interactions are the specific hold a bigger party at the client and invite As with so many aspects of ABM, Sales people from the buying teams in the target accounts other teams from across the company and Marketing must work together to you selected in Steps 1 and 2. (laying the foundation for a future cross-sell). draw up the list of event invitees. The Events break down into two types: those your invitation itself then comes from company runs, and those that other companies whoever is best-placed to make that (or organizers) run. approach. When a relationship is already there, it will be Sales. When not, Marketing. Tip: If you’re targeting executives, the invitation should come from an executive in your company at the same or higher level of seniority. 73

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Events you run yourself The best ABM events tend to share these Many of the best high-level executive events include In ABM, the key metric for an event isn’t how many characteristics: unique, ‘money can’t buy’ experiences. For example, people attend but how many of the right people Apttus held a high-end dinner hosted by celebrity from the right accounts attend. • A timely, relevant topic — on a specific pain- Chef Michael Chiarello, and Marketo once held an point or trend. event at Club 33, an exclusive members-only club With this in mind, a dinner, roundtable or roadshow- • A balanced content mix — not just product talk inside Disneyland. style event may be much more valuable than the — think panels, cases, chalk-talks… and fun content industry’s biggest exhibition. And inviting key leaders that’s not commercial. or entire teams to your in-house executive briefing • Third-party participation — customers, experts, center for a whole day can be even better. analysts, partners, etc. • A curated audience — people who will learn from each other. • A softer sell — not pushing sales decks to a captive audience. 74

( ) Field events in ABM cont’d Events other companies run Create a VIP track ABM programs aren’t confined to your company- Making use of the entire event, but guiding owned events. You can also make other events and curating the experience. work for you, including those run by partners or by third-party organizers. Earn the list of attendees One way to do this is to hold a raffle offering You may not be the only hero of these broader events, to ‘Upgrade the Experience’ (first class airfare, but you can still use them to develop relationships a luxury suite, limo to and from the airport, with your target contacts. A few tips: VIP pass to the party). Anyone who enters the raffle is a likely attendee at the event — Set up meetings in advance near the event so use the list to reach out to the right ones. This requires a lot of close work with sales — handholding the process, giving them a list Follow up of people you know will be at the event, With an invitation to your own dinner, roadshow sending phone and text reminders, etc. or sales meeting. Invite your contacts to specific content within the event For example, to your speaking slot, demo room or booth activity. The entire event may not be yours, but this part is. Run a side event within or around the event With the organizer’s permission, hold your own roundtable, dinner or customer event. 75

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Direct mail in ABM P T Because of the focus on highly PFL, a direct mail vendor, people who receive “O ffers sent by mail are perceived as targeted lists of high-value prospects, packages are 10 times more likely to act when 24% more valuable than offers viewed direct mail has found a key role in asked for something in return. only on a screen. And mail boosted ABM programs. What kind of direct mail? ROI by 20% when used as part of Take information from sales conversations and an integrated campaign.” The more focused your ABM and the better your social profiles to identify things the prospect enjoys, account research, the higher value offer you can such as food, outdoor activities, travel etc. Then, U.K. Royal Mail, February 2015 deploy. A successful ABM dimensional mailing surprise and delight them with a direct mail package might cost as much as a hundred to a thousand that ties into their interests and a note that prompts dollars — enough to make a real impact. them to complete the desired behavior, whether it is to call you back or sign the contract. Pro tip Breaking through the noise: High-value and highly Many databases don’t include a postal personalized dimensional mail can also break Examples: address for contacts. You may have to through a noisy marketing landscape for senior • BT Global Services sent 100 Chief Security do some digging to find the right one. executives who may not download white papers or Officers an iPod Shuffle loaded with audio attend webinars. Think about how many emails interviews and security-related tracks you get each day compared to how many packages (Rescue Me, etc.). land on your desk. According to a Mail Print study, • Another B2B company sent C-level executives the response rate for targeted direct mail is 4.4% an iPad pre-loaded with personalized video — almost 40 times higher than email. content and white papers. • Ariba sent executives a remote-control Porsche Cognitive psychology: Direct mail engages the Boxster. To get the remote controller, they had to parts of the brain that have to do with visual and attend an event or take a meeting (a ‘give to get’). spatial information. Physical material is more ‘real’ • Inkling sends a package containing a die-cut to the brain and connects to your prospect’s printout of a gift, like an Amazon Echo, with a memory and emotional centers. Furthermore, note asking the prospect to take a demo to get sending a package to someone can increase the the real thing. likelihood they’ll respond to your other outreach; it • At Engagio, we send packages to new customers, gives you a reason to reach out, and according to thanking them for going on the journey with us. 76

( ) Direct mail in ABM cont’d Don’t ignore the team! “ We’ll start with direct mail as Alternately, send packages that require people to the centerpiece of our marketing The personal note get together and discuss your solution. We had one campaign, and then layer in display Handwritten, personal notes can have customer send a locked box to one stakeholder advertising, social, emails and just as big an impact as the high-value and the key to another, with a note prompting them direct mail piece — as long as they’re to get together. outbound calls to create a true timely, well-targeted and demonstrate omni-channel experience for our insight about the recipient. “ Sending direct mail is one of target accounts. We’ve found that Meanwhile, direct mail vendors can those rare creative moments high-impact direct mail pieces are generate and deliver handwritten most marketers dream of. At first one of the most effective ways to (or apparently handwritten) notes glance you may think you’re simply get our foot in the door at large based on automated ABM plays. sending coffee mugs or assorted enterprise accounts where we’ve sweets, but what you’re really previously not seen much success.” sending is your brand in a box.” Julia Stead, PFL VP Marketing, Invoca 77

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Human email in ABM P T Email is the lifeblood of traditional Instead of bombarding your targeted accounts, demand generation and it plays a ABM teams often remove their contacts from the Pro tip major role in ABM as well. broader lead-gen and generic nurture mailing Personalized, human emails sent on programs, so they can be treated in a more behalf of your executives can drive But in ABM, email is not a broadcast medium or the personalized way. response rates 10X or higher than cog in an automated campaign or nurture flow. It’s traditional marketing emails. Isn’t that a one-to-one human communications medium, ABM emails also tend to be text-based and from worth it for the key personas at your with each email carrying a distinct, personal specific individuals (often your executives), rather most important accounts? message to the prospect. than slick, HTML mails that signal ‘marketing’. While Marketing is often the department coordinating the Limits of automation process, ABM emails are individually personalized, Automation has transformed demand generation, reviewed, and approved by a human. While that but by definition, it provides scalability by removing takes additional effort, the strategic nature of ABM the human touch from the equation. This makes accounts makes it worth it — the risk of a top deep personalization impossible, and it can result in prospect opting out is just too high. accidents as well — every sales rep has a horror story of Marketing sending a promotional, generic email to a large deal they are about to close. Oops. Put simply, you cannot automate the human touch. 78

Sales development in ABM Because of the importance of the This goes way beyond simple sequences or “ Targeting outreach campaigns human touch in ABM outreach, Sales cadences. Sales automation is still automation, by account enables Cloudera SDRs Development Reps (SDRs) — also and buyers can spot ‘robo-spam’ a mile away. to research individual accounts and ABM done correctly brings deep research and known as Account Development Reps personalization to ensure each touch is relevant buyers and speak to their exact pain (ADRs) or Business Development Reps and personalized. Instead of sending more emails points. As a result, these campaigns (BDRs) — are the ‘tip of the spear’ when to get a reply, it sends better emails. produce a 60% open rate, 31% response reaching out to accounts. Sending generic, templated emails is bad enough rate, and massive increases in both for small deals. For the big opportunities, you’ve net-new opportunities and add-on In many companies, outbound prospecting by really got to raise your game. It’s so easy for business from current customers.” Sales Development Reps was the Sales your target to hit the spam button — why would department’s response to the inability of traditional you ever risk your ability to communicate with TOPO: Cloudera Case Report, demand generation tactics to make inroads into the most important people from the most September, 2015 major accounts. Done poorly, Sales Development important accounts by sending them a generic, activities are run in a silo, completely irrelevant message? uncoordinated with Marketing. But now, ABM brings marketing and outbound “ Template emails are roulette wheels. sales development into alignment, focusing If you only get 100 rolls of the roulette Pro tip efforts across teams in a coordinated way. wheel, then you need to increase your Can you swap out basic variables, such In this model, companies combine email, phone, odds [with customization].” as name and company, then send the and personalized social media interactions with email to someone else without having to marketing support and air-cover to develop and add or change the rest of the email? If deepen relationships at target accounts. Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder and the answer is yes, then you probably Chief Analyst, TOPO have ‘robo-spam.’ 79

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Account advertising in ABM P T Advertising is one of the most popular but people who travel, work from home, or use their Social platforms enable super-targeted advertising tactics in ABM, but also one of the mobile device likely won’t. (Some vendors add opportunities — just make sure that the creative least effective. geographic targeting on top of IP to help refine the you use is appropriate for the specific platform. targeting.) Because the audiences are somewhat According to TOPO, 88% of ABM leaders at high- large, it typically requires fairly large commitments growth B2B companies plan to use account-based in terms of media spend. “ You can take an email and cut and advertising technology in 2018, yet only 34% report Onboarding offline databases paste it into a Linkedin message and the they are satisfied with the solutions. This approach starts with a database of B2B Linkedin message will outperform the How account advertising works contacts and then attempts to match them through email with 7x response. Even further, if With ABM advertising, you utilize a list of target data providers like LiveRamp. you send the message by InMail, you’ll accounts and only serve ads to accounts that Since this approach targets individuals and not get a 33x increase in response.” match this list. Depending on the technology used, locations, it doesn’t matter where the contact you may also identify a set of titles or personas is located, and it can significantly reduce the InsideSales / Hubspot eBook, that you’d like to reach in those accounts. waste in your advertising budgets. However, ‘ Master Tactics for A key part of the technology is how the vendor low match rates mean you reach only a fraction Exponential Growth’ matches your list of accounts to the ad servers. of your audience. This can include: Social media advertising IP targeting Social media platforms let you target your This involves serving ads to any browser using the advertising (sponsored posts) to specific known IP addresses of your target companies. individuals, companies and personas (e.g. Custom Does Facebook work for B2B? Audiences on Facebook and Tailored Audiences on Many B2B marketers question whether Facebook The technique is more targeted than broad Twitter). LinkedIn goes even further letting you is effective for their audiences. To us, if your targets advertising but includes people within the target target by company and professional demographics are on Facebook, it can be an effective channel. company who have nothing to do with the buying directly, which is why many experts believe They key is to make the offers ‘Facebooky’ — team — especially at large companies. Think of it LinkedIn is the best advertising channel to target leading with content instead of sales messages, like a billboard outside an office: nearly anyone B2B customers. etc. — so the experience isn’t jarring. working in that location has the potential to see it,

Advantages of account advertising Easy Targets by funnel stage Getting started with account advertising is You can build different campaigns for different They liked it so much they relatively easy. It doesn’t require building deep stages of the account journey. Accounts that have bought the company sales and marketing alignment, or dramatically never engaged with you should get a broad 2lemetry sold business intelligence software for revamping your metrics or lead-based processes. awareness campaign (low bid, broad targeting), the Internet of Things. They wanted to get a while accounts that visited key product pages on partnership with Amazon Web Services. Always on your website would be best to see a detailed case Unlike other ABM tactics that require your team to study (max bid, narrow targeting). Accounts that They wrote a custom blog post about how their do manual work each time, your ads can run 24x7 have open opportunities might see a specialized solution would work with AWS’ Lambda without manual intervention. nurture sequence (medium bid, narrow targeting). platform, then bought a Facebook ad, targeting Reaches people not in your database everyone who worked at AWS. If you want to send an email or direct mail package, Within 2 weeks, they had a meeting with the you need to have contact information for the ABM ad creative right people. A few months later, AWS bought individual in your database. But ABM advertising ABM advertising isn’t about the click. It is an the company! lets you target the company (and sometimes awareness builder and can provide brand personas in the company), so you can reach the recognition and air-cover for your outbound people you don’t yet know. This can be especially efforts. It can also support open sales useful in ABM since buying committees are large opportunities, help nurture existing and you may not have every single individual in relationships, and support activities your database yet. surrounding targeted events. Personalized search With Google’s Customer Match feature, you can The key is to be seen by the right people at the upload a batch of email addresses to Google right time, sending the right message. and use them to target specific customers at specific accounts. This works in search as well as Shopping, Gmail, and YouTube. • Since match rates for B2B emails may not be high, use this to bid higher for known matches, not to exclude all other searches. 81

s e s s e c o Problems with r M p B III 7 A t e r a h account advertising P T People don’t click on ads Low match rates Brand safety Display ads carry an average click-through rate When onboarding offline databases, your reach is It’s embarrassing to have your ad show up on a site (CTR) of 0.1%. According to a company called Solve limited by the vendors’ dataset and match rates, whose content you don’t agree with, but it takes Media, you’re more likely to survive a plane crash, which can be as low as 35% to 40%. B2B lists time and energy to manage exclusion lists which get accepted to Harvard, or win a lottery prize than typically achieve less than half of that. As a result, avoid this properly. click on a banner ad. your ads won’t reach all your targeted prospects. Think about it — when’s the last time you clicked on an ad? And even if you do get clicks on your ads, they may not help your business. Facebook reports that as many as 90% of ad clicks are from bots, and MediaWeek reports that as many as 60% of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental. That’s why the cost-per-lead from your advertising % % % campaigns will almost always be much worse than 14 8 2.8 your other demand generation channels. Banner blindness and ad blockers remember the recall the company or thought the ad Not only do people not click on ads, they also often last ad they saw product promoted was relevant don’t even see them. eMarketer reports that 30.1% of US internet users have an ad blocker enabled. On Source: Niel Patel, Infolinks top of that, banner blindness is the well-documented tendency for web users to ignore page elements that they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) to be ads. The result? Even if you are buying impressions, you may not be engaging your buyers. 82

Problems with account advertising (cont’d) No customization “ If content marketing is the hero Account-based advertising platforms today don’t of the modern marketing story, Pro tip allow for real customization or personalization. then banner ads are most certainly Directly purchased ads on social (Sticking the company name in the ad doesn’t networks like LinkedIn do not suffer count; that’s no better than saying ‘Dear [[FNAME]]’ the villain.” from many of these disadvantages. in an email.) By their very nature, ad networks force Consider making sure your LinkedIn marketers into larger segments to reach enough Michael Brenner, advertising strategy is working before impressions — the opposite of the smaller, more Marketing Insider Group tackling other ABM advertising tactics. targeted segments that ABM is all about. In many ways, account advertising is closer to targeted demand generation than true, customized ABM. Second-tier inventory The DSPs that power ABM advertising platforms typically have access to the ‘leftover’ inventory after publishers have sold their premium inventory on a guaranteed basis. This remnant inventory contains any ad units that have not been purchased by an advertiser. Markups and opaque pricing Only a fraction of the CPM (cost per thousand impressions or technically, ‘cost per mille’) price you pay your ad vendor actually goes to buying inventory. Some of it is margin for the vendor and some goes to pay middlemen in the transaction: data vendors, the DSP, and so on. As a result, you have no idea how to compare CPM pricing across different vendors and channels accurately. 83

s e s s e c o Account advertising r M p B III 7 A t e r a h — what’s the verdict? P T We did some experiments at Engagio with Ads provide web traffic and awareness, but most integrated ABM plays in a campaign that included marketers aren’t just trying to drive awareness with sending packages (two test versions) with valuable ABM. They’re trying to drive meaningful content and customized, handwritten notes for engagement, meetings, and sales opportunities. multiple target personas at key target accounts. For half the accounts, we also purchased Net-net: Ads can work as part of an orchestrated advertising to see what incremental impact it had. campaign, especially if your goal is to increase awareness with a much broader set of people at a The results? Ads did provide a significant lift in web target account. But don’t rely on ads and feel traffic from target accounts, but there was NO LIFT in confident that you’re ‘doing ABM’ well. That our ability to get meetings or to create opportunities requires a deeper ABM foundation and broader at the accounts that had ads versus those that didn’t. orchestration strategy. • Package 1 only: 34% meeting rate ABM has become over-identified with • Ads and package 2: 21% meeting rate advertising, and that’s a real disservice to the • Ads and package 1: 20% meeting rate category. Advertising can play a role in ABM, • Package 2 only: 18% meeting rate but it is far from sufficient by itself. 84

Web personalization in ABM More than 98% of visitors to your And if you’ve created account-specific content website are anonymous when they (such as an Account Content Hub), you’ll want to Avoiding the creepy factor arrive and still unknown when they feature that when a member of that account hits As ABM develops, it’s important to maintain click away. your site. the integrity and ethics of the discipline. Once a visitor is known and in your marketing Used insensitively, personalization can cross That hurts. automation system, you can personalize even more that ‘creepy line’ into cyber-stalking. And if you — by persona and buying stage, for example. start playing the volume game with ABM, But it doesn’t mean you can’t use your website in the relevance of your interactions plummets your ABM program. The best way to do it is by — and you turn into a spammer. personalizing the web experience for your chosen accounts. ABM marketers are among the smartest in the Using web personalization technology, you can business. Let’s keep the standards high and treat identify the company and industry that a visitor prospects the way we’d like to be treated ourselves. belongs to, then serve them up images, case studies and offers that target that account or industry. If you’re targeting healthcare, retail and financial services, you can create three different home pages and website paths that are optimized for each. 85

s e s s e c o The most effective r M p B III 7 A t e r a h ABM tactics P T OK, so we’ve covered the major tactics used in What specific tactics are most effective for ABM? Account Based Marketing, but which ones actually Choose up to three. work best? ITSMA asked ABM practitioners of each style of One-on-one meetings 40 ABM what specific tactics were most effective. Custom thought leadership 36 The conclusion is clear: no matter which style of ategic Innovation days ABM used, the most effective tactics involve Str 35 custom, human interactions. If you want to drive Executive engagement 34 ABM success, you can’t remove the human touch 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 and value-added customization. One-on-one meetings 49 E-mail marketing 47 Scale Executive engagement 23 Custom collateral 21 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 E-mail marketing 60 One-on-one meetings 30 ammatic Account advertising 30 ogr Direct mail 23 Pr 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Source: ITSMA, Account Based Marketing Benchmarking Survey, March 2016 86

6. Orchestrate account-focused plays The tactics discussed above are far Orchestration defined Done correctly, Marketing Orchestration ensures more powerful when combined into Leading B2B marketing and sales advisory firm all the moving parts in an ABM play work together orchestrated ABM plays that TOPO found that orchestration is key to a to achieve business goals at a target account. synchronize many different successful account-based strategy. They define orchestration as: interactions and channels as part “ The sequenced coordination of different “ The companies that have had success of an integrated account plan. activities, programs and campaigns across have really positioned ABM as a marketing, sales development, sales and With Marketing Orchestration, you run a customer success to drive engagement with strategic business initiative rather than proactive and coordinated series of personalized multiple stakeholders in target accounts.” a marketing program. Salespeople, interactions, some automated and some human, TOPO goes on to say: finance, IT as well as marketing people that span the entire customer journey. Think of “ Successful multi-channel orchestration requires need to agree that this is an important the marketer as an orchestra conductor. Each coordinated, cross-discipline planning and investment to make, for the outcome to individual tactic is like an instrument (strings, execution against a clearly-defined objective. be most beneficial.” percussion, brass, etc.), and it’s the job of the Orchestration involves the activities that are orchestra conductor to make sure they all work executed across marketing, sales development, Bev Burgess, Senior VP and ABM in harmony. and sales, including individualized outreach (e.g. The more tactics in your plan, the more you need executive touches) and air-cover activities by Practice Co-Lead, ITSMA Europe orchestration. And with more than 7,000 marketing marketing (e.g. media and advertising).” technology companies out there, the need is Forrester also says that Marketing Orchestration helps greater than ever! marketers coordinate and integrate personalized marketing across touchpoints and time: “ Marketing orchestration is an approach to marketing that focuses not on delivering standalone campaigns, but instead on optimizing a set of related cross-channel interactions that, when added together, make up an individualized customer experience.” 87

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Diversification P T A key component of Orchestration is using different channels and different people on your team. Buyers will resonate with different tactics, so using more gives you more ways to reach the target. It’s like a stock portfolio: diversification spreads your risk and increases your chance of a response. % According to a recent InfoTrends report, response 9.5 rates jump from 7.9% (email-only) to 9.5% when % the campaigns are multi-channel — that’s 20% % 8.8 more responses! 7.4% 7.9 A C-level executive at a target account might not be returning your SDR’s phone calls because she doesn’t like phone calls. A multi-pronged engagement not only gives you the greatest chance to break through, it helps you discover how each contact prefers to respond, so you can tweak future plans. DIRECT MAIL ONLY EMAIL ONLY EMAIL & DIRECT MAIL MULTICHANNEL Source: InfoTrends 88

Orchestration across departments Perhaps the most important aspect of “I t’s easier to work in silos. You just Orchestration coordinating interactions from don’t make as much money.” Start with orchestrated sales development marketing, sales development, sales, and campaigns customer success, as well as executives. Peter Herbert, CMO, FullStory TOPO found the fastest path to launching Traditional demand generation is based on a orchestrated campaigns and driving strong ‘handoff’. Marketing generates leads and passes “Ou tbound sales development is results is to focus on marketing and sales them to Sales. But ABM is a much more integrated not a complete answer. It works development orchestration. process in which departments work together This includes: fluidly to develop relationships over time. If a bit but you really need an • Partnering with account-based SDRs who demand gen is like a relay race with a baton pass, orchestrated, multi-channel effort.” work exclusively on assigned target accounts. then ABM is more like a soccer match where the • Designing multi-touch, multi-channel players pass the ball back and forth to move down Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder and coordinated campaigns around the field together. Chief Analyst, TOPO common themes. This of course requires sales and marketing • Focusing on pipeline metrics and qualified alignment, which although rarely easy, is always meetings over MQLs. worth it. Their research shows organizations executing marketing-SDR orchestrated campaigns typically realize a 30-50% lift in ‘meetings set’ at target accounts, with some organizations reporting 100% increases. Source: Marketing and Sales Development Orchestration, January 2017, TOPO 89

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r Orchestrating plays a h P T A play is a series of orchestrated The play metaphor In this model, Marketing is the coach, writing the interactions (both human and The ‘play’ is the perfect metaphor for orchestration playbook. Sales is the quarterback, calling the automated) across departments since it reflects the fact that there are multiple specific plays on the ground. And every customer- people at the target account, and multiple people facing department in the company has a position and channels. at your company working together to interact with on the field. The team works in lock-step to ensure the account. That’s why we use the analogy of a a buyer’s experience is positive, consistent, and football chalkboard. As in football, multiple people in context with everything else happening at on your team are lining up to multiple people on the account. their team, and you are orchestrating who does what — and when. 90

Launching plays There are three ways to launch orchestrated plays. Batch Triggered / Automated Using complex filters that span people, accounts, You can also use complex filters to set up triggers Manual activities, and opportunities first select the exact that launch plays automatically when certain Manual plays are launched when a marketing or group of accounts that you want to target, then conditions are met, for example when key sales user selects one or more accounts and then launch the action or play to the entire list. personas at the account exhibit key activities (or chooses an account to run against them. This can (This is similar to building a list of people in inactivity). This is similar to running a triggered be as simple as taking a single action or as complex marketing automation.) campaign in marketing automation (except that the as a multi-step play spanning channels, targeted latter only focuses on people while plays can focus personas, and players from your company. on accounts). Once you know what works, setting up automated plays like this is a great way to scale your ABM program. 91

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Examples Here are some plays you might run in batch or automate. If this… …then that Accounts with engagement from key personas but no sales touch in the last 7 days Alert Sales to follow-up Accounts that are good fits for personal invites to an upcoming roadshow Launch the event invitation play Target accounts that had someone come by the booth at a recent tradeshow High-value follow-up Accounts with open opportunities that have a new key persona in the database Executive reach-out play Accounts with lost opportunities that are now re-engaging Alert Sales Account reaches a minimum threshold of engagement Change Account Status to ‘marketing qualified’ Target accounts with no activity in 30 days Awareness campaign Target accounts that are ‘surging’ Coordinated reach-out (see next page) 92

Anatomy of a play Here is a simple play for reaching out to a target account, courtesy of TOPO. It involves touches from your Sales Development Rep (SDR) as well as one of your executives (in this case, the CIO), plus marketing air-cover in the form of direct mail. This play reaches out to the decision-maker, key stakeholders, executives, and more. Type Activity Audience Owner Notes 1 – Day 1 Marketing email All Marketing Announce event, feature keynote 2 – Day 1 Postal DM Marketing Dimensional mailer, event brochure. Drop day 1, arrive day 3-4 3 – Day 8 Marketing email All, segmented Marketing ‘Why attend?’, featuring relevant speaker (by person) 4 – Day 11 SDR call Stakeholder, DM SDR Invite call 5 – Day 11 SDR email All SDR Invite email, feature relevant companies attending 6 – Day 14 Exec email Exec Exec Personalized invitation from CIO 7 – Day 18 Marketing email All Marketing ‘Less than two weeks!’, feature VR Lounge after-party 8 – Day 22 SDR call Stakeholder, DM SDR Invite call 9 – Day 22 SDR email All SDR Personalized email, feature networking 10 – Day 24 Marketing email All Marketing ‘One week away!’ message 11 – Day 28 SDR email All SDR ‘Last chance! Registration closes tomorrow!’ message 12 – Day 29 Marketing email All Marketing ‘Just 4 more hours to register!’ message Day 31 Live event Example Orchestration Plan, TOPO 93

Your marketing orchestration playbook Your own ABM playbook will be Pre-sale plays Marketing Qualified Account Play highly customized to your goals and Account Prospecting Play Follow up with hot accounts. challenges. But these examples of Reach out to target accounts using multiple When an account shows significant activity and channels and teams. engagement (enough to be labeled a Marketing integrated plays will give you a sense As per the examples on the previous page, these Qualified Account — more on this later), of orchestration in action. are multi-channel and multi-player plays that automatically launch this follow-up play to ensure attempt to open the door at target accounts. that nothing slips through the cracks. Unlike Creativity and patience can have a major impact, traditional SDR-only follow-up, this play can use so don’t be afraid to try new things to get the touches from multiple channels and people to get attention of the people that matter. the meeting. This is a golden opportunity to get a hot account engaged in a selling conversation. Field Marketing Play Drive success for field events. Shake the Tree Play Field marketing holds special events such as VIP Wake up opportunities that have gone dark. dinners and experiences to engage high-value When an account goes dark, it doesn’t mean the targets, but it can be hard to get executives to deal is lost. If the buyer stops responding to the RSVP. The same is true for setting up meetings at Account Executive, it’s time to bring in new voices major events such as tradeshows. Sales wants and channels to ‘shake the tree’ and get the Marketing to drive the process, but Marketing conversation going again. (This is essentially a knows they need help from Sales. Batch emails more aggressive form of deal nurturing.) won’t do it; the personal touch is critical to get key executives to attend your events. Use a play to orchestrate the process and ensure the right interactions are happening across departments. 94

Your marketing orchestration playbook (cont’d) Deal Nurturing Play Opt-In Play “ In the high-volume, high-velocity Accelerate or un-stick opportunities. Get permission to run campaigns. model, Marketing works separately to Sales reps are compensated for driving revenue In ABM, you often build out your database with generate Marketing Qualified Leads this month or quarter, so they rightly spend the contacts for target personas. But those key people majority of their time with later-stage deals. This have not given you permission to send marketing (MQLs) for Sales and moves on to go means early-stage opportunities (e.g. Stage 0 or 1) emails. Use different methods to connect with find more. In ABM, barriers are are often not properly worked by Sales — but at the them personally and get opt-in permission (e.g. dropped, and Marketing is part of the same time, automated marketing is often turned a phone call offering to email them a high-value off once the opportunity is created. whitepaper). You can run this with just one contact process of turning an account into a or with multiple at the same time. customer. For example, mid-sales This means as many as 70% of your opportunities cycle marketing campaigns are helping are not being worked by either Sales nor Marketing! New Rep Intro Play Get introduced to your new accounts. lower sales cycle times.” This is where deal nurturing comes in. In deal When a new rep enters a territory for the first time, nurturing, Marketing defines and coordinates this play can help them get introduced to their new Craig Rosenberg, engagement with accounts in the opportunity accounts. This helps new reps by sending an email Co-Founder and Chief Analyst, TOPO phase. Outreach includes personalized emails, on their behalf, stating they are the point of contact direct mail, advertising, social, event invitations, moving forward and offering to schedule an and so on; these interactions may go to the introductory call. champion that Sales has already interacted with, but they can also touch other influencers and decision-makers at the account. The key concept which makes all this work is that orchestration allows Sales to maintain complete control; nothing is sent out before a salesperson reviews and approves it. Deal nurturing brings the process automation and the scale of traditional lead nurturing to an account-based, customized level that is appropriate for each and every account. 95

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Post-Sale Plays NPS Promoter Play Account Expansion Play (cross-sell) Get feedback on your product, identify Get more revenue from customers. your champions. Expanding into existing accounts is a key Customers can be your biggest and best sales component of Account Based Marketing. With force, but many are not proactive about it. When account expansion plays, you’ll leverage not only a customer responds to your NPS survey with a your team, but also key players from the buying 9 or 10, the timing is ideal to reach out to bring center you’ve already successfully sold to, in order them into your formal advocacy program (referrals, to expand into other buying centers within the case studies, reviews, etc.). There’s nothing more account. This is also a great play for when you effective to achieve that than with personal introduce new product lines or offers. outreach from your team. Renewal Play NPS Detractor Play Retain all of your customers. Get feedback and save customers. In the ‘Subscription Economy,’ more and more Let’s face it — even the best companies sometimes businesses rely on renewals for the majority of end up with unhappy customers. When you come revenue. Use plays to coordinate a specific set of across a detractor, launch an NPS play from an activities to get ahead of the game during the executive to get feedback, give your customer a renewal process. Interactions can come from the voice, and maybe even turn them into a promoter. Customer Success team as well as from Marketing, the original Sales Representative, and   your top executives as appropriate. 96

Your marketing orchestration playbook (cont’d) “ Of all the channels for getting content to prospects, salespeople Spam is in the eye of the beholder personally targeted and relevant as possible and are still the best.” ABM is all about personal communication to only mail the people who should really that delivers relevant content. That’s the opposite be receiving — and want to receive — any Johan Sundstrand, of spam. given message. VP Sales, Jabmo But in any outbound program, you’re going to One goal in ABM, then, is to get opt-in for future have to reach out to people who haven’t yet emails. SDRs can use other channels to do this reached out to you. Generally, it’s considered — from calling, to events and mail — by simply okay for an SDR to send a 1-to-1 email from a asking permission to send relevant emails on personal account. But even this can be seen as issues that matter to the prospect. spammy if it’s essentially a broadcast message under the guise of personal outreach. Keep the emails specific and targeted to the individual. And refrain from the mass Since spam is in the eye of the beholder, the rule techniques that (rightly) trip the spam alarms. of thumb must be to keep your messages as 97

s e s s e c o Selling from the influencer up r M p B III 7 A t e r (and out) a h P T The leads that fill out an online form or come to Here are Mark’s tips for leveraging the inbound lead • Recommend to the champion that the next call your tradeshow booth are often influencers, to get the insight you need to go higher: be with a wider group including decision-makers. recommenders and researchers, not true If they can’t get the meeting, you should go high decision-makers. • Ask these questions: yourself… call high and wide with your discovery data. If you’ve done a thorough needs Instead of treating them as hot leads to jump on, — What has [decision-maker’s name] been assessment, you should have discovered the use these as signals of account-level interest and talking about in team meetings lately? organization’s pains and challenges. So call high engagement. Research the account to find out the and wide anyway. The key is to translate what right person to contact, then make that approach. — What has [decision-maker’s name] been on you heard on the first call into a reason the Use the influencer as a critical source of insight your case about? decision-maker should care about you. and an ally. — What was discussed in the last company meeting? “ If you successfully sell the value of • The key to the first call is needs assessment. The your product to the influencer, that sales person needs to understand the challenges person will be more likely to provide (realized or unrealized) the organization faces any information you need to make the today and use that information to sell. With the critical sell to the decision-maker.” data collected in the first call, sales can craft relevant messaging directly to the decision- Mark Roberge, maker or other stakeholders. Chief Revenue Officer, Hubspot • An example: During the first call with the champion, spend less time on the product and more asking questions that allow you to create a customized benchmark report with real prospect data. Then turn that benchmark report into a reason to have a meeting with the decision-makers. It works. (Executives love benchmark data) 98

Orchestration in action Here are three examples of how Engagio uses Results: At Engagio, this type of hyper- orchestration to drive executive engagement. personalized outreach has a 100% reply rate (i.e. the target account gets back to us), and an 1:1 Hyper-Personalized Outreach 85% meeting rate (i.e. we get a meeting at five One of our target accounts had a surge of out of every six accounts). engagement with our marketing materials, but their VP Marketing was not responsive to our regular SDR outreach. Her Twitter profile said she had a “thing for tech, Cadbury’s and Prosecco.” It also told us she “loves a good bit of data.” So, we sent her a package with some of her favorite things and a copy of one of our books on data and analytics, including a handwritten note saying, “Cadbury and wine for 5 minutes of your time?” This was followed up by a coordinated series of emails and phone calls from the SDR and account executive, which ultimately led to a meeting two months later.

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T 1: Few Meeting Incentive “ Keep in mind: it’s a marathon not a “I t takes an average of 9.82 touches to For target accounts that showed some sprint. Take a deep breath and plan engage with a prospect. We also find engagement (but not enough to be considered a drip campaign that unfolds over the that senior executives are 2.5 times ‘marketing qualified’), we coordinated a series of course of an entire quarter. Plan to more responsive to quality multi-touch emails and phone calls to Directors that might be interested in ABM. The offer: take a meeting to drop a dozen pieces of content evenly campaigns than are junior executives.” learn about ABM, and get a pair of Airpods as a paced throughout the quarter. Employ thank you. But unlike traditional campaigns, the a mix of 4:1 online:offline content. Dan McDade, emails didn’t come from Marketing; they were President & CEO, PointClear personalized, human emails that came from the For every four pieces of digital content SDR and the account executive. you provide, send one ‘old school’ item. Results: 38% meeting rate. It could be a handwritten letter, a reprint of an analyst report, or even a magazine or newspaper clipping with a post-it attached.” Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder and Chief Analyst, TOPO 100

( ) Orchestration in action cont’d 1: Few Event Invitation Results: The personalized, human invitations Engagio held two events on the same day. The first resulted in a 9.4% attendee to invite ratio, versus was an Executive Breakfast targeting CMOs at 1.8% for the marketing automation blast — a 5X large, enterprise prospects and customers. The difference, even though it was targeted at top second was a broader ‘Lunch and Learn,’ targeting executives from larger companies. Beyond that, a contacts who were managers (and above) at a full 43% of invitees replied to the personal broad set of companies. outreach, even if it was to decline the personal invitation; this gave us the opportunity to start a For the executive event, we used an orchestrated conversation that in many cases led to a meeting. play consisting of: In contrast, nobody replied to the marketing automation email blast. • Step 1: An email from the Account Owner with personalized messaging explaining why they Executive Breakfast Manager Lunch and Learn specifically should attend the event. • Step 2: If no response, a ‘reply’ from me (Jon Invites Personalized Play Broad Marketing Automation Miller, Engagio’s CEO) specifically asking them 96 Invited 652 Invited to attend; this was also personalized where Response 10 Replied “Yes, I’ll Attend” 21 Registered appropriate to mention people I may know in 33 Replied “No” (starts conversation!) No declines — just crickets! common with the executive. Response Rate: 43% Response Rate: 3% • Step 3: If still no response, a phone call from the SDR, and if possible, an email to the target Attends 9 CMOs and VPs (9.4%) 12 Managers and Directors (1.8%) executive’s administrative assistant. In contrast, for the broader ‘Lunch and Learn’ we did a traditional two-step email blast out of Marketo. 101

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Account plan P T The account plan drives each account’s ABM For each potential deal, you’ll need to map out the Step 4: Define goals for each buying center program, from goals to next steps. relevant buying center and define the relationships Your account goals will depend on where the between the people in it. Identify the decision- buying center is right now. Do you need to get in In traditional selling, account plans normally focus makers, influencers, mobilizers and potential the door? Accelerate the deal? Drive success at an on the products or solutions that the company blockers. Your account plan will be built around existing customer? Cross-sell? wants to sell. ABM turns this model around and these people. starts with an account-centric view that focuses These goals will guide the buying journey you want on relationships, reputation and revenues. Tip: Also identify selling personas e.g. economic each buying center to take — in other words, the buyer, economic user, technical approver, and coach. Buying Journey Stages the account will go through Here’s how to make your account plans: on the way towards achieving the goal. Step 3: Research each buying center Step 1: The basics Identify the key issues and challenges for each Step 5: Assign plays to journey stages Explain what business the company is in; identify member of the buying center (see the Insights Based on the goal and buying stage, map plays to key firmographics (e.g. location, revenue, and section for what to research and sources of each buying center that will help move them closer number of employees); list out top competitors information). to the goal. (and any other similar companies you currently do business with); identify key investors or major Specifically, look for whitespace opportunities. e t a l p m e T n a l P shareholders; enumerate top executives. Ask: which buying centers have opportunities for t n u o c c A M B which of your solutions? A t n u o c c Tip: Describe what they do in your own words — not A t r a h C g r O s u t a t S p i h s n o i t a l e R / e l o R / t c a t n o the typical language found in a boilerplate. This will Your goal is to understand how to drive growth C y r s a r m e g m g i u r T S / t T h O g i W s S n I / s e i t i r o help everyone engaging with the account understand within the account. Ask probing questions to i r P s s e n i s u B / s d n e r T t e k r a it in human terms. understand where to build the most value, such as: M Step 2: Map the buying centers at the account • How do you measure a successful partnership? A buying center is a subset of people at the • What are your three to five-year goals? s c i r t e M y e account that collectively can purchase one or more • What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing today? K of your solutions. • What would be the most effective way for you to impact your strategic objectives? For more, download our Account Plan template at www.resources.engagio.com/abm-worksheets/ engagio-account-plan-template 102

ABM Expert Q & A Donal Daly, CEO, Altify What is an account plan? In my book Account Planning in Salesforce, When I think about account planning, I like to think of I set out three basic themes or phases for an my account as a marketplace that I want to lead. account plan: Thinking of it this way gives me cause to pause — and think about where in the market I should Research for Insight into Customer, Competitor, focus, and which segments I should avoid. The plan and Company. is about building long-term business relationships in a complex marketplace that enable you to create, Integrate for Velocity by using four primary develop, pursue, and win business that delivers sources: existing CRM data, account team mutual value for you and your customer. knowledge, information shared by the customer, and supplementary data from research resources Why is an account plan so important? like Data.com. Account planning helps you maximize the return you get from an existing key account, a new Focus for Impact, prioritizing your plan units strategic account, or a group of named accounts in to maximize mutual value and targeting the your territory. opportunities where you can uniquely and competitively deliver. I’m sure you know that acquired business from an existing customer is six times more profitable than pursuing new customers. But, did you also know that you’re seven times more likely to win business from an existing customer than you are when trying to capture that new logo? What are the key elements of a good account plan? To be successful at account planning, you always need to be thinking about how to maximize revenue from your existing accounts by bringing value to your customer. 103

How do account plans get created and Align to Business Strategy — Align your account Measure — How do you know if your account plan updated? planning efforts with the customer’s Goals, is working? You need to be able to measure that the Here are 12 best practices you should think about Pressures, Initiatives and Obstacles. plan is complete, and we recommend automating as you look to how your existing customers can this measure. You also need to create a scorecard contribute to your revenue goals for the coming Build Trust — Trust is the foundation on which you to assess whether the objectives you set for the year (with a focus on Salesforce users). create, develop, pursue, and win business that plan — the target revenue, the pipeline goal, the delivers mutual value for you and your customer. penetration of the strategically important business Research — ABM is really all about research, Promise what you can deliver, and deliver on what units in the account, etc. — are all on track. research, and research. Slow down your natural you promise. inclination to pursue the deal now. Account planning is a long-term play. Analyze Whitespace — Once you understand the people and their business problems you can Customer Focus — Your role is to create value for identify areas of opportunity — the whitespace in the customer, not just to communicate information the account — where your solutions can add value about your company or your solutions. to the customer. Integrate — Integrate data, knowledge and Maintain Cadence — Account Planning should information to achieve velocity. not be an annual event. It is not about reporting what you know; it is about discovering what you Target — Select which business units in an account don’t know, and then acting to uncover the are in your ‘sweet spot,’ where you can uniquely missing information to inform your subsequent and competitively deliver true value. activity, and should be integrated into your overall business cadence. Map People and Influence — Business issues are always owned by people. It’s important to understand the political landscape in the organization. 104

7. Measure account progress For years, Marketing has measured “ If you believe ABM success is effectiveness by counting Leads and measured only on lead volume… Opportunities. But the rise of Account think again.” Based Marketing demands new ways of Megan Heuer, thinking about marketing metrics. VP Research, SiriusDecisions While leads and opportunities are important and even necessary metrics, they are not sufficient to measure Account Based Marketing. ABM is a fundamentally different approach that requires fundamentally different metrics. Here’s why: Account Based Marketing calls for account-based metrics By definition, Account Based Marketing focuses on key accounts, so it follows that its metrics must do the same. You need to measure ABM with an account-centric lens.

ABM is about quality, not quantity ABM can take a long time to show results “ Make a long-term commitment; In ABM, Marketing won’t be generating many ‘hot Ideally, we would always be able to measure ABM results improve with experience.” leads’ — so even metrics that incorporate quality ABM using closed deals and revenue (and (like ‘marketing qualified leads’) become less marketing certainly should measure those ITSMA and ABM useful. A sales rep with 20 accounts can’t accept things). But when starting an ABM initiative, you Leadership Alliance a 5% conversion rate — she needs to be thinking need to set expectations that it won’t deliver clear about growing revenue from every single account. revenue immediately. In short, Marketing needs to create influence with “ You can’t wait a year to see results the people who matter. That’s a new and different If you hide this fact when you make your business mindset about how Marketing is measured. case, you’re putting a time bomb inside your [in ABM].” ABM program. Which would the sales rep value more — 20 Megan Heuer, random low-level professionals downloading your Instead, make sure everyone understands that: VP Research, SiriusDecisions whitepaper, or one meaningful conversation with a decision-maker at one of her target accounts? • Quantity-based metrics will likely decrease (e.g. fewer leads) as resources target fewer, better accounts. • Hard results may take a long time… sometimes a very long time. That’s why leading indicators based on middle-of- the-funnel metrics are so important to ABM. By tracking how the right people at target accounts engage with your company, and how accounts move through a complex buying journey, marketers have a quantifiable way of showing progress through a potentially long development process. 106

( ) Metrics: measuring account progress cont’d In ABM, marketing supports and influences ABM is about the entire customer journey, pipeline creation not just new pipeline The larger and more complex the deal, the less we Deepening relationships with existing customers can measure Marketing in terms of ‘marketing is a big part of Account Based Marketing, but sourced’ leads and pipeline. According to traditional marketing-funnel metrics focus almost SiriusDecisions, while marketing sources 25-45% exclusively on new business. of pipeline for companies selling to non-named accounts, it sources less than 10% of pipeline at In ABM, we need metrics for every stage of the strategic or enterprise accounts. But, many ABM funnel; not only new business and pipeline plays are about accelerating existing pipeline, not acceleration, but also post-sale (expansion and creating new revenue. retention) as well as advocacy, referrals, customer satisfaction, and net promoter scores. So instead of relying on marketing-generated pipeline as a way to prove value, account-based marketers need to show their impact on revenue by NEW CUSTOMER PIPELINE ACCOUNT demonstrating how well they influence deals and ACQUISITION VELOCITY EXPANSION improve key business outcomes such as win rates, Helps acquire new deal velocity, and average contract value (ACV). Accelerate velocity Drives expansion customers, particularly of existing opportunities (upsell + cross‑sell) high value targets at target accounts at existing accounts ABM metrics measure new customer acquisition, pipeline velocity and account expansion. Source: TOPO Research 107

s e s s e c o The new metrics for r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Account Based Marketing P T So if account based marketers can’t “Do n’t count the people that you reach; claim victory on the wrong metrics reach the people that count.” (e.g. leads) and they can’t claim it David Ogilvy, exclusively on long-term metrics Founder of Ogilvy & Mather (e.g. revenue), what can they do? Fundamentally, three questions arise in ABM: Am I creating and deepening relationships 1with target accounts? How are accounts moving through buying journeys to desired outcomes (e.g. pipeline 2and revenue)? What is the return on investment of my 3marketing programs? 108

The new metrics for Account Based Marketing (cont’d) Engagement Analytics Journey Analytics Think about what matters to Sales. Reps want While revenue is the holy grail of metrics, ITSMA on ABM analytics relationships with the right people at the right measuring ABM also requires leading indicators to accounts. They want decision-makers to know show progress during long sales cycles. To achieve According to the ITSMA, ABM metrics cover who your company is when they call. this, define stages of the account journey towards three categories: outcomes you care about, and measure funnel Hence, engagement analytics measure dynamics using the key metrics of balance, flow, Relationships: deeper account penetration. relationship quality, not quantity. They answer the conversion, and velocity. These leading indicators question: Are we creating and deepening show when, how and why target accounts become Reputation: perception and / or education relationships with target accounts? aware, engaged, qualified, closed, and more. about offering and capabilities. Attribution Analytics Revenue: pipeline and specifically identified ABM practitioners use attribution analytics to identified sales opportunities. measure the return on their marketing investments and make better decisions about budget allocation. Source: ITSMA and ABM Leadership Alliance, 2017 By investing in the highest-performing programs, they maximize overall return by answering one fundamental question: ‘Did my programs lead to more revenue?’ Type Metric Description Engagement Account relationships Am I creating and deepening relationships with target accounts? Journey Outcomes How do accounts move through buying journeys towards desired outcomes (pipeline, revenue)? Attribution ROI What is the ROI on my marketing programs? The right ABM metrics. 109

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Account analytics P T ABM metrics focus on quality, not Step 1: Track activities Step 2: Match activity to accounts quantity. In this section, we’ll show Track meaningful activities of every person at Using Lead-to-Account (L2A) Matching, connect how to maintain that focus by target accounts. For example: individual lead activity to accounts (see Part IV for introducing the critical concept of more). Get this step right! If you can’t match leads to • Website: Visits by account, using account, you can’t tell which accounts are engaged. engagement minutes, and the key reverse-IP mapping account metrics that matter: coverage, • Marketing automation: Email opens, Step 3: Assign minutes to activities awareness, and most importantly, event attendance, program success, Take each activity and assign a relative number of content downloads, etc. minutes to each. For example: engagement. • CRM: Activities, tasks and campaign membership • 1 minute: Web page visit Engagement Minutes • Email / Calendar: Human email interactions • 2 minutes: Email reply ABM is all about measuring things like awareness (e.g. replies) and meetings • 10 minutes: Content download and engagement. While these are notoriously • 30 minutes: Webinar attendance difficult to measure without expensive surveys, we • 30 minutes: Sales meeting believe that time is a great way to understand and • 120 minutes: Dinner attendance measure awareness and engagement. Do Don’t Before someone spends money with you, • Assign minutes to activities that actually show • Assign minutes to activity you complete. Sent emails they’ll spend time with you. The more time engagement. count as engagement only if the recipient opens them. someone invests, the greater their interest in doing business. • Consider giving higher or lower weight to minutes from • Assign minutes to passive activity like ad impressions. specific personas. For example, you may count CXOs at People actually need to visit your website to be engaged. That’s why we recommend you track ‘Engagement 150% or even 200%. Minutes’ across your accounts. Here’s how. Once your Engagement Minutes are in place, you’re ready to dive into the core ABM metrics: Coverage, Awareness, and Engagement. 110

Coverage Do we have sufficient data and contacts for each target account? How effective are we at building out our database? The most basic ABM metric, Coverage, measures data quality and completeness. Does your database have the right people or not? Do you have accurate contact information? Do you have permission to email them? People Maps identify white space in account coverage. Imagine being able to say Marketing built initial engagement and opt-in permission with 42% of key names at target accounts, when the company had only 18% coverage to begin with. 111

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Newly Added / Engaged Prospects “ Account metrics usually also include a These metrics are predictors of future Adding contacts is important, but what’s really number of soft metrics which serve as success, particularly where ABM has valuable for ABM is to track how many of these leading indicators of ABM performance, not been in place long enough to net-new contacts at key accounts have recently including the number of executive deliver concrete financial results.” started a relationship with you. This is a great leading indicator of future success. relationships within the account, the A Practitioner’s Guide to Account Track flow by asking questions like “How many number of executive meetings, the Based Marketing, Bev Burgess and executives in our target list engaged with us for number of new relationships in new lines Dave Munn, ITSMA the first time last quarter?” While this metric may of business, and the quality of remind you of traditional lead generation, it’s the relationships. modified to reflect the fact that in ABM you build out the contact database in advance. Newly added Newly engaged Track how you build your database with the right people from target accounts. 112

Awareness Are target accounts aware of our company? Using minutes Are they aware of our solutions? One way to measure awareness is with engagement minutes. For example, you could say To measure awareness, your goal is to track recent that accounts with at least 10 minutes of activity and meaningful interactions with target accounts. over the last three months are ‘aware’. For example, even if an account has seen ads from you, it’s reasonable to say the target account is unaware of your company if no one has visited the website, opened an email, or attended an event in the last three months. Pro tip Take a baseline before starting! Track the number of target accounts that have interacted with your brand in the last few months. 113

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Using web traffic ABM efforts are likely serving to improve awareness if web traffic increases, especially compared to traffic from non-targeted accounts. Use reverse IP lookup technology to identify which accounts are visiting your website. While you can build this yourself, there are tools — including Engagio — that can do it for you. Pro tip While web traffic is interesting, don’t be fooled into thinking you can measure ABM results with web traffic alone. It’s just one component Increasing web traffic from target accounts is a sign of increasing awareness. of engagement. 114

Engagement Are the right people at target accounts spending Account scoring time with our company? Is that engagement Engagement data prioritizes your resources going up over time? to the most interested accounts. Engagement is the most fundamental ABM metric there is. It measures core relationship quality. Deeper engagement indicates that buyers are more committed to the relationship. It also shows a greater likelihood to purchase, renew, and advocate for your company. Pro tip To prioritize accounts for Sales, only use engagement produced by marketing-driven activities. While sales-driven engagement like meetings and replies is useful for measuring relationship depth, it’s less useful for scoring. Most engaged accounts on an Engagio dashboard. 115

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h P T Aggregate engagement Measure total minutes across target accounts to understand overall engagement. If this trend is up, you’re likely connecting with target accounts. If this number goes down, the program needs work. Engagement has replaced marketing-sourced pipeline as the top marketing metric at one Target accounts with increasing engagement illuminate ABM’s effectiveness. enterprise company that uses Engagio. Use a ‘heatmap’ to see where the minutes come from, pivoting by different data fields. “Engagement has so many facets: who is engaging, where are they engaging, and how much are they are engaging? How many contacts from one account are engaging? Are [customers] engaging with your SaaS platform (for land and Heatmaps show accounts with executive engagement — and those without. expand opportunities)?” Rebecah Wiegardt, Account Based Marketing Manager, Vyond 116

Engagement (cont’d) Advanced Filtering and Selectors Filtering engagement data can answer interesting questions about target accounts. For example: • Which accounts are showing marketing engagement but have no sales activity? • Which target accounts did we have meetings with last month? • From which target accounts did someone visit the pricing page? Use advanced selector logic like this to find and target the exact right accounts for your needs. You can send alerts, identify accounts for campaigns, and automate ABM actions based on how accounts move in and out of your selectors. 117

s e s s e c o Engagement data r M p B III 7 A t e r a h for sales teams P T Sales and SDRs love engagement data as much In CRM as Marketing. They use it to: Reps also want to see engagement data where they spend another significant portion of their day • Identify highly interested accounts — the company’s CRM. • Find the best people to contact next • Understand how effectively Marketing is • Simple fields: Show total minutes for different supporting their efforts engagement types across time periods as • Prepare Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) custom fields on the Account and Contact. and other account reviews • Visual timelines: Map account engagement activities in a visual timeline. (These are In email like electrocardiogram [ECG] charts Most sales reps and SDRs appreciate weekly for account health.) (or daily!) emails about account engagement with key information, such as: • Most engaged accounts Pro tip • Accounts visiting the website Include online and offline activities • Newly engaged executives for leads and contacts, across • Interactions with key content assets Marketing and Sales. Tracking web or campaigns activity is not enough. Part of a weekly email highlighting target account insights for a particular rep. 118

Engagement data for sales teams (cont’d) This is a powerful view that most Sales reps haven’t seen before. When one VP of Enterprise Sales at an Engagio customer saw it for the first time, he said: “I feel like Pro tip I’ve been in the desert for 15 years, and Celebrate successes. It only takes one or two you just showed up with a hotdog cart hot accounts to excite Sales about ABM. and lemonade stand.” A visual timeline view of engagement data. 119

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Journey analytics P T Marketers have been tracking how Advantages of account journeys leads move through funnels and Account funnels are better for ABM than Eliminate MQL squabbles waterfalls for over a decade, and this lead funnels. Marketing and Sales frequently contend over has helped turn marketing from art into Account funnels are account-centric, the definition of Marketing Qualified Leads. science. But in ABM you don’t track just like ABM Marketing may qualify contacts that actively leads — you measure account journeys. Traditional lead funnels confuse the transition from consume content, believing such action individual leads to account-based opportunities. displays noteworthy interest. When contact It’s unclear how to measure ‘lead to opportunity’ titles aren’t ready to start a sales process, “C ustomer journey analysis is now conversion, since leads are people but Sales may disagree. opportunities are attached to the account. the most valuable conversion rate Furthermore, if an opportunity is created at an Focusing on entire accounts instead of individual optimization method, coming in account with one lead attached to it, what should leads solves this disconnect. above A/B testing.” happen to the journey for all the other people at the account? Account funnels take their experience Econsultancy into consideration. Account funnels measure full customer journeys Account funnels measure customer acquisition, just like traditional demand generation. But they can also track post-sales journeys, such as Journey analytics, defined customer success and expansion. Journey analytics define the stages of account journeys, track progress toward intended Account funnels align Marketing and Sales outcomes, and measure key metrics including Sales cares about closing accounts, not leads. balance, flow, conversion, and velocity. With account funnels, Marketing does too. 120

Mapping account journeys Though account funnel stages vary across different businesses, this simple framework is a starting point. All target accounts Target account Effectively, a list of target account names Aware accounts (some engagement) Aware account Target accounts that interact with the company in some way, by visiting the website, replying to emails, or attending events Engaged accounts Engaged account Target accounts that reach a level of engagement justifying Sales outreach. (We’ll define a Marketing Qualified Account soon) Marketing-qualified account Opportunity Target accounts with active, open sales opportunities Opportunity (sales opened an opportunity) Converted customer Customer Target accounts with closed, won opportunities Funnel stages most target accounts go through. Pro tip Engagio consultants can help map your existing fields and processes (lead, account, and/or opportunity) to account stages. 121

s e s s e c o Marketing Qualified r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Accounts (MQAs) P T In demand generation, companies have long used MQA definitions should also target the specific Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) to designate needs of your business: MQAs, defined leads they consider worthy for Sales. But ABM The subset of your ideal customer targets is account-centric, so instead of MQLs it uses • Company: A large enterprise might need to show (accounts or Demand Units) with engagement Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs). more engagement from more people than a levels indicating possible sales readiness. small company. You may accept a lower MQA thresholds threshold from target accounts than non-targets. MQAs are a subset of target accounts, so you can • Personas: Your business may require a certain assume they ‘Fit’ with your Ideal Customer Profile. amount of engagement from key personas in (If using MQAs more broadly, you’ll need a fit specific buying centers, and at least some scoring component that establishes which engagement from a senior executive, to accounts are worth the time.) move the account into MQA status. • Actions: Certain actions known as ‘Act Nows’ You’ll want to define MQA rules by establishing the always make an account marketing qualified right thresholds for account-level engagement. (e.g. a particular demo is accessed by two Look at three factors: different people at an account; or a director-level contact requests a meeting, etc.). • Depth: The total amount of account • Exclusion list: You may want to exclude certain engagement, measured by engagement minutes. accounts from being MQAs. These could • Breadth: How broad is the engagement, be partners or companies that don’t fit measured by the number of unique people account criteria. driving the activity? • Time: How recent the engagement is. Only count Once you have MQAs defined, you can track the minutes in a defined window of time? number you generate by account type for each period to show ABM success. For example, a simple threshold MQA rule might be ‘30 minutes of engagement from at least 3 personas in the last three months.’ 122

The New SiriusDecisions Demand Unit Waterfall® When SiriusDecisions introduced its iconic Target demand Potential Demand Units that could purchase company solutions Demand Waterfall in 2006, the analyst firm led (e.g. total addressable market) the way in teaching the world how to quantify the traditional lead-based demand generation process. Active demand Demand units showing evidence of being, or needing to be, in the market for company It was powerful and helped teach a generation of solutions (often driven by intent data) B2B marketers how to measure and communicate Engaged demand Demand units where at least one designated buyer persona opts into company campaigns their results. and / or responds to marketing actions (e.g. an Inquiry in the old Waterfall) Inspired by new processes and technologies like Single accounts with multiple inquiries may remain in the engaged stage. This stage maps ABM, SiriusDecisions released a new version in to the Aware Accounts stage shown before 2017: The Demand Unit Waterfall®. This was a Prioritized demand Demand units showing sufficient engagement to justify sales contact (e.g. a Marketing major change away from lead-based funnels. Qualified Account) Qualified demand Demand units qualified as sales-ready by humans (e.g. need and timing or other criteria) Pipeline Demand units with active sales opportunities Closed Demand units with closed-won opportunities SiriusDecisions changed its Demand Waterfall to incorporate ABM. The Demand Unit Waterfall® tracks how discrete buying groups called Demand Units, not leads, move through the waterfall. (See Part IV for more on Demand Units.) 123

s e s s e c o The TOPO r M p B III 7 A t e r a h account-based funnel P T Analyst firm TOPO’s Account-Based Funnel also illustrates many of the ideas in this section. The ideal Customer Profile Account expansion is a critical part of (ICP) identifies the most valuable an account-based strategy and should accounts for the organization align to the same account-based The ultimate impact of an to target. A well-defined ICP is milestones as acquiring net-new account-based strategy imperative to the success of customers, even though the is significantly higher an account-based strategy. underlying activities are unique. customer lifetime value. EXPANSION IDEAL TARGET ENGAGED SALES- SALES- TARGET CLOSED LIFETIME CUSTOMER ACCOUNT ACCOUNT QUALIFIED ACCEPTED ACCOUNT WON VALUE PROFILE LIST LEAD OPPORTUNITY PIPELINE ACCOUNT ENGAGEMENT SCORE (AES) Minimum AES The Account Engagement Score is the The Target Account Pipeline (TAP) is definitive measure of an account’s the value of all opportunities created interactions with an organization, with your target accounts. TAP across marketing, sales development, replaces earlier-stage metrics as the sales and customer success. primary way to measure the success of marketing and sales development. 124

Post-sale customer journeys Since traditional demand generation focuses Many kinds of customer journeys primarily on net-new leads and opportunities, For new business, there is typically only one many marketing departments don’t receive credit goal of the journey: acquire the account. Post-sale, for campaign responses from existing leads and many goals emerge, each with unique journeys: customers — at all. • A Buying Center purchases additional products In ABM, Marketing and Sales don’t just land new • A different Buying Center buys the same products accounts — they also expand them together • Expansion (a Buying Center buys more of the over time. Post-sale customer journeys track same product) this process. • Renewal • Usage • Success Pro tip • Advocacy Marketing has the skill set to Multi-product companies will have a separate market to customers. Consider assigning journey for each product or solution as well. upsell / cross-sell pipeline responsibility to the marketing team. 125

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Measuring account journeys P T Once they define their funnel stages, B2B marketers can begin to track and measure account journeys with four key KPIs: Journey Example metric Questions it will answer “ By aligning around opportunities, KPIs Marketing and Sales get on the same Flow Number of accounts that move into a stage How many MQAs did we create this month? page, speak the same language, and Dollar value of accounts that move into a stage How many opportunities did we create over time? echo the same outcomes. ABM really What is the value of sales pipeline generated? means focus.” How much do we invest for each opportunity? Terry Flaherty, Senior Research Balance Number of accounts in each stage How many target accounts are engaged? Director, SiriusDecisions Dollar value of accounts in each stage How many open opportunities are there? Are these trending up or down? Conversion Percentage of accounts that move from one What percentage of Target Accounts become rate stage to another opportunities? What percentage of MQAs become customers? What type of accounts convert the best? Velocity Average number of days between any two How long does it take to move an account from stages MQA to opportunity? Do certain types of accounts move through the funnel faster than others? What is the average time spent in each stage? What is the total funnel time? These leading indicators show progress to revenue. 126

Reviewing the data When reporting on account journeys, look at the Bringing it together data in various ways so executives can put the A good way to review account journey data is with results into context. a Salesforce dashboard, showing the key metrics for each stage of the journey. Here’s an example Operationally Look at data weekly, monthly, using Engagio’s Dash solution. quarterly Over time See if you’re improving or getting worse Versus goals Are you achieving what you said you’d do? Versus How do you compare to similar benchmarks companies? Snapshots needed These analytics require a way to track historical values. Since Salesforce can only store a field’s current value, you have two options: 1. Manually snapshot the data each period. This can be tedious. 2. Use additional technology. Engagio’s Dash application tracks history inside Salesforce, giving you the best of both worlds. Example of stage-by-stage account funnel analytics dashboard. 127

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A te r ah ROI analytics (attribution) PT Measuring impact has been Marketing’s holy grail since John Wanamaker famously admitted he didn’t know which half of his advertising dollars was wasted. ROI’s purpose: improve (not prove) marketing ROI is most valuable when evaluating marketing “ While B2B CMOs say measuring ROI investments, not justifying Marketing. Given the is their top priority, less than 20% reality of budget limitations, CMOs need to report having the capability.” make trade-offs about where to focus resources — and ROI provides a framework Forbes to improve these decisions. Don’t use ROI analytics to ‘prove’ Marketing works, use them to ‘improve’ decisions With account-based multi-touch attribution, it’s about where to focus resources. Energy finally possible for B2B marketers to ascertain spent justifying Marketing only wastes time which programs work and which don’t, and how and resources. each affects revenue and profits. Armed with knowledge about individual and aggregated program ROI, marketers can use the insights to allocate budget for maximum impact. 128

Multi-touch attribution Attribution connects marketing and sales activity Attribution models Check out our Clear and Complete Guide to with desired outcomes. It examines all significant Different ‘attribution models’ allocate outcome ABM Analytics for a deep dive into the various interactions that touched the account (or Buying values in different ways: attribution models. Center) — from first touch to deal closed and beyond — and then distributes value to individual touches. • Single Source Attribution Models assign 100% credit to one touch. Examples include first touch Say four campaigns influenced a $40,000 deal. and last touch. An equal-weight attribution model would assign • Fractional Attribution Models assign value to $10,000 to each campaign. multiple touches. Examples include equal weight, position-based (U-shaped), and minute- Multi-touch attribution, defined Do that for each outcome, and then calculate total weighted (for those companies that use minutes Multi-touch attribution seeks to understand program return by adding up the contributions to track engagement). how each touch contributes to account journey from all influenced outcomes. Combined with • Algorithmic Attribution Models use statistics progression, pipeline, and revenue. accurate investment data, you can calculate and machine learning to calculate the marginal program ROI! contribution of various touches. This opportunity in Salesforce.com shows how four common models attribute a $27,000 deal 129 across various campaigns, sorted by date of successful interaction.

s e s s e c o r M p B III 7 A te r ah Account attribution PT Of course, in ABM there are multiple people involved in almost every outcome, so account- based attribution must choose who to analyze. The approach you take here can substantially shape results. • Narrow Attribution includes only contacts with roles in account opportunities. Here, data integrity can be limited, as sales reps rarely attach all the right people. • Broad Attribution analyzes all contacts at accounts — or all leads and contacts via Lead- to-Account Matching (L2A) technology. Broad attribution tends to be more accurate than narrow attribution for deals at small and mid- sized companies. As company size grows, results become diluted, since broad attribution might include touches with people who didn’t impact a specific deal. • Buying Center Attribution: Some companies now analyze specific Buying Centers. The approach is broader than narrow attribution (e.g. contact roles), and more focused than broad attribution (e.g. the entire company). 130

Calculating ROI By bringing all the data together, you can see which programs have the highest ROI. Many teams find ‘Pipeline to Investment’ is the best way to judge marketing programs. Also known as Marketing’s Golden Ratio, this concept shows CMOs how much pipeline each dollar produces for individual program investments. The Marketing Golden Ratio bb++cc=a=a aaa cc c aaa bbb This Salesforce Pipeline to Investment report uses Engagio Dash to calculate Marketing’s Golden Ratio. 131

s e s s e c o 7. Measure account progress: r M p B III 7 A t e r a h Conclusion P T One of the key sources of misalignment between Marketing and Sales is the disconnect between the way the two teams measure success. Account Based Marketing brings the two teams For some, the movement away from tried and truly closer, aligning focus on a specific list of named lead-based metrics may feel unnerving, but if accounts. By evolving your metrics in the matter you’re going to embrace ABM, the change and its discussed here, Marketing and Sales can begin to implications are unavoidable: an ABM program speak the same language and collaborate — rather without ABM metrics will always be judged by the than fight for credit. wrong yardsticks. From To People Accounts Leads Opportunities Personas Specific buyers Quantity Quality 132

Part IV Building your ABM foundation

Part IV Building your ABM foundation Account Based Marketing requires a Unify Account Data Like blind men touching an elephant, restricted views solid foundation. If you don’t have the Critical account data are scattered and siloed of your data don’t accurately portray the whole. right systems and data in place, across multiple sources. Build your ABM foundation by centralizing everything we’ve discussed so far • Your CRM: Accounts live alongside everything marketing and sales data from multiple systems will be manual and difficult. else in the CRM, including opportunities, into unified account profiles, and make that data activities, campaigns, and not to mention leads available to customer-facing employees inside the Check out our eBook, Getting Your Data Ready For and contacts. tools they already use. ABM, for more on this topic. • Your marketing automation: This data includes people and programs, as well as digital behaviors like email opens and website visits. • Your email: Until you integrate valuable information from your corporate email and calendar, your analytics lack critical account- level visibility. • And more. 131344

n o i r at oud yn g ou V in f t Id r l M a uiB Lead-to-account matching P B A Lead-to-account (L2A) matching is the single-most Why do we need L2A? • Limited account visibility. Because lead activity important part of an ABM metrics foundation. Leads, which Marketing has historically owned, doesn’t roll up to accounts in a CRM, teams lack don’t roll up to accounts in Salesforce.com. critical understanding about target account A similar disconnect exists in most marketing engagement. automation systems, with cascading effects: • Reporting challenges. Without L2A, it’s A definition of lead-to-account matching impossible to assign pipeline or revenue credit to L2A matching involves tying each lead to the • Misrouted leads. Without account-level campaigns that influence individual leads, since correct account, then using that data for ABM information (e.g. where the account HQ is deals happen at the account level. analytics, leading routing and scoring, and so on. located, how large the company is, if this account has an open opportunity, or if it is an existing Lead-to-account mapping is ABM’s biggest customer), leads can get routed to the challenge, according to 44% of marketers who wrong owner. responded to the 2016 ABM Metrics Report from • Wasted time. SDRs waste time checking out Bizible (a Marketo company) and Terminus. leads before calling, trying to validate them and see what may already be happening at the account. 131355

Lead-to-account matching (cont’d) How does L2A matching work? Option 3: Sophisticated L2A technology Benefits of L2A matching There are three main approaches to L2A matching. More sophisticated methods (including Engagio’s Marketers who implement L2A give glowing Foundation) involve L2A technology that reports about the benefits. Option 1: Manual L2A matching automates matches based on multiple dimensions. Manual lead-to-account matching doesn’t create • Better customer experiences. Clients spend many benefits, apart from completing the job. This These capabilities first identify duplicate accounts more time with account managers who have time-consuming approach slows lead processes, and determine which copy is ‘real’. Engagio then clear insight into cross-sell and upsell while human error abounds. uses ‘fuzzy logic’ to match company names, opportunities. They also stop receiving websites and email domains with other critical inappropriate prospecting calls. Option 2: Domain-based L2A automation information fields. This is especially valuable with • Improved prospect journeys. Prospects won’t This process automates with a simple match personal email and complex enterprise domains. hear from different reps. between email and website domains. While this • Increased SDR and sales rep productivity. is a reasonable way to start, most companies run For example, fuzzy logic matches Hewlett Packard They spend time on revenue-generating activity, into limitations: with hp.com, HP, and us.hp.com. not manual lookups. • Integrated account analytics. Engagement of • Personal email addresses aren’t matched. In the case of accounts with multiple divisions, L2A individual leads rolls up to the overall account. For example, Gmail or Hotmail. technology can match leads with specific divisions • Seamless lead management. Because leads are • Complex enterprise domains are missed. by identifying location. For example, GE has more routed, nurtured and scored appropriately, For example, domain-based matching doesn’t than a dozen major businesses, including GE they’re more likely to move through the funnel. pair www.yahoo.com with an @yahoo-inc.com Capital, GE Healthcare, GE Oil & Gas and so on, but email. a lead likely belongs to the GE Power account if • Assignment within large enterprises doesn’t she has a @ge.com email and an address in work. For example @ge.com emails don’t match Atlanta, GA. with the appropriate division of GE. 136

n o i Advanced: account r at ou d y n g ou V in f t Id r l M a ui B hierarchies and demand units P B A Advanced ABM practitioners establish and track “ I don’t see nearly enough companies how account hierarchies and Demand Units relate. understanding the makeup of internal Five layers to a B2B buyer Hierarchies buying committees, and how to According to SiriusDecisions, you should think The largest accounts often have multiple divisions, orchestrate internal consensus about your buyer in five layers: each with sub-accounts. For example, Disney to speed velocity and deal conversion.” • Market — a group of accounts that share a divisions include Studio Entertainment, Parks & common set of traits or needs. This can be Resorts, Media Networks, and Consumer Products Matt Heinz, further broken down into Total Addressable & Interactive Media. President, Heinz Marketing Market (TAM), Ideal Client Profile (ICP) Depending on their ABM practice, companies and then Target Account List (TAL) with might identify corporate parents like Disney as the account tiers. target account. Others define individual divisions, • Account — an organization (think of it as like Studio Entertainment, as target accounts. a ‘logo’). Some decide on a case-by-case basis. • Buying center — a line of business, a function, or a geo-defined region. To sell to global enterprises, create each division as • Demand unit — a group of personas or roles a separate CRM account, then use account which is connected by related requirements, hierarchy functionality to roll data up to the needs and resources. corporate parent. • Persona — an individual who influences or makes B2B buying decisions by playing a role on a buying team. Source: SiriusDecisons via John Common of Intelligent Demand 137

Advanced: account hierarchies and demand units (cont’d) Demand Units “ Demand Units — not accounts — are usually the true In other words, it’s often more accurate to One common perceived problem with Account targets that Marketing (and Product and Sales) should consider Account Based Marketing as ‘Demand Based Marketing is that an ‘account’ is often have in mind when thinking about buyers. Buyer, needs Unit’-based marketing. too broad a group to market and sell to. That’s and solution must match for a Demand Unit to exist.” why SiriusDecisions launched the concept of — SiriusDecisions Buying Centers and Demand Units. Type of demand maps Type of demand map “ Demand Units are defined as a buying A ‘simple’ demand map A ‘vertical’ demand map group that has been organized to Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying address a need the organization is group 1 group 2 group 3 group 4 group 1 group 2 group 3 group 4 challenged with.” Need 1 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 1 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 2 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 2 Solution Solution Solution Solution SiriusDecisions, 2017 Need 3 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 3 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 4 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 4 Solution Solution Solution Solution A Demand Unit is a group of individuals within an Need 5 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 5 Solution Solution Solution Solution organization which is trying to solve (or should be solving) a problem that fits for one of your products A ‘horizontal’ demand map A ‘matrixed’ demand map or solutions. A single account can have multiple Demand Units, where different groups purchase Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying Buying the same product, where one group purchases group 1 group 2 group 3 group 4 group 1 group 2 group 3 group 4 more than one product, or some other combination Need 1 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 1 Solution Solution Solution Solution of group and product. Need 2 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 2 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 3 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 3 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 4 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 4 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 5 Solution Solution Solution Solution Need 5 Solution Solution Solution Solution 138 Source: John Common, Intelligent Demand

n o i Checklist for Building r at oud yn g ou V in f t Id r l M a uiB an ABM Foundation P B A Define target accounts Define and measure actual program costs Create key personas Gain stakeholder agreement over key definitions, by program type Verify contact data Build buy-in and a strategy for what success Ensure accurate firmographic information looks like for each program Accurately associate leads and accounts Track and improve programs in marketing (i.e. lead-to-account matching) automation and / or CRM platforms, not spreadsheets Synthesize account activity history across channels — in one place Establish account hierarchies and / or define demand units as appropriate for Define program channel taxonomy, including your business campaign hierarchies 139

Part V Implementing ABM: the road to success

Part V Implementing ABM: the road to success Account Based Marketing is an idea This section is about making ABM work in the real whose time has come. It’s also a sound world. It’s about culture and change. And about the A new discipline within your existing strategy that’s been proven to work for people, processes, technologies and attitudes that operation every kind of B2B company looking to make ABM programs successful. Account Based Marketing may or may not replace land the big accounts. We’re grateful to Kathy Macchi, managing partner traditional demand generation in your company. at ABM consultancy Inverta, for her contribution to It will, however, always be able to complement this section — it harvests her front-line experience normal lead generation activities, taking your But just because it makes sense doesn’t as a top ABM transformation expert. Thanks Kathy! selected accounts out of normal marketing flows mean it’s easy to turn a traditional sales and giving them special treatment. and marketing operation into one that Most ABM programs start by layering onto understands and executes ABM well. current marketing processes. This can take various, overlapping forms: • Pilot: Test ABM for a few accounts • Segment: Implement ABM for one or more segments (e.g. Enterprise accounts or the Healthcare vertical) • Focus: Target existing programs (e.g. outbound sales development) on specific accounts • Transfer: Move budget from poorly performing programs to fund ABM Companies with both demand generation and ABM programs will need to set goals and measure results separately, aligning on the percentages of pipeline and revenue that ABM produces versus traditional marketing efforts. 141

: s M s B e A c g c in u t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h Getting buy-in P Im t ABM programs can’t happen without resources. Talking to Sales Talking to Marketing And resources don’t get marshaled without senior If you’re in Marketing and approaching the sales If you’re in Sales and approaching the marketing executives making it happen. In fact, in Engagio’s team to recruit them to your ABM vision, consider team to get them on board, remember to: 2018 ABM Outlook Survey, respondents anticipated these tips: that their #1 challenge for ABM would be • Sell the need for change — show that the current getting buy-in. • Outline the need for change — maybe revenue lead-centric view is missing major revenue is slowing; or wallet share is declining; or there’s opportunities. Here’s how you can rally support for your an untapped opportunity; or growth from big • Show what’s in it for them — a sales team willing ABM program. accounts is a necessity. If the status quo isn’t to work side-by-side and an opportunity to be working, why not change? associated with major wins. Talking to Executives • Show what’s in it for them — a marketing team • Show what ABM looks like for marketers — and Often, the spark comes from a change in the dedicated to helping them win the big deals how it’s different from traditional demand company or market that affects fundamental instead of throwing thousands of low-quality generation. revenue performance: leads their way. • Commit to working together — show that you’re • Make the ABM journey clear — not just that in it for the long haul, not just the quarter. • Sales to existing major accounts are slowing you’ll be targeting big accounts together but • Make sure the senior execs are in — and or existing revenues are declining how (this guide should help!). remind them they really won’t be measured • Share-of-wallet within large accounts is not • Make a commitment to their success — show by lead volume. known or competitors are gaining share how you only win if you win together. • Account teams are not stretching beyond • Make sure their bosses are on board — and that established comfort zones or developing the metrics and timescales for ABM are different business in new areas from ordinary selling. • Growth in (or retention of) strategic accounts is a priority Many sales leaders are finding that hiring more inside and outside reps to hit their revenue goals isn’t working any more. That could make senior executives open to trying a more strategic approach to account planning and relationship building with key accounts. 142

Funding Account Based Marketing is a marathon. That 4 ABM Performance Over Time 1 = Needs Improvement, 3 = Meeting Objectives, 5 = Excelling means you need to get proper funding for a program that won’t deliver clear revenue 3.5 3.7 immediately — and possibly not for a long time. If you hide this fact when you make your business 3 3.3 case, you’re putting a time bomb inside your ABM program. Instead, make sure all executives 2.5 2.6 understand the timescales and metrics you’ll be using to ensure you’re making progress 2 towards revenue. 1.5 1.6 The companies who stay with their ABM strategies and track the right metrics invariably 1 show significant return on their investment. But success is not measured in weeks (or 0.5 even months in many cases). Marketing typically funds ABM programs initially, 0 and funding for technology typically comes from the Inception < 1yr 1yr - 2yr > 2yr general marketing budget (unless it is something Stick with your ABM program — results improve continuously over time. specifically for ABM such as account insight). By year three of an ABM program, however, many sales executives tend to be willing to fund the campaigns that benefit their most important accounts. They’ve seen the results and want more. 143

: s M s B e Ac g c inu t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h The ABM alignment checklist P Imt We’ve seen ABM programs fly and we’ve seen ABM best practices them flop. As you implement your ABM program, follow these best practices. £ Get senior executive buy-in. Your ABM team will need their understanding and protection. £ Position the program as a new, collaborative and ongoing approach to acquire and expand big accounts, not as ‘the next big marketing campaign.’ £ Make sure the account executives, SDRs and marketers are 100% committed to this strategy. Anything less is a recipe for friction. £ Agree on the criteria for choosing accounts and the governance for when to add or remove accounts. (Don’t just agree on which accounts to target.) £ Agree on the fraction of all resources that will go to your ABM accounts, perhaps starting with a pilot program. £ Agree on short-, medium- and long-term metrics that everyone will track together. Also agree on the metrics that don’t matter. Document this. £ Create an Account Plan for each Tier 1 account — a product of Sales and Marketing together. £ Hold weekly meetings in the early stages, relaxing to monthly meetings as the machine starts to hum. £ Let everyone know what’s happening. Tell the rest of the sales and marketing teams about what you’ll be doing and how they can help. Market your marketing. 144

The ABM alignment checklist (cont’d) Common ABM warning signs £ The account executive views ABM as a tactic to fit in with the normal way of selling. £ Top management sees the ABM program as a sales drive or campaign. £ People describe ABM as ‘the next big marketing campaign.’ £ Senior sales executives don’t see ABM as a long-term investment — they just want to hit this quarter’s numbers at all costs. £ Management expects quick results and doesn’t have the patience for ‘leading indicators.’ £ Any team members think they already know all they need to know about the account. £ The account executive thinks he or she knows every single person that matters inside each account. £ Sales is not involved in the target account selection. £ The ABM sponsor leaves the company or an acquisition shifts priorities. £ The change management part of the journey is under-valued. £ The ABM accounts are still being bombarded with the mainstream lead generation programs. If you see these things happening, speak up! You can still keep this thing on track. 145

: s M s B e Ac g c inu t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h Pilots P Imt We get it: all the best practices in this We’ve seen pilots structured in many ways: guide can be overwhelming. That’s • One sales rep and one marketer targeting five ABM in Enterprise vs SMB Companies why many companies that have accounts (Strategic ABM) ABM looks different in larger enterprises than deployed ABM successfully started • Three reps and a marketer targeting one industry small- and mid-sized companies. their journey with a pilot. sector (Scale ABM) Enterprise • A full ABM commitment but in one territory • Significant focus on post-sale expansion as By playing a long game, pilots help you or region well as new logos incrementally build momentum and support for • A full ABM program for one product line • Likely they already have field marketing teams broader rollout of ABM. The benefits are clear: Get started fast in place, some level of experience reaching • Learn how ABM works for your specific kinds Making the transition to ABM can be especially out to target accounts, QBR processes in of accounts hard when you need to grow pipeline and revenue place, etc. • Lower the risk RIGHT NOW. Here are some things you can do to • Can invest in ABM specialists • Iron out any issues before you scale show some benefit right away: • Sales and marketing alignment is harder, • Earn stronger executive and stakeholder support especially when teams work in remote locations • Lessen the change-management challenge • Map leads to accounts: L2A is the foundation Small- and Medium-Sized of any ABM initiative • More likely to focus primarily on new-business • Launch a simple, integrated play: TOPO acquisition Pro tip recommends a play that combines SDR outreach • More likely that ABM is an entirely new muscle Pilots often begin with simple Lead-to-Account with marketing ‘air-cover’ such as direct mail to • More likely they need to use existing staff to Matching, especially at large enterprises. One generate meetings work on ABM global software company succeeded by • Account scoring: Show the sales team which • Alignment is not easy but at least teams are starting with L2A technology for just five sales accounts are engaging so they know where to more likely to work in the same location reps, then expanded to 30, and beyond. They invest their time and energy worked through technical barriers, got the IT You can see benefit in as little as one quarter with department on board, and created some quick an aggressive approach like this. wins. The sales reps’ enthusiasm supported the broader rollout. 146

ABM maturity As you gain experience with ABM, you will move down the ABM maturity curve and see more and more benefits. Download our survey at engagio.com/buyers-kit to assess where you are. Stage 1 goal: Showcase early ABM success. Be clear on objectives for ABM. Establish People Process Programs Measurement ABM technology Additional capabilities Key people on your Set goals for pilot program. Simple marketing and ADR Coverage, awareness, capabilities needed needed current team Set clear accounts for ABM touches (direct mail, targeted engagement, and Lead to account Account and contact dedicating a % of their (either ICP or lookalike ads, digital programs.) meetings at target matching — L2A to data build out. time to a pilot program. accounts). Leverage existing content, accounts. establish an account Interaction capabilities personalized if possible. foundation for SDR and marketing Regular meetings to track Synthesized data from air-cover — ads OR progress. CRM, marketing direct mail OR events automation, website, and corporate email so team has ONE consistent account view. Stage 2 goal: Scale ABM success for key segments. Goal are clear and well-understood. Grow People Process Programs Measurement ABM technology and Additional capabilities A % of the team is ICP is defined. Account tiers With small changes to Early and late metrics capabilities need needed dedicating ongoing established. existing content, new assets used with the addition Systems for account Predictive data used to time to your ABM Team meets and reports on developed for different of pipeline and closed- and lead routing. better target accounts. initiative. results regularly. lifecycle stages. won deals in accounts. Orchestration to Intent data to support Initiatives are ‘orchestrated’ Additional channels layered in manage plays across outbound efforts. with Sales and other e.g. predictive, intent data, channels. Attribution technology customer-facing teams. direct mail, targeted events. to answer more Sales is heavily involved and Orchestrated plays are sophisticated understands impact. running across multiple questions. channels. Sales is in the process of creating account plans. 147

: s M s B e A c g c in u t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h P Im t Stage 3 goal: Larger roll-outs (e.g. global). ABM is a proven strategy and expanded to new segments or geos. Optimize People Process Programs Measurement ABM technology Additional capabilities Dedicated ABM Marketing Operations Personas and buying centers Regular reporting capabilities needed needed headcount(s); in some involved to ensure defined and well understood. across all stages (early Customer-facing teams Regular, occurring data organizations, ‘ABM standardization and global Dedicated content is created to late). have technology in build-out for account Demand Center.’ roll-out of key processes, for target accounts place to view accounts, whitespace programs, and reporting. (personalized for Tier 1, run plays, and report on Content syndication in Sales has established customized for Tier 2, results at scale. place to expand reach. account plans. vertical/industry specific for Complete account- Tier 3). based attribution Multi-channel orchestrated modeling and reporting plays are running for new is in place. accounts and growing existing accounts. Focus is on optimizing plays and scaling successful ones. 148

Sales and Marketing alignment According to TOPO Research, the Misalignment creates waste 2. Activation #1 challenge to ABM is Sales and If Marketing embraces ABM without deep alignment This is a new, more modern style of Sales and Marketing alignment (25% of with Sales, the result is a set of isolated tactics that Marketing collaboration that’s better for ABM. render themselves useless. Ad re-targeting, direct In it, you have alignment as described above, companies report it’s a key challenge). mail pieces, and even field events are only but Marketing takes a stronger leadership role, moderately successful without full participation activating Sales at the right time in order to move On the other hand, SiriusDecisions found B2B and enthusiasm from the entire revenue team. the business forward (especially when a human organizations with tightly aligned sales and touch is required). As discussed earlier, Marketing marketing operations grew their revenues 24% On the flip side, when Sales works a high-value acts as an orchestra conductor, gently nudging faster in a three-year period compared to those account without support from Marketing, the result Sales to take the right actions. Or, to use a sports whose teams worked separately. What’s more, is rogue reps generating their own account lists analogy, Marketing acts like the quarterback, these same companies increased their profits and writing their own emails — ultimately creating calling the right plays that prompt the entire 27% faster during the same three-year period. a disjointed customer experience. team to act. Sales and Marketing alignment is clearly essential Three levels of alignment 3. Integration to ABM success, but it’s far from easy to achieve. Many companies suffer from a bad relationship This is the highest level of Sales and Marketing. between Sales and Marketing. Those that do have True integration is when both departments work That’s because, for generations, sales and a ‘functional’ relationship tend to fall into one of together as a single team. Think about a soccer marketing professionals have lived in different three types. team playing perfectly in sync on the field. Players worlds, spoken different languages and been might have distinctly different positions — offense measured by different yardsticks. They view 1. Alignment and defense — but they pass the ball back and forth success differently too: Sales is motivated by quota This is where most companies aspire to today, and in an integrated process. and the bottom line, Marketing by engagement and it’s a great place to start. With Sales and Marketing awareness. Sales rightfully tends to focus on this Alignment, the departments are on the same page, quarter, while Marketing tends to take a longer-term talking to each other and communicating and view. Each brings different reasons for entering their sharing common goals — but still acting professions, and vastly different personalities. Sales independently from each other. It’s a baton hand- is from Mars, Marketing is from Venus. off; each department does its own thing, but in a coordinated fashion. In ABM, it can’t work that way. 149

: s M s B e A c g c in u t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h P Im t What if you’re not aligned yet? So, get going now: Meet regularly — like a good marriage, On the account-based journey, total alignment is communication matters; talk frequently to review the goal. But the important thing is to always make Stop talking about leads and start talking about accounts and metrics and decide on what plays progress towards it. You can’t stop your revenue accounts — it’s hard to be aligned when Marketing to run. machine and put ABM on hold until you’ve achieved and Sales look at fundamentally different things. perfect alignment. Use integrated data and technology platforms Start with an ABM workshop — sit down together — avoid siloed systems, implement Lead-to- and discuss the account-based approach and why Account matching, and put your ABM insights into you need to change the way you work. the CRM where Sales already works. Define your ideal accounts — make sure you’re all aiming at the same target account list. Agree on account entitlements and key metrics — agree on what metrics you’ll track and what commitments you’ll make to each other. Build a foundation — implement an account- centric data infrastructure, including capabilities such as lead-to-account matching. 150

Sales and marketing standups: the secret weapon for ABM One of the easiest and most impactful processes Topics include: One helpful resource is for Marketing to bring an you can implement to drive your ABM program and 1. Progress made since last stand-up ‘action menu’, a collection of possible ABM plays improve alignment is to implement regular sales • Who did you talk to? that will keep progress moving forward with target and marketing stand-ups. • What did you learn? accounts. These can be simple, like a welcome package for new executive hires, or more In these standups, every week or two, the Account 2. Plan going forward sophisticated, like a multi-channel outreach Based Marketer meets 1:1 with each Account • Focus on the top 3-5 target accounts to play to follow-up with key attendees from a Executive and Sales Development Rep for 5-10 penetrate, and two opportunities to accelerate. recent tradeshow. minutes to share updates, discuss how they are • What actions will Marketing take? The AE? ADR? jointly going after accounts, and agree on go- In addition to the regular stand-up meeting, it’s also forward actions. 3. Blockages useful to hold monthly ABM ‘win rooms’ to review metrics and set actions across the entire program, and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) to assess the entire program, consider changes to the At Engagio, our teams log into our application and account list, dive into metrics, and so on. These review recent account activity and engagement should involve leadership from both marketing and looking at the same screen. sales teams. 151

: s M s B e A c g c in u People, roles t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h and responsibilities P Im t ABM is a resource-intensive, cross- Skill sets “ ABM marketers have to understand functional strategy. The team you Successful ABM practitioners are collaborative, how to take account information — choose will make or break your early data-driven leaders with a strategic orientation behavioral, profile, contact an|d ABM efforts and determine whether and top-notch communication skills. predictive data — and turn it into ABM ultimately gets scaled up or ABM Salespeople insights that are relevant to different held back. • Intelligent and disciplined with a systematic people in the organization.” approach • Goal-oriented but patient Megan Heuer, • Great listeners and users of information VP Research, SiriusDecisions • Have respect for marketing peers • Open to new processes • Organizational networkers • Natural followers of the Challenger Sale methodology ABM Marketers • Seasoned, senior marketers • Hold their own with account executives • Well-rounded team players • Consultative with deep business knowledge • Solution marketing experience (to focus on insight), and / or field marketing experience (to focus on interaction and orchestration) • Leaders with relationship skills to pitch and manage campaigns • Strong in project management 152

People, roles and responsibilities (cont’d) The roles & responsibilities of your ABM team Who does what? There can be many members of an ABM account At a high level, each department plays a role in team, but generally only one is responsible for ABM. Remember — ABM isn’t just a marketing managing the ABM plan: the account marketer. The campaign. Each has a unique skill set required account marketer, in concert with the sales account to support the initiative. leader, coordinates the activities of the team. To learn more, download our guide Sales Operations Marketing Roles & Responsibilities of an ABM Team at Select key accounts by tier. Set up account foundation — CRM Ensure clear list of target accounts is http://resources.engagio.com/abm-worksheets/ Work on account plans for top tier. — and implement other technologies identified and prioritized. abm-roles-and-responsibilities as needed. Work with Sales on entitlements and Prioritize time and effort for Review account data. program roll-out. outbound tiered accounts. Collaborate with marketing on Have process for adding new Budget allocation. programs, intelligence, and reporting. account data. Help provide intelligence for account Have a way to look at account Help teams with weekly and monthly plans. progression — e.g. engagement. reporting. Have plan for early, mid, late stage goals and reporting. 153

: s M s B e A c g c in u t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h P Im t Your ideal ABM team Whether you’re starting from scratch or filling in the gaps, these are the essential roles and responsibilities of a high-performance ABM team. Role Responsibilities ABM Lead (e.g. Head of • Spearheads the ABM initiative • Develops customized value propositions, messaging docs and playbooks Marketing) • Helps collect insight • Orchestrates all interactions • Runs the initial ABM alignment process. • Tracks the metrics and communicates the program’s successes • Recommends technology Marketing Manager • Runs the ABM program mix • Supports sales • Crafts account-specific messages Marketing Operations • Maintains account and contact data • Collects ABM metrics • Implements ABM technology Account Executive and • Manages the relationship with Executive Sponsor • Helps shapes the ABM strategy and each account plan sales team members • Responsible for driving the plan forward with the team and at the account • Aligns all conversations around account needs • Team meetings with internal staff and with the customer • Becomes the customer’s Trusted Advisor Sales Development Reps • Helps research the account and build contacts • Nurtures relationships over time • Reaches out to the account to build relationships • Supports the account executive as needed • Crafts account-specific emails and messages Solutions consultants / • Provides insight into what’s happening at the influencer and operational level delivery personnel • Ensures the ‘technical / operational’ programs and messages are relevant and resonating Field Marketer • Works with the ABM marketers to execute campaigns at the local level Corporate Marketer • Works with the ABM marketer to collaborate on corporate communications and campaigns • Understands what to customize for the customer and what programs can be included in the account’s communication strategy Product / Industry Marketer • Helps figure out the ICP • Ranks accounts based on best fit for your company • Provides insight into the industry view Product Management • Provides product roadmap insights to the account team and / or customer • Works with the ABM team to understand if custom solutions are required and what’s possible Support Representative • Reports and can escalate support items when they become consequential to customer satisfaction scores Executive Sponsors • Provides deal / account support to drive engagement and deal closings

People, roles and responsibilities (cont’d) Evolving the current team “M anagement often has a difficult time ABM can feel like ‘yet another thing’ for Marketing to justifying a full-time marketer focused take on, which can be overwhelming for teams that on 3-5 ABM accounts that might help are already being pushed to do more with less. generate 20 new contacts and 5 To start, leverage your current staff. Product opportunities when a junior marketer marketing can help determine the ICP; your MOPS may create 500 new contacts and 100 team can acquire and manage the data; SDRs can opportunities. Of course, the value research accounts; field marketing can run plays, and so on. between those scenarios is vast, but You can evolve the team as you prove ABM results. the change in mindset is significant.” Over time, you may find the need for dedicated Kathy Macchi, Vice President of ABM leads and / or a global ABM Demand Center Consulting Services, Inverta of Excellence. But you don’t need them in place to get started. 155

: s M s B e Ac g c inu t s n o e d t m a e o t Vl r r p e a h P Imt Interview questions to ask ABM leaders • What’s your definition of ABM? What you’re • Describe your experience working with other Whether you promote from within or hire from the looking for is alignment with your vision. departments executing ABM programs. Make outside, use these questions to evaluate • Why do you think ABM is a good strategy for our sure they understand, appreciate and respect the candidates to run your ABM program: business? This shows their ability to map generic other departments, especially Sales. ABM concepts to the specifics of your business. • Walk me through, from start to finish, the most • Describe your process for launching an ABM successful ABM campaign you’ve executed. program. Find out whether or not this person Spend the most time on this question. Don’t let could hit the ground running. the candidate gloss over any details. Ask them to • If you had unlimited budget and could buy any explain what they did and why they did it. Look for technology to help execute your ABM strategy, multi-channel engagement, examples of what would it be? Once the candidate offers a experimentation, and meaningful measures of response, drill in to to ensure they can really get success. You want to see a deep understanding into the weeds with the technology and are not of the ABM process, but you’re also looking for just looking for new ‘toys’ to play with. grit, teamwork, curiosity, and critical thinking. • How do you gauge engagement with and movement within target accounts? Look for proof that the candidate understands the complexities of a lengthy account purchase process and how to pinpoint meaningful milestones. 156

Part VI ABM technology

Part VI ABM technology You can run a successful ABM pilot TOPO’s 2018 Account-Based Technology Report with very little additional technology. found that ABM ‘leaders’ (defined as companies But technology can be hugely useful ahead of their objectives) spend 46% more on ABM when you want to scale your program technology than ‘laggards’ (other companies). beyond a few accounts. Key differences by account-based performance level Today, however, few marketing tools or platforms Account based ‘Leaders’ Account based ‘Laggards’ have been designed from the ground up to have an % of sample 27% 59% account-based view of the world. As a recent Time Spent on Account-Based 20.4 13.4 ITSMA report states, “It requires creative thinking Initiatives (Months) to adapt tools that were not necessarily designed Average 2017 Account-Based Tech $412.1K $281.8K to support an account-based view of the world.” Spend ABM is a business strategy, not a technology % of Marketing Spend on 32% 25% Account-Based category. There are many technologies that Projected 2018 Growth in 26% 23% support the strategy, just as there are many Account-Based Spend categories that support demand generation. # of Accounts 2,140 1,379 This means you will likely invest in more than one solution for ABM. Most Important Account-Based Tech • Intent data • Contact data Categories • Orchestration • Account insight • Account insight • Measurement • Measurement Greatest Challenges with • Insufficient internal processes • Insufficient staff resources Account-Based • Integration of the teck stack • Establishing Account-Based strategy Source: TOPO’s 2018 Account-Based Technology Report 158

y g o l The ABM o chn I e t V t r M a B Market Map P A The ABM Market Map Data and Insights Interactions Select target accounts, fill contact whitespace, identify insights Specific channels to create 1:1 account-based interactions identifies vendors across Account Data 3rd Party Intent ABM Advertising Web and Content distinct ABM activities. Direct Mail Content Syndication Contact Data SDR / Sales Events Other Insights Orchestration Data Platforms Manage multi-channel account-based plays across multiple personas and departments ABM Automation / Sales Activation Account Planning (supporting) Foundation Measurement The core essentials Track engagement, score and prioritize accounts, and measure the impact of your ABM programs Lead-to-Account MAP Engagement & Sales Insight Journeys & Multi-Touch Attribution CRM Account Based Marketing Market Map Copyright ©2018, Engagio Inc. All rights reserved. Note: You don’t need technology in every category to do ABM. 159

The ABM Market Map (cont’d) Don’t be overwhelmed. Sure, there are a lot of Data and insights Contact Data — Once you have identified those technologies that support ABM, but you don’t Account Data 3rd Party Intent accounts, you also need the right people within need to buy technology from each category to those accounts. Typically, investing in data to do Account Based Marketing! You can dip your support these actions is required for ABM. toe in the water with relatively modest investment in new technology, and then add more solutions Intent Data — This falls under the category of a cool, to help scale over time. optional capability to help make the process even better. 3rd Party Intent Data uses the content people Let’s break this down by walking through each section. are reading on third-party sites to identify which Contact Data accounts might be actively researching particular Foundation solutions. 1st Party Intent Data references how Lead-to-Account MAP Insights accounts interact with you on your properties. Data Platforms — Some vendors use predictive CRM Data Platforms models to help you identify the best accounts for your business. These are customer data platforms (CDPs) focused on the B2B space. They are not These are the core essential technologies to required for ABM, but can be a great technology for support ABM. You must have a marketing Technologies in this category can help you select B2B organizations. automation platform and a CRM platform. With your target accounts and fill in the whitespace with few exceptions, you can’t do ABM without them. the right contacts at those accounts. Insights — These vendors provide intelligence such as in-depth sales profiles of target accounts, The other required technology is some way to unify Account Data — Combining basic firmographic primarily using manual research methods. your account data with lead-to-account (L2A) (e.g. industry and size) data with your first party matching. Combined with CRM and marketing engagement data (e.g. these accounts are already automation, this creates a single view of your accounts engaging with you) is the basic requirement for to act as the foundation for all your ABM efforts. selecting your target accounts. None of these are optional (hence the name ‘foundation’). 160

y g o l o chn I e t V t r M a B P A Interactions A few key points: Orchestration These are specific channels used to create 1:1 • There’s no required channel for ABM: you may ABM Automation / Sales Activation Account Planning (supporting) account-based interactions. skip any of these and still have an effective ABM Advertising Web and Content ABM strategy. • Technology is not specifically required for most of these channels: for example, you can These capabilities enable multi-channel account- hold events and send direct mail without based plays across multiple personas and specific investments. departments. • Advertising is not synonymous with doing Direct Mail ABM. The reality is that ads are just one easy ABM is not about any one channel — it’s about Content Syndication thing and that satisfaction is relatively low coordinating interactions across multiple channels, (34%, according to TOPO). Having an ABM and it’s doing so in harmony with each other, at Events Other ads platform doesn’t mean you’re executing scale. The fastest path to success is when teams SDR / Sales an effective ABM strategy. collaborate and are aligned on strategy. Why is this so powerful? At Engagio, we’ve The core channels used to create engagement with achieved meeting rates of 20% to as high as 85% target accounts include ABM advertising, content using orchestrated plays. How? By leveraging the syndication, sales and SDR outreach, web and benefits of automation to scale our efforts and the content personalization, direct mail, and events. power of personalization to add a human touch. That’s marketing orchestration. While Orchestration is optional, the most advanced ABM companies are using it to execute and scale effective ABM. Note: Account planning is an adjacent technology category; this piece isn’t required, but it can be very helpful. 161

The ABM Market Map (cont’d) Measurement A few points to be aware of when considering Engagement & Sales Insight Journeys & Multi-Touch Attribution measurement technology: • Engagement measurement must go beyond web traffic — web traffic is important, but it’s only one piece of the picture. Getting insight into the type of engagement is key, from content downloads These tools track engagement, score and prioritize to email clicks to meetings and more. It’s all part accounts, and measure the impact of your ABM of building the relationship and closing deals, programs. Engagement measurement is a required thus it’s important to measure. category, since the cornerstone of Marketing is the • It’s essential to put your engagement insights in ability to measure and demonstrate results — and front of your sales team. What good is the metrics for your account-based efforts are measurement if you can’t act on the insights? different to traditional lead-based Marketing. • Account journeys and multi-touch attribution to There’s a shift from quantity to quality. prove value and ROI are increasingly an important piece of a complete ABM stack. The key is to focus on account-specific attribution and metrics, not lead-based analytics. 162

TOPO’s 2018 Account-Based Technology Report TOPO’s report asked the order in which The report also asked respondents to rank the respondents would implement account-based importance of each category. technology. The top scoring categories were: 1. Contact and Account Data: You can’t go after % Rating Account-Based Technology as Important/Very Important key personas at key accounts if you don’t know Account Data 89% who they are. 2. Marketing Automation: A foundational element Measurement & Attribution 86% of the marketing technology stack for most Contact Data organizations. 84% 3. Measurement & Attribution: Rated the #2 most Lead Matching & Routing important ABM category after Account Data, this 80% is required because ABM metrics are so different Intent Data 75% from traditional. 4. Account-Based Advertising: Most companies Marketing Automation 73% start with LinkedIn. However, be careful of other investments here: the report found that only 34% Account-Based Orchestration 71% of respondents were satisfied with their ABM advertising solution. Predictive 70% 5. Lead Matching & Routing: Required to create Web Personalisation & the account-level view that is required for Content Customization 59% measurement, orchestration, etc. Account-Based Advertising 58% Direct Mail 53% 0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Source: TOPO´s 2018 Account-Based Technology Report 163

What about ABM platforms? A key question is: Will these disparate Also, TOPO writes that: categories coalesce into an ‘ABM Platform’ category? And if so, which “ Account-Based platforms will be the pieces are core to the platform and single-most important category in the which are adjacent? stack in 2018 and beyond. These The analysts certainly believe ABM Platforms are solutions will bring together planning, an emerging category. Forrester writes that: orchestration management and measurement into a single solution.” “B 2B marketers choosing an ABM TOPO Account-Based Technology platform can avoid the operational and Report, April 2018 technical drag that comes from purchasing and integrating several Having a platform certainly makes sense. The individual products and start fewer vendors a company can work with the better, generating results from their ABM and it’s certainly less expensive than buying programs more quickly.” multiple piece-parts and cobbling them together. The Forrester New Wave™: ABM Platforms, Q2 2018 164

y g o l o chn I e t V t r M a B P A Based on my experience building marketing Interaction automation platforms, I believe that the essential Channels Ads Direct Mail Email Web Events Etc. components of an ABM Platform are: • Account Foundation to provide a single view of the accounts. Orchestration Measurement • Orchestration to manage and automate multi- ABM Multi-Channel 360° Engagement channel programs. Platform Automated & Triggered Journeys • Measurement to track and prove what works Sales Activation Attribution and what doesn’t. Just as in marketing automation, I do NOT think Account Foundation data is a required part of the platform, nor is any Single View of Accounts, Lead-to-Account specific channel. Multiple Data Sources Account Contact Intent Insight 1st Party Marketecture of the ABM platform. 165

Strategy before technology In the world of marketing technology, At a minimum, answer these questions before it’s tempting to buy technology to investing in ABM technology: “ Using your business strategy to guide attempt to solve a strategy problem. But 1. Why is ABM the right strategy for your business? technology purchases is a best practice in doing so leads only to disillusionment. all cases, but it is an absolute requirement in You must define your ABM strategy 2. Is there executive alignment and organizational emerging markets such as ABM platforms, before considering what technologies buy-in on ABM as your go-to-market strategy? where product capabilities vary widely. you need or what vendors have to offer. 3. What criteria makes a good target account? Only after you have defined your ABM strategy How will you decide on your target account list? can you properly prioritize and evaluate the capabilities each vendor offers. To use two “ Remember that ABM is foremost an 4. What does success with ABM look like? simplified examples, a small tech startup that engagement strategy, not a new How will you measure your progress? focuses on landing net new accounts will need an ABM platform with robust capabilities for technology. You will improve your 5. What are the roles and responsibilities of the account discovery, while a large manufacturer success rate by defining your business players on your ABM team? that focuses on account expansion will need an objectives first and then assessing optimized platform to find early signals of buying intent and create compelling digital engagement whether you already have the right throughout a lengthy purchase cycle.” tools in place to execute.” Source: Forrester: Define Your ABM Strategy Steven Casey, First, And Then Choose A Platform Principal Analyst, Forrester 166

y g o l o chn I e t V t r M a B Make the right decision P A Training and customer support What should be included in your RFP? We’ve created an RFP template you can use, Make sure you understand how much training is We suggest a written Request For Proposal (RFP), organized into three must-have categories: needed to use the software, and what kind of as it improves both the buying and selling process. training is available. Ask vendors what level of 1. Account-Based Data and Operations customer support they offer, and when it is available (e.g. 24/7 vs. 8/5). Ask about professional “ When written properly, an RFP will 2. Account-Based Analytics and Insights services or support for the transition to ABM, as facilitate the sales process and well as the long-term product roadmap and dates. ensure that everyone involved on 3. Account-Based Plays Ask your peers both sides comes to a shared Download the template yourself at Customer references are an important source understanding of the purpose, http://resources.engagio.com/abm-worksheets/ of insight, either from your network or supplied requirements, scope and structure abm-rfp-template by the vendor. Ask: of the intended purchase.” • Why did you select this tool over others? Account-Based Marketing Tools: • How long did the system take to implement? A Marketer’s Guide, A MarTech Today • Were there any surprises that you wish you’d known about beforehand? Research Report • Where have you seen the most success? The biggest challenges? • Why would you recommend this tool? Source: Account-Based Marketing Tools: A Marketer’s Guide, A MarTech Today Research Report 167

Conclusion An idea whose time has come

Conclusion An idea whose time has come Winning major deals in B2B markets is never going That’s what Account Based Marketing is all about: At Engagio, we’re completely convinced that ABM to be easy: is the single most important opportunity facing Focusing unprecedented time, budget and resources every B2B company. You’re selling complex solutions into big on select accounts, instead of spreading your organizations. resources equally across all. We hope that this guide has helped you to understand the importance of ABM, the strategic essentials and No single person can simply pull the trigger on Aligning your sales and marketing efforts more the tactical implications. a deal without consulting an interconnected matrix closely than ever before. of people, each with his or her own perspectives, We also hope it’s motivated you to make the leap problems and prejudices. Working hard to understand the needs and to ABM from your current lead-centric demand challenges of your chosen accounts. generation world — maybe starting with a pilot, Your competitors are working just as hard as then ramping up to a full-fledged ABM program. you are to win every piece of business, especially Designing clear, sharp, goal-driven playbooks for the biggest deals in the biggest companies. each account. You’re at the start of something big in your career. But, as a vendor, you’re not simply a victim of these Orchestrating coordinated programs of This is important. forces; you can take concrete, measurable steps communication with the people who matter most. that dramatically increase your chances of winning This is exciting. the biggest, most attractive deals in your market. Measuring and increasing their engagement with you. This is ready now — for you. It’s a new discipline that assembles the right people, Let’s do it. processes and technologies into a well-oiled machine that’s designed to scale the toughest mountains in your world: the biggest, hardest-fought deals that make or break companies like yours.

‘ Thank you’ doesn’t really express our feelings here We couldn’t have written this guide without the time, Thanks: talent and generosity of a very special group of people: Craig Rosenberg TOPO the pioneers of Account Based Marketing. Megan Heuer SiriusDecisions Jeff Sands ITSMA They’re working across the entire field, looking at it Doug Bewsher Leadspace from every angle: vendors, practitioners, analysts, J.J. Kardwell EverString journalists and consultants. Kathy Macchi Inverta Henry Schuck DiscoverOrg They’re not just experts in ABM, they’re the people Johan Sundstrand Jabmo turning it from an idea into a powerful, proven Maria Pergolino Anaplan discipline. All united by a real passion for this Donal Daly Altify lightning-in-a-bottle we call ABM — and an Peter Herbert FullStory unshakeable conviction that it will help our clients do things they could never do before. A more complete (but far from comprehensive) list of experts is below, but we wanted to call these It’s also a remarkably collegial group that we’re guys out for their immense help in creating this proud and honored to call friends. To these people guide — and this market. (and the many people working with them), we say… Thanks guys! 170

ABM experts Analysts and Journalists Content Gabe Paley Intersection ABM Consultants Craig Rosenberg TOPO Johan Sundstrand Jambo Kelvin Gee Oracle Kathy Macchi Inverta Eric Wittlake TOPO Brandon Redlinger Engagio Dannielle Beaupré Siemens PLM Alisha Lyndon Momentum ABM Megan Heuer SiriusDecisions Fergal Glynn 6 River Systems Adena DeMonte Coupa Software Jason Stewart ANNUITAS Matt Senatore SiriusDecisions Randy Frisch Uberflip Meaghan Sullivan SAP Matt Heinz Heinz Marketing Jeff Sands ITSMA Tyler Lessard Vidyard Peter Herbert FullStory Kelly Waffle Kwanzoo Bev Burgess ITSMA Europe Elle Woulfe PathFactory Avi Bhatnagar OPSWAT Antoni Chumillas AccountBase Mark Ogne ABM Consortium Jason Jue Triblio Nate Skinner Salesforce Pardot Justin Gray LeadMD David Raab Raab Associates Mike Telem Clarizen David Tam OneLogin Trish Bertuzzi The Bridge Group Joel Harrison B2B Marketing Marc Romano Seismic David Cain PlanGrid Jeff Pedowitz The Pedowitz Group Todd Berkowitz Gartner Practitioners Data Players Jason Daigler Gartner Dorothea Gosling DXC Technology Mark Godley LeadGenius Lori Wizdo Forrester Rishi Dave Vonage Marc Johnson Bombora Steven Casey Forrester Maria Pergolino Anaplan Matt Amundson Everstring Jason Seeba DynamicSignal John Steinert TechTarget Predictive Scoring Christelle Flahaux Host Analytics Tracy Eller InsideView Doug Bewsher Leadspace Amalia Gonzalez-Revilla Guidewire Henry Schuck DiscoverOrg J.J. Kardwell EverString Monica McDermott Sift Science Mike Kelly Intentsify Jacob Shama Mintigo Rozanne Bonavito Uberall Mike Burton Bombora Amanda Kahlow 6Sense Lisa Joy Rosner Otonomo Sean Zinsmeister ThoughtSpot Shari Johnston Digby SF Other ABM Vendors Rob Israch Tipalti Clive Armitage Agent3 ABM Advertising Kirk Crenshaw Traackr Adam New-Waterson BloomReach Peter Isaacson Demandbase Heidi Bullock Engagio Amit Varshneya Revenu8 Christopher Engman Climeon Charm Bianchini Engagio Daniel Gaugler PFL Sangram Vajre Terminus Sandra Freeman Engagio Scott Vaughan Integrate Mani Iyer Kwanzoo Robin Tobin Adobe Dan McDade PointClear Stephanie Kidder Storefront Mike Cichon Agari 171

About Engagio Engagio is built for marketers, by marketers. As a company, we believe Written by: in making our customers successful by providing them with solutions Jon Miller that help them understand, act, and measure account-based initiatives. Co-Founder and CEO Engagio Engagio’s Account Based Marketing Automation Platform enables @jonmiller B2B marketers to successfully execute and measure account-centric Doug Kessler programs in one solution. Revenue teams can track which accounts are Co-Founder and Creative Director engaging, where to focus time and resources, and then have a shared Velocity Partners @dougkessler understanding of program impact. Our platform grows with you as your Designed by: ABM strategy and business needs evolve. Velocity Partners @velocitytweets [email protected] 172

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