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