As fractional CMOs across dozens of high-growth B2B SaaS companies, we’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm from clients around account-based marketing (ABM) throughout the years. While we are fully supportive of this type of approach, we have seen instances where ABM has generated valuable momentum and times where it doesn’t seem to work at all. The delta stems from planning and execution. We realize a lot of organizations don’t actually know what it takes to run a successful ABM campaign, and as a result, most organizations are not adequately prepared and are met with lackluster results.
To help organizations interested in pursuing an ABM strategy, we’ve pulled together 8 tips gleaned from our hands-on experience designing, building, and executing successful ABM campaigns.
- It starts with selecting the right accounts to target. Executing a successful ABM campaign takes a lot of planning and work, so it only makes sense to focus ABM efforts on your highest-value prospects. Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) and ensuring sales and marketing are 100% aligned are the best ways to ensure you are zeroing in on the right accounts.
- Know who your buyer is and what they really care about. Yes, ABM is about going broad within an organization, but it is important that you identify the right decision-makers within these organizations. Knowing who you are selling to is important to craft an offer that will resonate. To find the right titles and levels within your target organizations, look at your closed/won deals to see what contacts were involved in the buying process. Understand their specific pain points and what keeps them up at night to ensure your message has impact and relevance.
- Your offer needs to be extremely compelling to even have a chance. The window of opportunity to engage with a targeted account is very, very small. Your first attempt has to demonstrate value. You can accomplish this by sharing relevant product data and personalized insights or through a lucrative, attractive offer that is simply irresistible. An irresistible offer must be customized for that particular account, hold distinct value, and be unique in the marketplace. For example, here’s an offer that performed really well: one of our clients performed a cybersecurity analysis on their top 50 accounts and developed a custom report for each company that highlighted the organization’s specific performance data, and also included relevant industry benchmarks to add valuable context. On the other hand, a client going after a similar market struggled when they led with a free demo, which was already available to any interested organization that requests it on their website.
- Sales and marketing must operate as one seamless team. Successful ABM campaigns have sales and marketing function as a singular team. A united front presents a cohesive brand and seamless customer experience, and it also forces a shared understanding of success and alignment around performance metrics. Maintaining strong communication and collaboration is essential to a well-coordinated strategy. To help foster the one-team mentality, consider these best practices: develop a sales success kit, establish a channel for real-time communication (think a campaign-specific Slack channel), schedule regular and frequent (daily works best) cross-functional stand-ups, and ensure there is a single version of campaign reporting.
- There’s no way around it — you have to put in the work. Knowledge is power, and nowhere is this truer than in ABM. Having accurate data and a profound understanding of your target accounts and buyers is essential to breaking through the noise to connect successfully with your prospect. Use all available resources – LinkedIn, industry news, company websites – to gain insight into the unique challenges, pain points, and interests that can be used to elevate the personalization of your ABM campaign. It does take a lot of time to go through this exercise and it is especially difficult to scale, but that’s why it’s important that you are only focusing on your highest value accounts when it comes to ABM.
- Even if you are doing everything right, it can be a very long time (months) before you start seeing results. So, you’ve checked all the boxes – identified the right targets, designed an incredibly compelling offer, perfected sales and marketing collaboration – and yet, nothing seems to be happening. Don’t give up! ABM campaigns are a marathon, not a sprint. Building trust with buyers takes a long time. Plus, it’s likely you won’t get everything right on your first try, so you need to be ready to navigate the unexpected, adjusting your tactics as you learn what is working and what is not.
- Make the campaign a priority for your go-to-market organization. For an ABM campaign to work, you need to maintain focus and keep the momentum going. Let things slip and it can be game over. And, to be honest, this is probably the hardest part of executing a successful ABM campaign. Go-to-market teams are working hard, every day, especially those within high-growth companies. It may seem harmless to skip a day or two of reporting updates, assigned workflow tasks, or campaign touchbases. But this is where many ABM campaigns, even the most well-planned ones, start to fall apart. Stay on top of it.
- Continue investing in your brand. A strong brand is a force multiplier. It increases the effectiveness and impact of every outreach effort, marketing tactic, and sales interaction. To build a brand that echoes trust, quality, and innovation, your marketing team needs to maintain a consistent investment in PR, content, and a distinct presence at important industry events/forums and on social media. This will amplify your ABM campaign efforts and set a solid foundation while creating a “halo” effect for all your marketing endeavors.
ABM is an evolving domain, and the learning never stops. As leaders in sales and marketing, continually extracting, adapting, and applying the lessons from successful campaigns is the catalyst for innovation and growth in your ABM endeavors. So, take these lessons to heart, apply them with gusto, and watch the magic happen.
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