The Ultimate Guide to Account Based Marketing

It is being run by Sales or Marketing but not both

It is still common for both departments to work apart, which leads to inconsistent messaging, targeting, communications, nurture and execution. Sales may be doing a great job; marketing may be doing a great job but their combined efforts may simply not present a united front to the target market

It has little or no insight behind it with which the teams can determine the next best action for each target

ABM is not just big market running off a small list, it is a bloody hard slog involving deep research, insight and planning to ensure that each communication and the way they are scheduled and followed up are based on understanding each persona within the target business.

The messaging is crap

In a market where everyone is basically saying the same thing to retailers, much or most of which they have heard before, many times over, from all your competitors, getting cut through requires creativity to hit the idea that gets noticed, vertical market knowledge to ensure it chimes with what prospects are worried about, and the courage to say something new that someone might actually care about.

The plan cannot flex

Excessive syndication and scheduled content amplification may look like a well-oiled machine at work, but it can throw up a lot of metrics that cannot really be tied to any inclination or intention on the part of the receiver.

It tries too hard to drive prospects to big content

Sometimes, all it takes is a gif or sub-15 second video to attract attention and get the click. Prospects MAY want to read your white paper or market report, and maybe they will later, but the call to action should be clear at whatever stage they connect. Otherwise, another on line form and the promise of pages of stuff, will simply be the opt out.

ABM is not a black box and your prospects are not drones

The market is full of companies offering largely automated solutions, like you can just plug in some content, whoosh it out and stand back while the results come in. That is the exact opposite of ABM and these vendors risk spoiling what is something marketing should always have been doing.

The call to action is weak or missing

This then means that the ABM is all outbound, while inbound is either ignored or not properly monitored. Once the machines provide the metrics, it is important for sales and marketing to get together weekly to discuss next best action on each and every account, each and every persona.

It is being used tactically, not adopted as business as usual

ABM is only the modern incarnation of what marketing should always have been doing. When you are going after senior directors and influencers, the blunderbuss approach never really worked and most companies would have to admit that lead attribution was down largely to word of mouth and luck. All hail to both of those, but they don’t scale.

To talk to us about getting an effective Account Based Marketing programme up and running, get in touch.