According to Demand Gen Report’s 2023 ABM Benchmark Survey, “More than two-thirds (67%) of practitioners are leveraging an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy — and for those who aren’t, 81% plan to adopt an ABM approach within the next year.”
Whether you’re just starting your ABM journey or have a seasoned program in place, one thing remains constant: the need to regularly evaluate and evolve your approach. The key here is to optimize—not overhaul—your strategy. Keep on with what’s working and improve on what’s not.
Regardless of your ABM stage, auditing your strategy can seem like a daunting task. Where should you begin? And what should you focus on? In this article, we will hone in on three integral elements of an effective ABM strategy: alignment, personalization, and insights. By making continuous adjustments to these core areas, you can ensure your program keeps pace with industry shifts, meets the needs of your business, and delivers true value to your target accounts.
Alignment: Getting on the same page
Fostering collaboration between Sales and Marketing is crucial to implementing a successful ABM strategy. Alignment across teams ensures:
- Shared targets: No more wasted resources chasing different accounts.
- Unified messaging: No confusing customers with conflicting information.
- Seamless handoffs: A smoother transition saves time and offers customers a better experience, accelerating deals.
- Streamlined processes: Automating insights and information sharing enhances efficiency.
To get on the same page, these teams need to work together to adopt shared goals and communicate effectively. They should also look to the Operations team to enrich their account-based approach with data and automation. Achieving such alignment rarely happens on the first go, which is why it’s important to evaluate from time to time.
WHAT TO EVALUATE
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Considerations |
Actionable Steps |
| Cross-functional meetings |
Frequency |
Some teams may need to meet more often than others.
For example, SDRs and campaign managers may benefit from weekly check-ins to provide updates, offer feedback, and maintain smooth lead hand-off. |
- Noticing redundancies or a lack of new insights at each meeting? Consider reducing the frequency or consolidating meetings.
- Gauge how attendees feel about the frequency with a survey (can be anonymous).
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Length |
It’s important to be cognizant of everybody’s time.
Factors like the purpose of a meeting and its frequency should play a part in determining its length.
Be aware that long meetings risk losing people’s attention. |
- If meetings are consistently running long or ending early, adjust accordingly.
- Consider sourcing questions or feedback before the meeting to optimize time.
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Attendance |
Not everybody is going to want or need to attend every meeting.
Determine which roles and levels of seniority would benefit most from the information shared.
Too large of a group might make it difficult to hear feedback from a variety of individuals. |
- Monitor attendance rate over time. Lower attendance could indicate a need to reconsider meeting invites.
- Consider extending optional invites to those you’re unsure about and allow them to decide if they should attend regularly.
- Record meetings for those who can’t attend.
- Invite async updates or feedback if a meeting group is large.
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Agenda |
Having a meeting outline helps to keep the conversation on track.
It also allows for consistency—attendees can know what to expect and meeting owners know what to prepare. |
- Create a visual aid that outlines the agenda or showcases information. This can be a presentation slide, or a writing doc filled out in real-time.
- Make sure to include time for feedback and deliberation if needed.
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| Communication channels |
Email |
Different levels of seniority may or may not prefer this form of communication when summarizing high-level insights.
Keep in mind sometimes important or timely information can get lost in inboxes. |
- Consider how teams prefer to communicate amongst themselves and see if there is common ground.
- Determine if managers and executives have a communication preference. Convey information using this method when they are included.
- Look to encourage the use of messaging apps and group chats if the goal is to foster a genial, symbiotic relationship between teams.
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Messaging apps (Slack, Teams, etc.) |
This can often be a faster and more colloquial way to communicate.
Excessive replies can inundate members of a chat group with irrelevant information. |
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| Commonly shared KPIs (key performance indicators) |
When defining which KPIs sales and marketing teams should align on, factors like which metrics executives prefer to report on and what KPIs each team uses to measure their own departmental success should be taken into consideration. It is also invaluable to have historical data to reference and the right tools in place to track such metrics effectively.
Aligning on KPIs doesn’t always work on the first try. Priorities and forecasts can change over time, and teams must adapt alongside one another to achieve successful alignment. Dynamics between teams are unique to every company and so are the metrics they track. That being said, here are some commonly recommended KPIs B2B sales and marketing teams can aim to align on:
- Conversion rate across the funnel (MQL through to Closed Won)
- Can be used to compare campaigns or channels to see which are most effective
- The higher, the better
- CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)
- Helps to determine the long-term value of a customer
- The higher, the better
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
- Indicates how much it costs to land a customer
- The lower, the better
- Sales length cycle
- Can break it down by stage to see where there are gaps and delays
- The shorter, the better
- Revenue generated
- The end game—can be used to evaluate which channels perform the best
- Some delve into specifics like MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and ARR (annual recurring revenue)
- The more, the better
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Establishing an ABM strategy can help break down departmental barriers by uniting teams toward a common goal. Not only that, but it can also enable the optimization of resources across the organization and ultimately drive more conversions. But cross-functional collaboration doesn’t happen overnight; finding what works best for your teams requires practice and refinement along the way.
Personalization: Delivering a customer-centric experience
Personalization within an ABM strategy isn’t simply addressing customers by their name; it’s about understanding their unique needs, preferences, and pain points, and delivering tailored experiences that resonate on a deeper level. Doing so maximizes the impact of your sales and marketing efforts on target accounts. Personalization can also:
- Establish stronger relationships: Demonstrating a deep understanding of a customer’s challenges and objectives fosters trust and credibility.
- Increase engagement and conversion rates: Speaking directly to the specific interests and concerns of a customer is more likely to capture their attention.
- Offer a competitive advantage: Engaging customers with tailored content and messaging can help differentiate your efforts from those who maintain a more generic approach.
To determine what resonates best with your target accounts requires experimentation. That is where optimization comes into play.
CONSIDERATIONS
Personalization is a powerful tool in sales and marketing, but it's crucial to approach it strategically. The key lies in balancing the level of personalization with your available resources—budget and bandwidth. By doing so, you can ensure that your personalization efforts are not only impactful but also sustainable in the long run.
Personalizing Your ABM Program
| Channels |
Elements |
Ideas and recommendations |
| Sales Outreach |
Subject line |
- Mention name or company
- Address relevant pain points and value props
- Reference an asset they downloaded or an event they registered for
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Copy & Messaging |
- Include snippets referencing relevant pain point and value props specific to job role, seniority, and/or industry
- Delve into topics of interest they may have interacted with recently or those identified via intent data
- Offer something of value such as an asset, an invite, free trial, or an incentive
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Cadence |
- Lengthen time between emails if earlier in the funnel so as not to press
- Shorten number of emails in a sequence if earlier in the funnel and send back to Marketing for nurturing if no reply
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| Marketing Emails |
Invites |
- Leverage multiple avenues so as not to exhaust database (ex: partners, third-party vendors or publications)
- If sending multiple rounds, start with highly specific segmentations and tailor subject lines to each
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Newsletters |
- Segment subscribers by persona or industry and tailor messaging to each
- Interchange content to be more relevant, if available
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Nurtures |
- Create nurture tracks with content and messaging tailored to specific topics, personas, industries, journey stage, etc.
- Enable prospects to move between nurture tracks depending on engagement history and behavioral insights
- Include engagement checkpoints – consider adjusting cadence dependent on their previous interactions
- Ensure scoring and lead stage triggers are in place to flag engaged prospects
- Include ‘hand-raisers’ - CTAs that enable prospects to move themselves further down the funnel (ex: free trial, demo, invite)
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Transactional |
- Include optional content or CTAs that are tailored to persona, industry, topic, etc.
- Maintain a different layout than other marketing emails to distinguish its purpose (part of a free trial flow, online subscription)
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Announcements |
- Tailor subject line, copy, and CTA to persona, prioritizing relevant pain points and solutions
- Consider developing custom landing pages for different personas
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| Website Experiences |
Chatbot |
- Integrate live chat platforms and CRMs or ABM platforms to enable personalized interactions
- Create chat sequences tailored to personas that surface relevant content, CTA, and landing pages
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Landing pages |
- Build custom landing pages for different personas, journey stages, or industries with relevant messaging, content, and CTAs
- Leverage these pages in personalized ads and flag for Sales to use in cold outreach
- Can create with the help of website personalization platforms or content intelligence platforms
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Dynamic content |
- Integrate CRM or ABM platforms with a website personalization platform to adapt headlines, CTAs, and offers to a web visitor’s behavior, demographics, and firmographics
- Score web page visits and flag high-intent engagements – visiting a pricing page, signing up for a trial, etc.
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| Content |
- Develop long-form assets like whitepapers, reports, and webinars for middle of the funnel prospects aimed at educating and offering product-agnostic solutions
- Create short-form assets like executive summaries, checklists, and infographics for top of funnel education and brand awareness
- Repurpose longer-form content into shorter-form content tailored to specific roles or industries
- Consider leveraging partnerships or demand partners to surface content to specific audiences to source new prospects and avoid exhausting database
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| Ads |
- Leverage tools offered by text and display advertising platforms to target specific segments
- Work with vendors who specialize in specific industries or interests to advertise to a more narrowed audience
- Reuse and repurpose messaging and graphics for other channels like emails and content
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| Events |
- Attend trade shows and conferences for a broader audience
- Tailor messaging of content and booth to attract relevant audience
- Plan exclusive, repeatable events (roundtables, lunch and learns, happy hours) with messaging that can be adapted to specific accounts
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Measuring the impact of your personalization efforts can be accomplished by teaming up with your operations team to track key metrics like engagement, conversions, and ROI. These data points help to reveal what resonates with your audience and what needs fine-tuning. Remember, personalization is a journey, not a destination. Be willing to experiment with different tactics and adapt your approach based on what works best. This data-driven, agile mindset will maximize your return on investment and turn personalization into a powerful tool for success.
Insights: Optimizing with data
In ABM, data reigns supreme, enabling personalized strategies, goal tracking, and internal alignment. It's the language of quantifiable success that resonates with executives and drives iterative improvement. With a wealth of data available, the challenge lies in determining the most effective ways to utilize it to achieve your goals. In today's competitive landscape, embracing data-driven approaches isn't just advantageous – it's essential for staying ahead of the curve, as competitors are likely leveraging data to their advantage.
WHAT TO EVALUATE
| Data Hygiene |
- Is your data accurate and up to date?
- Are fields being updated and overwritten as intended?
- Is that data surfaced to Marketers aligned with that surfaced to Sales?
- Are lead and account data being matched and enriched when possible?
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| Automation & Integration |
- Are repetitive tasks automated to increase efficiency? And are they working as intended?
- Are activity-based workflows such as marketing nurture tracks, retargeting campaigns, and website personalization set in place?
- Are Marketing and Sales platforms passing relevant insights to one another? Are repetitive tasks automated to increase efficiency? And are they working as intended?
- Are activity-based workflows such as marketing nurture tracks, retargeting campaigns, and website personalization set in place?
- Are Marketing and Sales platforms passing relevant insights to one another?
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| Reporting |
- Are there shared reports and dashboards teams can use to track progress?
- Is there cross-functional alignment of KPIs?
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| Scoring |
- When was the last time lead scoring was evaluated?
- Are ABM activities reflected in the scoring?
- Is account scoring implemented?
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| Data Augmentation |
- Is database information regularly updated?
- Are contact and/or account level intent insights accessible to sales and marketing teams?
- Are data sources tracked properly?
- Are insights being flagged to the right teams and reps at the right time?
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| Data Privacy & Compliance |
- Is the privacy policy up to date?
- Are marketing operations in compliance with current regulations?
- Is the database secure?
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Data greatly enhances the effectiveness of ABM strategies, yielding advantages such as precise target account selection, personalized experiences, informed decision-making, and enhanced measurement capabilities with real-time updates. However, amidst the abundance of data, challenges arise, including concerns over data quality and privacy issues. To navigate these challenges effectively, periodic audits of tech stacks, metrics, reporting, and data hygiene are essential. These audits enable teams to optimize processes and strategies, ensuring sustained success in their marketing endeavors.
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In the dynamic world of ABM, strategies must continuously adapt to evolving customer behaviors, emerging technologies, and market trends. Regularly assessing core elements of an ABM program such as alignment, personalization, and data practices are essential to ensuring an effective approach. Embrace this process to ensure your strategy delivers exceptional results over time.
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