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ContentsForeword ...................................................................................3 Authors’ biographies ..................................................................4

Section 1. Introduction: What is ABM, why should you do itand where do you start? ..............................................................61.1:What is ABM? ............................................................................................................ 7

1.2: Why do ABM? ...........................................................................................................7

1.3: How to do ABM .........................................................................................................81.4: The impact o ABM ................................................................................................... 10

Section 2. A step-by-step guide to ABM(avoiding the pitfalls along the way)............................................ 122.1: Phase one: Planning your ABM strategy ...................................................................... 14

2.2: Phase two: Account-specic activities ........................................................................ 15

2.3: Phase three: Programme management and evaluation ................................................ 16

Section 3. Get going with ABM .................................................. 183.1: Making ABM work or your organisation ..................................................................... 21

3.2: Where to start .......................................................................................................... 21

3.3: Choosing accounts ..................................................................................................22

3.4: ABM in action ..........................................................................................................22

3.5: Change the customer conversation ............................................................................23

3.6: Measure ABM success ..............................................................................................23

Section 4. Insight – The fuel to power the ABM engine? .................24

4.1: Insight must underpin ABM .......................................................................................26 4.2: A scalable, automated solution to collating insight ...................................................... 27

4.3: Sharing insight ........................................................................................................ 27

4.4: Automating the ABM planning process – The holy grail or scaling ABM? ......................28

4.5: ABM – A ad or a new reality or marketing? ................................................................28

2 Account-Based Marketing Implementation Best Practice Guide © B2B Marketing 2015


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Account-based marketing (ABM) is astbecoming mainstream, having risenhugely in popularity over the past couple

o years. It’s hard not to notice the current buzzaround this type o marketing, and there is plentyto be gained or those who are prepared to takethe leap and start to implement ABM.

This guide is designed to assist you on your ABM journey, whether it’s something you’ve alreadystarted to employ or i you’re planning on puttingit in place in the near uture. All the contributorsare ABM specialists, and present differentperspectives on ABM and what you can achievewith it. Their guidance will no doubt be valuableas you really ocus on developing meaning ulrelationships with your most important clients andaccounts.

Michael Avis, senior marketing director, EMEA key

accounts at Oracle, answers the question ‘whatis ABM?’ in the rst chapter o this guide, andprovides an overview o the key actors to considerbe ore implementation, such as the differentapproaches which can be taken according tovarying target markets.

Bev Burgess, senior vice president at ITSMA,then runs through a step-by-step guide to ABM,highlighting some o the pit alls to avoid alongthe way. ITSMA’s denition o ABM as: ‘treatingindividual accounts as a market in their own right’comes up throughout this guide, and is at the

core o her approach. This second chapter runsthrough the different possible phases o ABMimplementation, ranging rom planning yourABM strategy to account-specic activities andprogramme management and evaluation.

Chapter three, by Alisha Lyndon, associatedirector at ABM agency Momentum, uncovers

some o key processes to be aware o during yourABM journey, such as getting buy-in rom thesales department, identi ying key accounts andworking across the business to ensure the rightcreative content is brought together to engagethose accounts.

The ourth and nal chapter o this guide is ullyocused on insights, and the challenge o scaling

ABM programmes and gathering insights on alarge scale. Clive Armitage, CEO and managingdirector at ABM agency agent³, discusses the

potential or data – once sorted correctly – tobecome ‘commercial gold dust’.

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Account-Based Marketing Implementation Best Practice Guide © B2B Marketing 2015

ForewordDANIELLE HOWEREPORTS EDITOR B2B MARKETING


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Authors’ biographies

Michael AvisSenior director, account-based marketing, Oracle EMEA

Michael is senior director, account-based marketing or Oracle EMEA and isresponsible or a team working across EMEA ocused on Oracle’s key accountsin the region. Michael joined Oracle in 2010 as part o the Sun Microsystemsacquisition, initially working on the integration o Sun eld marketinginto Oracle be ore helping to set up ABM as Oracle’s Global Key Account

Programme gained traction.

Michael believes his background and mindset puts him in a good position toensure marketing brings value to sales and their customers, which is o coursevital to be success ul in ABM. It’s as i the previous 20-odd years were a trainingcourse or ABM.

Bev BurgessSVP, ITSMA Europe

Bev Burgess is senior vice president o ITSMA Europe and co-lead o thecompany’s ABM practice. Headquartered in Lexington, USA, ITSMA helpsB2B companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. It is aresearch-based membership organisation that works with the world’s leadingpro essional services, technology, and communications providers to generateincreased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve branddifferentiation.



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5Account-Based Marketing Implementation Best Practice Guide © B2B Marketing 2015

Authors’ biographies

Alisha LyndonManaging partner, Momentum ABM

Co- ounder o Momentum, Alisha’s career in technology marketing and salesspans over 15 years. During this time, Alisha has gained recognition or her‘let’s get it done’ attitude, which also resonates throughout Momentum.

Prior to Momentum, Alisha has held several marketing leadership roles at

Microsof, Opentext and agency side. She spent nine years as oundingdirector o award-winning marketing agency Logical, which has since beenacquired by Blueview Group.

Clive ArmitageManaging partner, agent³

Clive has over 25 years o experience in B2B marketing, predominantly

within the technology and telecommunications industries. He co- oundedagent³ in January 2013 to help brands achieve top-line growth through usingdata products, technology solutions and content-driven modern marketingcampaigns. Prior to agent³, Clive was the CEO o Bite Communications; acommunications agency that he co- ounded in 1995 with our others andwhich employed 350 people out o 14 offices when he stood down as CEOin December 2012. During his time at Bite, Clive spent ve years in Palo Alto,USA and has also worked in Johannesburg, South A rica. An avid sportsmanand reader, Clive lives in Berkshire with his wi e.


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Introduction

1


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I the conversations I’ve been having with

my peers in the industry are true, manymarketing teams are looking at account-

based marketing (ABM) or three big reasons:

1. To have more direct impact on the businessgoals o their organisations.

2. Customers aren’t listening to their current

awareness and lead generation campaigns.3. There are still issues between sales and

marketing as a result o not working wellenough together.

I also think this quote rom SiriusDecisions is a greatsummary o the challenge:

1. What is ABM?ABM can take many orms and target differenttypes o customers, but or me the undamentalprinciples o ABM are that it is a strategic marketingapproach where you aim to engage with your keycustomers in a highly personalised manner, treatingthem as a market o one.

It is a shif rom broadcast marketing (let me tellyou why I’m great) to engagement marketing (letme explain how I can help you to solve your painpoints). This requires a mind shif, different skillsand different unding and so can be difficult ororganisations to address and crack. Particularlybig ones with ingrained processes. But we have nochoice because or the customer the mantra is ‘It’snot about you, it’s about me.’

Ultimately, ABM is about engineering tailoredrelationships that trans orm business per ormance:

• Engineering : marketing techniques thatengineer engagement early in decision

cycles with the individuals who are shapingtrans ormational strategies.

• Tailored : insight is at the heart o the perspectives,communications and engagements to ensure apersonalised approach to each customer.

• Relationships : getting personal is undamentalin establishing collaborative and inclusiveengagement.

• Transformation : helping your customers toachieve their goals by getting under the skin

o their business problems, and trans ormingrelationships with customers, bringing morevalue and sharing innovation and big ideas.

Re-producing standard marketing materials withtarget customers’ logos on them or attempting tobuild relationships through hospitality events isdenitely not ABM.

Why do ABM?Customers really aren’t listening. Or to be lessdramatic, they are listening less to generic

broadcast marketing rom vendors o productsand services that are not especially relevant tothem. They are, o course, listening to each othermore and researching independent sources oadvice and reviews.

This shouldn’t be a surprise – how ofen do anyo us make personal purchases as a reaction to abrand’s general marketing communications and/or product sheets alone? We are ar more likelyto research and be inuenced by reviews, and ia vendor does communicate with us, we expectrelevance as a minimum. I it offers perspective andadvice on my potential purchase, even better.

ABM can help solve the problems o relevance andensure a prospect gets the eeling you understandthat it’s all about them, rather than you and yourproducts. All being well, they will reward you bybeing collaborative and inclusive earlier in theirbuying cycle. This is where new opportunities,improved perception and, ultimately, morebusiness will come rom.

10

MICHAEL AVISSENIOR MARKETING

DIRECTOR, EMEAKEY ACCOUNTS

ORACLE

What is account-basedmarketing, why should you

do it and where do you start?


b2bmarketing.netSECTION 1 Introduction

“The number one issue or not achievingrevenue goals is ailure to effectivelycommunicate value messaging to customers.”


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How to do ABMWhile the undamentals o personalisingengagement and treating customers as amarket o one should be at the heart o all ABM,implementation will inevitably vary according totarget market, availability o resources and desiredoutcomes.

For example, in a target market that consistso a relatively large number o customers andpotential customers, ABM could be run usinga digital approach. Modern marketing toolscould be applied to obtain insights about targetcustomers that are incorporated into marketing

communications and delivered to contacts that are

ound, tracked and nurtured, leading to dialogueand engagement.

In a market that consists o a relatively small numbero customers, perhaps a set o ‘key accounts’,senior account-based marketers could join keyaccount sales teams and develop and execute ABMthat is integrated into individual key account plans.

In reality, in many organisations it would be best tocombine the use o modern marketing tools with

ace-to- ace engagement through the integrationo marketers into sales teams by applying an ABM

segmentation and coverage model such as this:

In my experience, many technology rms have aningrained sales-led culture, where marketing hasplayed a supporting role and is seen as such by thesales teams. I suspect this to be the case in manydifferent types o rm. So, when a marketer turns upand offers to take part in account-planning sessions,they must be assured and demonstrate leadershipand business acumen as well as marketingexpertise – it can ofen be tempting or the salesteam to see marketing as the bringer o a budgetthey can direct. Quite ofen this will be ocused onrelationship events and other tactical marketing.

This can also mean it will miss out on the promise oABM being able to engineer tailored relationshipsthat trans orm business per ormance through deepinsight, changed perception and earlier buyerengagement, which would be a shame.

O course, in addition to being motivated andenthusiastic, a suitably skilled team (and theirtoolset) will work best i there’s a well-understoodmodel within which they can express themselves,such as the ollowing insight to advisor model

or ABM:



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A model that can work well or ABM is a 360degree model such as insight > perspective >communication > engagement > advisor.

•Insight

is the li eblood o ABM and shouldreveal trends, customer direction and personalpre erences. Various methods o insightgathering can be effective; there is no singleanswer. With ABM in key accounts, the accountteam can be a signicant source o insight.Bespoke research and proling projects candeliver excellent insight, especially or a specicproject. However, digital tools that can producecontinuous insights into customer strategy andaspiration, combined with the identication andpre erences o key individuals who may have notpreviously been known to us, has the potential tobe the most effective and efficient. Digital insightis helped by the dramatic increase in the use osocial media channels as well as more ormalmedia channels, but the best tools will be readilycongurable to make sense o this and enablean ABM-er to bring highly valued insight into anaccount team that may already believe it knowsthe customer.

• Perspective is a step easily overlooked aswe seek to ast-track communication andengagement. How many projects have we all

been involved in, when even i we have takenthe trouble to gather insight through research

or proling, we then commission a marketingagency to create communication assets or startbuilding an event agenda booking speakers andvenues?

A perspective is an opportunity to test anddemonstrate affinity with the customer’schallenges and opportunities. You can also offeropinion and invite collaboration on how yourcompany and theirs can engage in a way thatsolves the problem or develops the opportunity.

A perspective can also be used to generateeedback rom the customer be ore expensive

communication assets are developed. Donewell, it can also have the highly desirable sideeffect o re-positioning your company as onethat has valuable opinions beyond a relativelynarrow product proposition. It can also be thestart o a antastic journey rom being perceivedas a product supplier through to being seen as aproblem solver and ultimately the much-revered,trusted advisor.

• Communication is the natural next stepollowing the development o a perspective.

You’ll need to consider the channel orcommunication as well as the type o asset.Excellent content and brilliant assets will not

have the desired impact i you do not have aneffective way to deliver it to your target audience.



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I you broadcast to your target audience (e.g. viaemail or other orms o direct marketing) youare reverting to type and not personalising yourmarketing. You there ore need to be insight-driven in the way you communicate your valueand use channels that your target audience willrespond to. This can be via the account team,social networks or directly via opt-ins. It is morelikely to be a combination o all o these, howeveryou must put as much thought into this as you dothe assets themselves, which can range rom asimple document through to richer media suchas video, in order to have enough impact andemotional engagement.

The most effective communication will develop adialogue and start to build rapport and trust.

• Engagement is the most prized stage o ABM –by this time you should be well down the road ounderstanding your customer. More importantly,you have convinced them that you understandthem and have something valuable to offer.However, just as with the insight back-thoughtyou put into the perception and communicationstages, the way you engage takes the same kind

o consideration. Ofen a marketing-driven eventwill be somewhat o a showcase and you’re backto the ‘it’s all about us’ problem o being sodesperate to tell them how great you are, yourevent will send them to sleep and undo the goodwork you’ve put in to the previous stages.

The engagement stage needs to bring customersvalue, and it can do this in a variety o ways. Forexample, i your ABM campaign is targeting aCMO and his or her team with a perspective ordigital trans ormation o marketing, you mightpropose a digital disruption workshop that is notabout your products but about their marketingprocesses and how they can modernise them tobecome leaders in their industry.

Capturing and re-communicating the outputo these engagements is also a great way todevelop long-term rapport and trust. Video‘mashups’ are a un and cost-effective way to dothis and can become great assets or spreadingvalue within the account.

The impact of ABMWhile there are some very direct measurements omarketing such as number o contacts touched andnumber o leads created and converted to sales,with ABM these kinds o measurement approachesmay not always be suitable. For example, with a keyaccount where an ABM-er has driven a period oinsight and perspective development and achievedcustomer engagement with a small inuentialgroup o people, it may not make sense to track andmeasure number o contacts, leads, conversions,when ABM is really trying to do the ollowing:

1. Increase existing or nding new business

2. Engage with a new audience3. Change customer perception4. Improve competitive position5. Change sales’ perception o marketing.

It’s crucial to get the measurement o ABM successagreed within your company and ensure thatABM activity and results are communicated to allthe relevant stakeholders in a way that is easy orthem to understand and appreciate in relation totheir responsibilities. Everybody is afer marketingbudget and headcount, and ABM is no different.

In summary , ABM seeks to achieve the ultimategoal or a marketer: to make a customer orprospective customer eel they are understoodand to communicate and bring value to them. Thisshould mean they are willing to engage early in theirdecision cycle, so that there is an opportunity to earnthe right to inuence that decision and make thesales job even easier. I always like to test what we’redoing by thinking that i it wasn’t or ABM, whatwe are doing wouldn’t get done – in other wordsmy company simply wouldn’t have communicatedwith that person, proposed some big ideas or theirbusiness and gone afer that opportunity.

At Oracle we have more work to do, but we havedenitely made a business impact with some o ourkey accounts. We have expanded the opportunityin a European retailer by building insight into theirbusiness and engaging with a new set o contactsto change their perception o us rom being a CRMsolution provider to one o being a digital businessthought-leader. This is what we want more o .




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Lastly, choose your marketing partners andagencies thought ully. ABM isn’t rocket sciencebut in my experience unless an agency thoroughlyunderstands ABM and has a specialist ocus on itwith experienced staff, it’s taking a risk to expectyour normally excellent creative, digital or eventsagency to help you be success ul with your ABMprogramme. You may end up spending more timethan you bargained or teaching them ABM and/or clearing up afer a disastrous campaign that hasmade you enemy number one with sales. We allknow the world doesn’t always work the way wewant, but this guide will help.

Key learnings1. Make sure you understand what ABM reallymeans, why it’s worth doing and what youwant to achieve be ore embarking on an ABMprogramme.

2. Adapt ABM to the size o your business – iyou’re selecting a ew key accounts or planto reach a larger number o customers, yourapproach will need to change (e.g. more digital/more personal).

3. A clear implementation pathway will help tomake sure you don’t miss crucial steps, so thatyour ABM journey is success ul.

4. Make sure the measure o ABM success isagreed within your company – your ‘usual’metrics o measurement might not be suitable.

5. ABM provides a antastic opportunity to showyour most important customers that they eelvalued. By doing it right you can really changeperceptions o your business or the betteramong the people that matter.

6. Select your partners care ully – don’t necessarilyexpect your advertising agency to be an ABMexpert – be prepared or the possibility oseeking out specialist support.




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A step-by-step

guide

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b2bmarketing.netSECTION 2 A step-by-step guide


Like many power ul ideas, this one startedover a shared meal with riends. It was2003, and I was hosting an ITSMA dinner

at the Royal Overseas League in London’s May air.Dr. Charles Doyle o Accenture and Paula Darvello Unisys explained how they had recently begunallocating marketers to individual accounts, theirinitiatives coming in response to a new business

strategy ocused on maximising wallet share withexisting customers. In Accenture’s case, it was alsoa means o spreading responsibility or buildingaccount relationships beyond individual accountmanagers. Dr. Doyle called his approach ‘client-centric marketing’. Paula Darvell at Unisys justcalled it ‘insight-led marketing’.

Since that night, ITSMA (the IT Services MarketingAssociation) has spent 12 years exploring,developing, codi ying, and rening what we callaccount-based marketing (ABM). We dene it as:

‘Treating individual accounts as a market in theirown right’. It is a structured approach to developingand implementing highly customised marketingprogrammes to markets o one, be they strategicaccounts, partners, or prospect organisations.

ABM involves marketing and sales working closelytogether to examine the key business issues acingthe account, map them to responsible individuals,dene propositions to address those issues,and develop customised, integrated sales andmarketing campaigns to take your propositionsinto the account and help resolve those issues.

The widespread adoption o ABM by some othe largest technology companies (and ITSMAmembers) in the world is a testament to its success:BT, Capgemini, Cisco, IBM, Fujitsu, HP, Microsof,Oracle, SAP, and Xerox, to name a ew. ABM hasalso gone beyond the IT sector into pro essional andother business services. A recent ITSMA member

survey revealed that 84 per cent o marketers whomeasure ROI describe ABM as delivering higherreturns than any other marketing approach. Hal othose described it as delivering signicantly higherreturns.

I you think ABM could work or you, but you’re notsure how to get started, our step-by-step process

will help. I’ll call out some o the pit alls others haveound along their own ABM journies along the

way, so you can learn rom their mistakes and saveyoursel time, money and pain.

Here’s the rst pit all to watch out or:

Your contextABM is a strategy o collaboration. It engagessales, marketing, and delivery teams – even keyexecutives in the client account – to determine howbest to meet that client’s unique business needs andgoals. With deep research into the client’s business

uelling the process, this collaborative team createsa well-orchestrated marketing and sales campaign.It’s a great opportunity or marketing to becomemore integrated with sales and or both groups,together, to create measurable business results.

The rst step is to determine what you want ABMto achieve. ITSMA has ound our main avours oABM objectives (gure one, overlea ), the mostcommon o which are around increasing accountpenetration and changing perceptions.

BEV BURGESSSVP

ITSMA EUROPE

A step-by-step guide toaccount-based marketing(avoiding the pit alls along the way)

Although ABM delivers better ROI than anyother marketing approach, it is a long-termstrategy, not a quick x. Don’t expect ROIwithin three to six months as you would withmarket-based leads.


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Make no mistake: tapping the ull potential o ABMrequires substantial changes in your traditionalmarketing strategies, skills, and programmes.

At ITSMA, we recommend a three-phased approachto help establish your ABM programme success ully.

Phase one: Planning your ABMstrategy This phase is all about building the oundation oryour ABM success. This means thinking along twodimensions: the overarching ABM strategy or yourbusiness and the more specic ABM account processyou will ollow, integrated with sales and accountmanagement people, processes and systems in thebusiness.

SponsorsStart by nding your business sponsor. The quickestway to go wrong is to position ABM as a marketing-led initiative without the support and collaborationo the business. Support rom the head o accountmanagement and sales is equally important. To getthe collaboration you need later on, you need tomake ABM a collaborative effort rom the start – in

act, get representatives rom the business, accountmanagement, sales and possibly even delivery ontoyour ABM steering group i you can.

MetricsWith this group in place, agree your objectives and themetrics you’ll track to nd out i ABM is working or you.

Most people track KPIs associated with the revenue,


Figure 1. ABM programmes come in four avours

Source: ITSMA, 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t just look at ABM as a bid-support tool.

Take a longer view on ull ABM programmesand make opportunity-centric marketinga separate discipline, so you’re not justscrambling rom one bid to another.

I you don’t establish ABM as a businessinitiative rom the start, our researchshows your programme is less likely to besuccess ul. Treat it as a change managementinitiative, not simply another part o yourmarketing plan, and get the right programmemanagement and governance in place todrive success.

Source: ITSMA, 2015. All Rights Reserved.



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relationships, and reputation they are developingin their accounts, sometimes comparing results orABM accounts against a control group o accountsto understand the overall uplif ABM delivers.

FundingNext, agree initial unding and decide how yourbudget will be allocated. To get both marketingand sales are committed to the success o yourprogramme – and to working alongside eachother – both groups need to commit the necessaryresources or ABM.

ProcessesThink about the systems and processes you’ll needto integrate with or your teams to truly collaborate.Map ABM onto the account management and majorsales processes i you have them, and integrate your

marketing systems with those used by the accountmanagers and sales teams i you can.

PeopleSelect the right person to lead ABM and agreehow you’ll collaborate with sales and accountmanagement. ITSMA’s ABM competency model(gure three) can help assess the skills andattributes you’ll need in your team. Use it to selectand develop the people you need working on youraccounts.

AccountsSelect your pilot account(s) and allocate an ABM-erto between one and three accounts. Now it’s timeto get started.

Phase two: Account-specicactivitiesDuring this phase, marketing and sales worktogether to develop implementation plansdesigned to meet the specic needs o individualaccounts.

Discovery Primary and secondary research lies at the heart oABM activity. It’s the way to develop new insightsinto the account. You need to identi y the businessdrivers and issues acing each account so that youcan map them to your own port olio, and developcustomised value propositions. The insights

you develop at this stage drive the creation oaccount-targeted thought leadership and othercontent, creating plat orms or intelligent, in ormedconversations with the customer.

ProlesBuilding proles o the key people within theaccount is an important step. Find out as much asyou can about the people that will make decisions,understand what relationships currently existwith them, and map their circles o inuence bothinside the account and externally.

With the research complete, get the whole teamtogether to workshop both your ull understandingo the account’s drivers (as well as the implications

or your company) and how you can help theaccount resolve issues or seize opportunities.



Although ABM pilot programmes arerequently unded by marketing, ITSMA

recommends that the marketing and salesorganisations jointly und the company’s ABMprogramme, especially as it moves beyond thepilot phase.

Selecting the right pilot accounts or ABM is animportant step. First, look or companies withlarge ‘wallets’ where you have a small shareo that wallet today. Second, prioritise thosewhere the account manager or sales leadwelcomes your support. Without this, you’renished be ore you start.

Instead o ocusing on what you want to sell,use a mapping process to prioritise the ways you can create real value or both companiesby creating propositions to help the client withtheir top issues.

Your ABM pilots will ail i you don’t devote thetime and attention necessary to understandeach individual account. Success ul companiescreate in-depth proles o target accounts,highlighting their key per ormance issues andthe perceptions and priorities o decision-makers.


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PlaysDevelop your ‘plays’ by mapping the account’spriorities to your own port olio – and those oyour partners – deciding which resources andtechnologies to apply to each issue. A play is anoffering designed or a specic account; it can benarrowly applied (single product) or used to create acomplex solution (multiple products and services).

Ofen companies discover they can add signicantvalue or the account by co-creating new servicesand solutions designed specically or that account.We’ve ound innovation is closely linked with theABM process.

PropositionsNext, create value propositions spelling out top-line messages or the people to whom you will take

your plays. Include the benets o selecting yourplay, the value they’ll receive, and the reasons theyshould work with your company rather than one oyour competitors.

PlanCreate an integrated sales and marketing planto systemically move the client through the salescycle, as you would or any nurture campaign. Thetactics you choose and the content you create stemdirectly rom the pre erences o those people youproled and the theme o your plays.

ExecutionDuring the execution phase, the same elementsthat drive success or any marketing programmeimplementation are also important or ABMcampaigns: keeping them on time, on budget,and within the scope and activities described inthe plan.

EvaluationAfer you have completed your ABM pilot, it is timeto step back and look at how well the pilot worked.We recommend evaluating your activities on the

ollowing criteria:

• Did you achieve your objectives?• Did the metrics you were tracking work or you?• Did the account selection process and the criteria

you used pay off?• Should the pilot accounts remain in the

programme or should you choose differentaccount?

• How did the clients eel about your ABM

activities?

Agree a set o metrics against which you will trackand report the progress and success o your ABMcampaigns. The most popular metrics used byITSMA members are around revenue generation,relationships built in the account and pipelinegrowth.

Phase three: Programmemanagement and evaluationIt is easy to become so ocused on implementingABM that you don’t take the time to step back andevaluate your progress. In this phase, you’ll needto gather eedback to create the nal programmedesign that takes your ABM strategy beyond theinitial ew accounts you started with, and out intoother business units or geographies.

Your goals at this stage are to:• Optimise the number o accounts in your overall

ABM programme• Determine how ABM ts with other marketing

programmes such as vertical or capabilitymarketing

• Secure the unding and resources you need toexpand your programme

• Develop a plan or scaling the programme.

Designing and implementing an effective ABM pilotprogramme is difficult enough. But perhaps theharder challenge comes when you make the difficultdecisions around scaling your programme. Fewcompanies have demonstrated they can scale ABMin a way that is effective across 10s, and possiblyhundreds, o accounts. In 2013, ITSMA’s ABM

survey revealed that only 23 per cent o companiesdoing ABM have scaled their programmes.



The relationship map should be continuallyre reshed as part o your ABM and accountplan. Tracking each person’s level oengagement with your company should be akey per ormance metric.

Regardless o how exciting or impressive thecompany’s ABM plan, it is just a piece o paperuntil you execute. There is no magic here – it allcomes down to excellent project management,collaboration and implementation.


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Case study: Connected sales and marketing delivers account

transformation for Jupiter

Business challenge Juniper Networks knew that its largest customerwas evaluating potential partners or a criticalproject: its next-generation virtualised andsofware-dened network. This was the kind oleading-edge project that would likely set thedirection and tone or the whole industry, deningthe technology leaders in the process. Juniper’s

uture success hinged on securing a partnership

role. But the customer viewed Juniper as a smallhardware vendor, not a strategic partner.

Programme objectivePriority one was to change the customer’sperception o Juniper as a small hardware vendorto a strategic sofware partner.

In order to compete against larger companies, Juniper needed all o its marketing efforts to hit themark – every time – and achieve maximum results.The Juniper team implemented an ABM strategy

designed to deliver highly targeted marketingcommunications and activities to specicindividuals within the customer account.

Programme executionThe rst step was to orm a customer team rommultiple unctions across the company, includingmarketing and sales. Juniper hired a dedicatedmarketing manager to oversee ABM activities. Theteam began by conducting extensive internal andexternal analysis to develop a comprehensive viewo the customer’s current and uture state. Thenit developed a three-year, integrated marketingplan, ully aligned with the Juniper sales plan andthe customer’s vision.

As part o the planning process, marketing workedwith sales to segment the account contacts intothree groups: the decision-makers, the circle oinuence, and the operational teams. Each contactwas assigned a number called the MindshareScore, which combined to determine the accountlevel Mindshare Score. All o the ABM work wasdesigned to improve these scores over t ime.

The key components o the execution strategyincluded a long-term communications plan,thought leadership, awareness building and salesenablement tactics.

The team developed a multiphase communicationsplan that included highly targeted messaging

or each individual’s role and Mindshare Score.The communications were delivered throughexecutive advisory boards, roundtables, briengs,newsletters, webinars and events. The team alsodelivered targeted communications to the externalcircle o inuence, including analysts, bloggers,and technologists ollowed closely by the decision-

makers.

Instead o taking a traditional approach, the teamrst determined whom they needed to reach basedon their current mindshare status, then developedthe content. This helped ensure that every singlecommunication was hitting the right audience atthe right time with the right message.

Juniper ocused its thought leadership efforts oneducating customers on new technologies andthe implications o those technologies rather

than on products. Targeted audiences receivedthis content through customised Innovation Dayevents, user groups, webinars, direct marketingand one-to-one meetings. The marketing team alsodeveloped extensive customer insight reporting toenable sales to bring extremely relevant messagingto individual contacts.

Business results Thanks to its ABM programme, Juniper becamethe second strategic partner selected in thecustomer’s new network strategy and the rst inits competitive set. Revenue rom the accountincreased 30 per cent year over year. Marketingcontribution grew to represent 30 per cent oa multibillion-dollar pipeline. Marketing alsodemonstrated a substantial increase in accountmindshare.

As a result o this success, Juniper has expanded itsABM programme into other accounts and verticals.This team not only helped acilitate one o the bestcustomer turnaround stories in the company’shistory, but also trans orm Juniper’s marketingorganisation to become more customer ocused

and aligned with sales than ever be ore.


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Which brings us right back to the beginning andthe importance o setting ABM up as a businessinitiative. The most common barriers to scalingare a lack o people and unds. We’ve lost counto how many ABM marketing teams have beenasked to add another 20, 30, 50 accounts to their

programmes without any increase in resources.As a result, these marketers have developed ‘lite’versions o the methodology that sit somewherebetween industry marketing and ABM in its purestsense.

While this is a pragmatic response to the challenge,it’s worth pointing out that once you dilute the ABMmethodology, you’re going to dilute the results youcan achieve too. The business needs to be aware othis and make a decision about resourcing with thisin mind.

In conclusionITSMA’s ABM is a power ul, collaborative strategythat truly puts the customer rst. It is a structuredapproach to developing and implementing highlycustomised marketing campaigns or single

accounts, prospects, or partnerships. By treatingeach as a market o one, ABM can help you broadenand deepen your relationships with key individuals,increase awareness and demand or your servicesand solutions, and help you to deliver betternancial results. What’s not to like?

Companies that have had the most successin scaling ABM have a central programmemanagement office responsible or people,processes and systems. Get your PMOestablished be ore you try to scale.

As you see the successes that ABM generates, you’ll be asked to scale your programme, ofenwithout additional resources. Bear in mindthat diluting ABM into an ABM-lite approachwill also dilute the results you can achieve, andmake your recommendations to the business onthat basis.



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Get going with

account-basedmarketing

3


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Making ABM work for yourorganisationIt’s important to remember that ABM is not a one-size-ts-all, prescriptive process.

As shown in gure one, our ve-stage rameworkconsists o best practice tools and techniques thatyou can ex to t your organisation. Many o thesewill be amiliar – it’s bringing them together or anindividual account that makes the difference.

True to its name, ABM makes the most impact whenaligned with the needs o each individual customer.So you can turn the level o activity up or downaccording to a number o actors – such as wherethe account is in a sales cycle, customer relationshipstrength or opportunity size. As a result, you can seea very different shape o ABM on an account-by-account basis.

b2bmarketing.netSECTION 3 Get going with account-based marketing

Figure 1. ABM is a ve-stage framework of best practice tools and techniques

Where to startThe critical success actor when starting with ABM isto get buy-in rom the sales department. This doesn’tneed to be or a ull-blown, multi-year programme,but can instead start aligning sales and marketingactivities around a ew top-tier accounts.

One o the rst methods we use to align sales andmarketing is an ABM plan. This acts as a counterpartto the sales plan to create a central view o thecustomer, through the lens o your stakeholders.As you’ll see rom gure two, the ABM plan kick-

starts activities and denes all touch points around ashared vision or the customer.

It’s not unusual to start ABM without exec-levelsponsorship or signicant budget. Many o ourcustomers need to prove its value by starting smalland scaling up. Here are a ew options or how toadopt ABM, or budgets o all shapes and sizes:

1. Unlock budget from other parts of thebusiness – seed unding can initiate ABM and,once the results start to make an impact, otherparts o the business will be more willing to chip in.

2. Keep it lean – scale your ABM activities to matchyour budget by adopting a ‘lean’ ABM approach.For example, you can ocus on a ew, high-valuecustomers or look or economies o scale whenexecuting campaigns.

3. Make it business-as-usual – ABM isn’t a one-off,big budget hit – it’s a way o li e. One o our clients

allocates every single marketer, rom advertisingto PR, a single account.

“At its core ABM is about inspiring your keyaccounts with a vision o what is possible andlling them with the condence you are theright partner to take them on that journey”Robert Hollier, strategy director, Momentum



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4. Do ABM-as-a-service – this means allowing salesand marketing teams to tap into ABM resourcesas and when they need it.

5. Full-blown ABM – usually or mature marketingorganisations that have tried and tested ABM,be ore getting senior management backing andbigger budgets.

Choosing accountsWorking with the right customers is vital to mobilise

and sustain ABM programmes. You may alreadyuse a segmentation model to help you do this, havea steer rom sales on growth opportunities or bestruggling to know where to begin.

We nd that the right accounts quickly sur ace whenyou look at a ew key characteristics:

• Potential to grow in the next 12-24 months• Scope or cross-sell• Opportunity to sell to the account with ‘one

strategic voice’• Relationship strength• Alignment with your business – products, people,

values.

A urther point to consider is the level o salesengagement across your accounts. For example, iyou have a sales team looking or marketing supporton a major deal then this presents a way to make animmediate impact with ABM.

While ABM is an ideal approach or growing existingcustomers, it can also help you identi y and recruit theright type o new customers. For some organisations

this means a shif in thinking; instead o blasting asmany people in the market as possible, ABM canhelp you hunt down the best prospects.

To start using ABM or your prospect programmes,take a look rst at your existing customer baseto prole your ideal candidates. For example,analyse the top 20 per cent o customers to gatherintelligence rom characteristics such as industry,size and location. Then examine the people inthese organisations – what common themes standout across behaviours, demographics or inuencernetworks?

ABM in actionRegardless o how you adopt ABM, there’s onlyone place to start – customer insight. This is thecornerstone or a customer-rst strategy andinuences all downstream activities.

As shown in gure three, when working withcustomers it’s pre erable to combine differenttechniques to gather insights. This includes deskresearch and market analysis on customers’ marketcontext, commercial plans and trans ormationagendas.

It’s also worth working with sales and marketingteams to collect internal intelligence, or example



Figure 2. ABM starts by creating a plan that unites all customer touch points

ABM IN PRACTICE

IDENTIFYING AGENTS OF CHANGE A lot o ABM attention goes to helping increasethe value o existing accounts. But Momentumalso works with customers to apply ABM toprospect programmes.

For example, we’ve worked with Google tond and target ‘digital change agents’. Armedwith these insights, we then encapsulated ourmessage into account-specic content thatdelivered an instant ‘wow’ actor.


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on relationship strength and decision-makers. Inaddition, we’ve worked directly with our clients’closest customers to collaborate around new ideas,innovations and partnership opportunities.

With the explosion in data across web and social, it’s

also a good idea to automate insight gathering. Thisis a power ul way to give account teams an instantsnapshot on social conversations happening acrossnetworks o decision-makers.

As a note o caution, it’s important to remember thatan insight plat orm is just one tool in your kitbag.ABM’s real power lies in combining this with thecollective intelligence o your sales and marketingteams. Many marketing teams are already drowningin data so think care ully about the value o thein ormation being gathered – sort the good rom

the bad or insights that are action-orientated andmeaning ul.

Change the customerconversationBy blending your account insights with content andcreativity you can make a game-changing impact onhow you communicate with customers. For ABM,

this is where the rubber hits the road.

The best content stems rom a consistent accountstory – one that talks less about your productsor services and more about the specic benetyou’ll bring an individual customer. It should uniteyour sales and marketing teams behind a sharedvision. And it should be encapsulated in a waythat impresses customers – whether that’s part o acustomer slide deck, email shot, ebook, whitepaper,video or mobile app.

When thinking about how best to communicate withcustomers, keep a ew acts ront o mind:• The average person is exposed to 15.5 hours o

content every day.• Our attention span is a measly eight seconds.

• You’re 50 per cent more likely to win a contract iyou lead with an emotional proposition.

Marketers ace a per ect storm: content is growingbut people lack the time and inclination to keep upwith it. The upshot is you need content that standsout against an increasingly noisy backdrop. To dothis, use your account insights to work out whichtype o medium or channel will resonate with yourcustomer and align this with where they are in thesales cycle.

Our experience shows that an average o eightcontent assets are downloaded in a complexpurchase process cycle. For example, content playsa particularly important role early on in the salesprocess, with media such as in ographics, tweetsand blog posts helping to raise awareness. Detaileddata sheets, whitepapers, and case studies becomeincreasingly use ul as the sales cycle progresses.

You can also think about the emotional triggers oyour stakeholders when creating content. I purchasedecisions are going to be heavily inuenced bythe CMO, will a datasheet really make an impact?Probably not. But a short video that brings togetherthe benets might do.

Measure ABM successLike all types o marketing, measurement turns theunpredictable into predictable and shows ABM’sreal contribution to the bottom line.

When we work with customers, one o the rst thingswe ask is how marketing ROI is measured. Typically,responses will include:• Website visits

• Prospects converted to sales leads• Conversion rates• Likes and ollowers


Figure 3. Combining different methodsto uncover insights

ABM IN PRACTICEIDENTIFYING AGENTS OF CHANGE

Momentum’s insight plat orm helps customersanalyse large volumes o web and social data to:• Identi y trends on each account’s markets,

business and people.• Segment insights into topics that align with

strategic priorities.• Aggregate social data or hyper-

personalised intelligence on key decision-makers.

• Analyse social networks to understand theconnections between stakeholders andinuencers.

• Consolidate the latest news and investorinsights.



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• Lead to close ratio• Click-through rates• Cost per lead• Conversion o pipeline opportunity.

While valuable, these metrics are very volume-orientated and track the steps towards ROI, butwithout demonstrating true customer protability.

With ABM, you can introduce metrics that makemore sense in a customer-centric context.

So, as well as web clicks and conversions, ask:how many strategic projects are your sales teams

now involved in? What is the impact on customersatis action? What is the customer’s predictedli etime value?

This lets you balance a more traditional view omarketing’s impact with long-game metrics thatassess relationship strength, brand advocacy andcustomer perceptions.

Here are a ew success metrics our clients have seenwith ABM:• Increased win rates by 22 per cent.• Accelerated team ramp up time 30 per cent.• Improved value o marketing to sales by 90

per cent .

We appreciate that some ABM metrics take time toully realise. So we also work with clients to build

in interim indicators that prove the success o earlywins along the ABM journey. Examples includethe numbers o customer-requested meetings,invitations to strategic orums and volumes o newexecutive stakeholders.

We also understand that, because ABM resultstake time, it’s important to balance tactical support

or shorter-term sales targets with the longer-termview o customer success. Without this pragmatism,ABM will quickly lose the attention o sales and berelegated as a ringe marketing activity. It’s also

important when you start to measure ABM’s ROI toring ence the time period you’re measuring – somemetrics can be limited to a sales quarter while othersspan many months or even years.

As a nal word, all o our clients tell us that ABMdelivers higher ROI than any other marketingactivities – and that they are planning to grow theirbudget or account-specic programmes. Thosethat have success ully built the case or sustainedinvestment see ABM as a long-term strategicprogramme with strong sponsorship rom bothsales and marketing unctions. We believe that withthis approach ABM will quickly become a xture onmost B2B marketing agendas.



MAKE IT PERSONAL

By understanding behavioral traits you can gethyper-personalised with content that appeals todifferent people. As an example:1. The go-getter: is very goal- ocused and

makes quick decisions. They like you to get tothe benets quickly and don’t need too muchin ormation.

2. The spontaneous: is more ‘emotional’ andwants to eel good about a decision. They

respond well to offers and promotions butpre er more emotive content such as imagesand video.

3. The carer: takes time to consider whatothers think, so is inuenced by reviews andcustomer re erences.

4. The logician: is a act-led buyer who likesdetail. They’re not seduced by marketingspeak and pre er hard data – a good time orwhitepapers, case studies and datasheets.

#ABM GETS SOCIAL

Research shows that some c-suites remainnervous o social and 70 per cent o enterprisemarketers still aren’t using it. But i done right,it’s a power ul way to build impact ul ABMcommunications. A recent study showed that the average adultchecks a mobile device over 150 times a day, withmost o these visits to check avourite social sites.Momentum uses these social channels to giveclients a voice where customers are spendingtheir time.For example, by joining inuential LinkedIn groups or by interacting on Twitter, sales teamscan be part o conversations about the top-o -mind trends that matter to customers.


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Insight – The

fuel to power theABM engine?

4


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I anybody tries to tell you that ABM isnew, eel ree to laugh at them. ABM hasbeen a critical piece o marketing since,well, marketing started back in the Garden oEden. Think about it: you have a specic customer,you want to sell them something, you think aboutwhat their needs may be and then you try anddeliver a personalised proposition that they’ll ndcompelling. Simple conceptually. But very difficult

to do day in, day out in practice. Why?

Because building an effective approach to ABMthat is scalable is next to impossible unless youeither have an unlimited marketing budget or youare able to automate large parts o ABM. Havingnot met many people with unlimited marketingbudgets (actually, make that zero people in 25years) we believe it’s possible to build scalableABM programmes by automating large parts othe ABM process, in particular insight, planningand collaboration. Let me explain more…

Why is ABM hot?Firstly, let’s go back and track the emergence oABM as a trend over the last 24 months. In thattime there has been a startling growth in interestin ABM among smart marketers.

There are what I would term a set o ‘push’ reasonsor the emergence o ABM as a hot topic and

also a set o ‘pull’ reasons. ‘Push’ actors tend tobe broadly internal and ‘pull’ actors tend to belargely external. So, let’s look at the major push

actors rst, and in no particular order:

• A demand internally to increase ‘share owallet’ with existing accounts driven by arealisation that, as a rough rule o thumb, 80per cent o revenue is derived rom 20 per cento customers.

• An acceptance that commoditisation oproducts and services is making differentiationincreasingly difficult.

• Executive and line-o -business pressure ormore evidence-based sales and marketingactivity with an associated clear ROI model

• Ever-tighter budgets – ever heard the re rain‘we need to do more with less’?And the pull actors include:

• The emergence o the ‘in ormed’ buyer whoenters the sales unnel much later in the process,making traditional mass marketing techniquesirrelevant.

• This ‘in ormed’ buyer requiring (andincreasingly expecting) engagement aroundtheir challenges and needs rather than a seller-centric sales and marketing approach.

• The emergence o technologies that allow

the creation o new levels o insight intobuyer behavior and also allow the effective,automated delivery o personalised, highlyrelevant content.

Insight must underpin ABMSo, i we have interest and demand or ABM,driven by these kind o actors, what’s the key tolaunching an ABM programme and then, mostimportantly, making it a success? One o ourcustomers, Dorothea Gosling, ABM lead at CSC,puts it very succinctly:

But i ABM starts with insight, where can insightcome rom? The truth is that it comes in lots o

orms. There’s the view o the senior sales guywho has worked on an account or years andbelieves he knows everything there is to knowabout his account. There’s the marketer with herGoogle alerts, monitoring news about a set oaccounts daily. Or there’s the executive who looksat LinkedIn regularly and believes he is ully up-to-speed on his customer contacts as a result.

In reality, crude as it may seem, this is how manyorganisations currently collate insights aroundcustomers. But this haphazard and ragmentedapproach is not conducive to collaborationbecause it is not easily sharable. Also, because it is

a siloed method o data capture, it is not efficientin analysing and capturing the huge volume odigital data that is continually being created around

CLIVE ARMITAGECEO AND MANAGING PARTNER

AGENT3

Insight – The uel to

power the ABM engine?

b2bmarketing.netSECTION 4 Insight – The fuel to power the ABM engine?


“For ABM to be scalable and success ul you haveto be highly ocused on understanding the needso your individual accounts. But the only way todo this is by having insight as the oundation oeverything you do. ABM starts with insight.”


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any given organisation. And that huge amounto digital data, ltered correctly, can unearth thekind o insight that can truly help speed the salescycle. How? Think about an obscure disclosuredocument that is sitting on a server somewhere thatlists the intended IT budget or a merger. Or theuser group event where an executive lays out his orher digital innovation strategy and someone in theaudience decides to tweet the main points? Thereality is more and more data is being producedon a constant basis that, when sorted correctly intoinsights, can be commercial ‘gold dust’.

A scalable, automated solution tocollating insightSo, it is clear organisations have a distinctchallenge with generating signicant levelso valuable, actionable insight across multipleaccounts, efficiently. The answer can only lie inthe automated process o capturing, analysingand sharing. The good news is that digitalplat orms are now emerging that deliver just thisby pulling in ormation rom public data sourcesincluding news, social and corporate sources andassimilating that data in a way that delivers userscontextual in ormation in near real-time. And by

ltering data in a customisable and personalisedmanner, insights can be served across anorganisation’s sales and marketing teams,

ocused on key accounts, to drive better customerengagement.

So, that’s the theory, but how does it work inpractice? Over to Gosling at CSC again:

Suffice to say, we agree with Gosling. We believethat, to be effective in selling and marketing to key

accounts, you have to understand three things:

1. You need insights around the account itsel .2. You need to be aware o who the key executives

are within the account and what matters tothem.

3. You have to understand the overall industrysector in which the account sits.

The synthesis o insights across these threesectors, delivered to you via whatever deviceyou want at any point you want it, can then allowyou to understand the situation and context o anaccount extremely quickly. The benets o this

approach to the average time-poor, pressurisedsales and marketing executive are obvious interms o increased efficiency and effectivenesswhen attempting to engage with a customer. Forexample, sales executives who are passed newaccounts to own can save signicant time gettingup to speed on an account which, in turn, allowsthem to reduce the sales cycle and get to quota asquickly as possible.

…and to sharing insightOK, so ar so good – let’s accept that, to power

scalable ABM programmes, you have to automatethe process o gathering insights by ltering largeamounts o data across the web and have to thenserve these insights up in a highly customisableand personalised ormat to the user. All soundsgreat. But that’s not really quite enough toprovide the right oundation or a signicant (andsuccess ul) ABM programme. Why? Because, inour experience, ABM only really scales and startsto gain momentum when there is strong strategicalignment among internal stakeholders, chieysales and marketing, around a single view o theaccount and also a dynamic, shareable accountplan. Employing a common digital plat orm ordashboard is the most effective mechanism toachieve this.

Put simply, ABM will not unction i there is notsufficient insight on accounts. It will also will aili internal teams do not collaborate efficientlyand intelligently around the account opportunity.So, i you are thinking about how you use anykind o insight plat orm at the heart o yourABM programme, make sure it provides thenecessary unctionality to encourage and support

collaboration and knowledge sharing. You’ll ndthat users o the plat orm will want to pull all orms


“The way we approach ABM, and the onlyviable way to do so in my opinion, is once you

have determined what your overall strategic goal is, start with insight to power the process. And or us, marketing carries 95 per cent o theworkload at the insight stage. We are seekingto provide a service to our internal client: sales.We are making li e easier or our sales teamsby providing convenient, up-to-date andaccurate insight and in ormation about theiraccounts. In the process we save them lots otime and legwork, reeing them up to work onrelationships and on winning deals.”



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o insight together around key events or bids sothat they can build a bank o evidence arounda theme or topic. In turn these insights can thenbe emailed or shared with account teams at anypoint, providing a strong incentive to collaboratearound both strategy and tactics or the account.

Similarly, do ensure that any insight plat ormyou consider investing in allows you to pluginto other digital resources because, by doingso, you are increasing the chance that you canturn your insights into actions. For example, byincorporating LinkedIn, you can help accountteams to identi y where relationships may exist

between the client and your staff that may thenhelp drive enhanced customer engagement.

Automating ABM – The holy grailfor scaling ABM?So, we’ve looked at how insight can be collatedand how that insight can be used to drivecollaboration internally and to achieve strategicalignment around accounts. Both actorsobviously enable organisations to drive ABMprogrammes efficiently and, in act, are essential

or truly effective ABM. But to really drive scale

or campaigns, the ability or ABM-ers to runmultiple accounts rather than just a hand ul, youneed a process that automates the ABM planningprocess itsel , driven by insight as the basis to plansuccess ully.

So, look or plat orm solutions that provide aworkow or process that allows ABM-ers toplan, diarise and collaborate with sales teamson the actual ABM plan itsel . The right planningmethodology will be ounded on a deep dive intothe automated insights to help teams work outexactly how they’re going to build their marketingplan, helping them understand i the plan requiresa ocus on driving awareness, helping leadgeneration or even just producing a piece ocontent relevant to a particular engagement. Bytaking this approach, both sales and marketingthen have a common (and easily accessible) view

o the specic account plan that is online anddynamic in nature.

An online ‘ABM planner’ approach, embedded inan insight plat orm, ensures that the days o plansbuilt and then lef to ester in a long orgottenPowerPoint deck can be consigned to history. Italso ensures much greater executive oversight oABM as any senior stakeholder is able to browseand check the status o any individual account planat any given point in time. Not surprisingly, this, inturn ensures that the account plan becomes muchmore measurable and trackable. Lastly, by takingthis approach, ABM-ers can ensure that the plan

is exported to a broader digital ecosystem androlled up into other marketing dashboards orreview.

ABM – A fad or a new reality formarketing?As anybody in marketing should be aware, thedays o mass broadcast marketing are dead. Within ormed ‘smart’ buyers who have exploitedthe power o digital media to do much o theirresearch be ore even engaging with sellers, theneed or marketing to adapt to a new reality is

ever more urgent. I that’s the bad news, the goodnews is that ABM does offer an effective answer tothis challenge. But it can only do so i a seller hascreated an understanding o a buyer that is laser

ocused, up-to-date and created through the lenso its own business drivers. The only way to do thisis to utilise the new breed o digital insight toolsthat can create account, executive and sectorinsight efficiently and at scale. And then to usethose insights to plan, collaborate and align salesand marketing to achieve commonly agreed ABMgoals. Put bluntly, i insight is not the basis o yourABM efforts then, really, you’re not doing ABM,and you are destined to ail. So, hear the message– let insight be the uel that powers your ABMengine.




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