When we look at the biggest issues B2B businesses face, the mainstream adoption of ABM over the past 24-36 months has clearly revealed a number of trip up points that regularly stop Account Based Marketing (ABM) traction. Access to insightful data and compelling content. Adequate funding and alignment of teams across the business. Mismanaged expectations and inadequate KPIs. But one thing comes up again and again. Time.
Time to market. Time to value. Time to think strategically and then execute tactically across multiple accounts and activity streams. Time to do ABM.
Stop spinning the wheels and let’s get on the track. How to make your ABM a success from the very start.
ABM at its purest, is a strategic one-to-one play designed to communicate and address specific objectives relevant to your target accounts. Reliant on approval by the all right people in your business, it requires a commitment we rarely needed to make before as marketers.
With this more holistic, inclusive approach come more eyes and more opinion. Sales want strong commercial opportunities, not fluffy marketing leads. The business wants return on investment and measurable growth. All expect the time invested in working with you to result in targets being hit. Pressure to perform has never been greater. And if you’re like many marketers out there – your ABM wheels are spinning, but you’re still not on the track.
Adam Greener, Enigma’s Head of Strategy, has spent years working with global tech brands helping them to align marketing strategy with business objectives and then using ABM as the strategic weapon to deliver against these targets.
“The first thing we consider is, how ABM-ready are you as a business, and where’s the best place for you to start, so we can get you to market ASAP and start seeing returns”. “Due to their culture, capabilities, processes and propositions, some organisations are pretty much ready to take on ABM from a stop position. Whist other’s may need to consider outsourcing an agency ‘ABM ecosystem’ that brings the know-how, technology and best-practices to get ABM (especially at scale) off the ground, whilst lowering risk of upskilling and resourcing themselves”
Informing an ABM Approach
For example there are a number of critical areas we can evaluate and scorecard that enable us to make informed recommendations for your ABM approach, these include internal and external factors such as:
- Potential short and long term sales values
- Complexity of the solutions you are selling
- Size and complexity of your customer decision making group
- Quality of your data and insight
- Sophistication of your current marketing activities
- Alignment between sales and marketing
- Sales, marketing and business intelligence systems
Get the tools of the trade at this Sydney based workshop
VisumCX and Enigma will be hosting a workshop dedicated to demand generation and ABM that gives you the tools to effectively deliver value across your marketing plan. One of the biggest impediments we see when it comes to making ABM work is the time it takes to get to market – and that’s often a result of fundamental steps not being effectively followed prior to your business making decisions on how it deploys resource aligned to your objectives.
AMI is partnering with Enigma and VisumCX to offer discounted rates for a full day workshop on 21 May at the Portside Centre, Sydney. The workshop will be covering many of the elements mentioned in detail throughout this blog to provide you with practical guidance and templates so you can effectively deploy ABM in your business.
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