WHAT IS ABM?
...and what's the difference between Person-Based Targeting, Account-Based Targeting, and Account-Based Marketing (and Sales)?
Account Based Marketing or ABM is a B2B marketing strategy in which marketing and sales teams use personalized campaigns and programs to target key accounts within their organization’s Ideal Customer Profile or ICP.
As B2B purchases are always executed over long periods of time by groups of typically 7-20 people rather than by single individuals, a focus on the group- or account-level (and not the individual-level) is crucial.
That's why ABM can't be applied to B2C marketing, which is catered to individual end-consumers with shorter and far less convoluted buying journeys. In B2C, you don’t have buyer groups. You only have individual consumers.
THE THOUGHT LEADERS' VIEW ON ABM
According to Demandbase, ABM is no longer a pilot concept for many; It’s an accepted and completely adopted approach.
A recent LinkedIn survey found that 87% of marketers who measured ROI said ABM outperforms all other marketing investments.
SiriusDecisions has reported that 91% of marketers that use ABM achieve a larger deal size, with 25% stating it being over 50% larger - whilst 30% of marketers recorded an increase of over 100% in engagement with their C-level targets.
WHAT ABM IS NOT
Aside from defining what ABM is, it’s also important to distinguish what ABM is not.
ABM is not a catch-all strategy; you can’t apply it to everything. It’s also not a replacement for traditional demand generation.
But now, you might be asking... What's the difference?
TRADITIONAL DEMAND GEN VS ABM
Demand Generation (driving awareness and interest for your products/services) is today often seen as “traditional marketing”. Similar terms include Lead Generation or Person-Based Targeting (identifying and nurturing potential individual buyers).
Whether you call it ‘Demand Gen’, ‘Lead Gen’, or ‘Person-Based Targeting’, the process is pretty much one and the same:
First, Marketing tries to collect as many leads as possible. All these leads then go through some kind of qualification process before Marketing hands over all the ‘good’ ones to Sales. And at this point, Sales is now in charge of further qualifying leads, identifying opportunities, and ultimately closing deals.
Account-Based Targeting (not to be mistaken for Account-Based Marketing, but we’ll get to that shortly) is an evolved sub-category of “traditional” Demand Generation. The process here is very similar to that of its person-based counterpart but is, as the name reveals, based on targeting accounts rather than persons.
*Click the photo to zoom.
Account-Based Marketing is something different entirely. It turns the traditional Demand Gen approach on its head.
While traditional Demand Gen starts out by capturing as many leads as possible even if most of those leads would never turn into paying customers, ABM populates the pipeline with the best quality accounts from the absolute beginning. ABM focuses on quality over quantity, depth over breadth.
With traditional Demand Gen, the divide between Marketing and Sales is clearly divided (Marketing starts > handover > Sales ends).
With ABM, Marketing and Sales are equally involved from the very beginning; they decide on which accounts to target together. It should really be called Account-Based Marketing and Sales, but for familiarity’s sake, we’ll stick to “ABM” for the rest of this document.
FLIPPING THE SALES FUNNEL
People often refer to a flipping the traditional sales funnel when they talk about ABM. This is metaphor to describe a process that offers an alternative to a funnel driven approach.
We inherited the thinking from the consumer marketing space where the concept was modelled in frameworks with names like AIDA, DAGMAR etc.
In short it’s an approach that dictates you to create lots of content, generate awareness of your service or product to a large audience and capture leads; then try to move prospects through engagement stages, losing some along the way, and hopefully, finally moving them to the bottom of the funnel, to make a purchase.
According to marketing research firm Forrester Decisions this funnel driven approach results into a situation where fewer than one percent of all leads turn into customers. Or, put more boldly, 99% of what businesses are doing is not working.
FROM PERSON TO BUYING GROUP
Instead, ABM starts by identifying specific, high quality account that match an agreed Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
The task is then to develop a detailed understanding of the buyer-committee, its situation, problems and the opportunities for your business – as well as knowledge of each of the key contacts who make or influence the decision to buy, or can stall or even block it.
The marketer’s goal is to define clearly delineated and agreed upon stages in the marketing and sales process which is now treated as one and the same.
This new holistic process starts at targeting and engaging with the entire buying group, then helps overcoming the individual buyer's status quo, evolves into designing the solution for the different stakeholders, and eventually to get customer's signature.
Afterwards the need for further client retention strategies to maximize your return across the entire customer life cycle should not be forgotten either.
REPLACING LEAD WITH OPPORTUNITY
Each stage involves progressively qualifying the opportunity and nurturing the key contacts in the buyer organisation, based on information that is systematically elicited through research and dialogue – by phone, meetings and digital channels.
A prime benefit of the ABM approach is that it results in more focus on ‘best-fit’ buyers; and therefore less wasted time, fewer lost opportunities and high return on marketing ROI, Return On Investment.
A game changer is intent data that allows your organisation to understand who of your target accounts are ‘in market’.
The new strategy is especially valuable in the current business landscape, that is increasingly becoming more complex as well as global and where the needs of buyer organisations have invariably changed.
The larger the accounts and or the higher up you’re aiming in the organizational food chain, the more vendors will be competing for the buying committee’s attention.
This requires both relevance and hyper personalization towards the individual members of the buying committee, whilst understanding the dynamic of whom in the committee is at play at what moment in the journey.
of the average annual contract value for account-based deals was 33% higher on average than for non-ABM deals.*
of companies say they track conversion rate by journey stage (learn more about buyer journeys for B2B orgs here). This could be due to lack of ABM awareness and/or sophisticated enough ABM tech.*
*2021 ABM Benchmark Study by DemandBase and RevOps
When the buying committee and volume are small or otherwise limited, it doesn't make sense to invest in expensive sales resources, especially not so early in the buyer's journey. ABM is just too costly to justify for smaller purchases with shorter sales cycles. In such cases, traditional Demand Gen is what typically works best.
On the other hand, for prospects that are "too big to sleep on", which usually mean bigger companies with bigger budgets, then you need to make sure you're up to par. You need to deliver incredibly personalised content across both digital and human touch points --at scale. That's where ABM comes in. This is why in very complex and lucrative markets (e.g., when you're selling a new concept that most people don't yet understand), ABM is worth the extra spend.
However, true ABM doesn't only require more money. It also requires organisational change. Traditional mindsets and processes that isolate Sales and Marketing from each other simply won't do. Sales and Marketing need to work together from the beginning and throughout, or else it's not ABM.
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CRITERIA
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PERSON-BASED TARGETING
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ACCOUNT-BASED TARGETING
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ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING
(AND SALES)
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Handover
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Yes
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Yes
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No
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Who/What Gets Qualified
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Persons/Leads
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Accounts
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Accounts
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Typical Target Company Size
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Small
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Medium
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Large
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Length and Complexity of Sales Cycle
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Usually a smaller, less complex purchase w/ shorter sales cycle.
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Usually a larger and complex purchase w/ longer sales cycle.
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Usually a large and complex purchase w/ longer sales cycle.
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No. of Buyers Involved
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1-2 buying centres with few members
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Multiple buying centres with multiple members
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Multiple buying centres with multiple members
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Applicable to B2B/B2C
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B2C, B2B
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B2B only
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B2B only
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There are several types of specialized ABM software solutions. Examples include:
ABM solutions can (and should) be integrated with a CRM and/or Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) for maximum effectiveness and efficiency.
Integrations help you not only to more seamlessly reach audiences within your database, but more so the specific decision-makers within your key target accounts.
Different softwares and integrations help you achieve wide range of activities to support your overall ABM initiative.
This touches the areas of lead management (e.g., lead scoring, lead nurturing), marketing automation, sales intelligence and intent data collection, content and email marketing, CRM data management, predictive analytics, and more!
But...
WHICH ABM INVESTMENTS WILL PROVIDE THE BEST RETURNS?
To gauge whether or not an ABM software or platform is right for your business, first consider how it could enhance your organization's competencies.
In particular, how would it affect the way that you:
- identify and segment your audience;
- personalise your content (and at scale);
- consolidate and analyse data from multiple channels and touchpoints;
- align your sales, marketing, IT, and customer success teams; and
- optimize your existing tech stack?
PART 1 OF 4: DATA
BOMBORA
WHAT THEY DO
Collects, tracks, and interprets (using AI) data about web users’ online behaviour (GDPR compliant) from its network of partners to gauge the buying intent (intent data) of different prospects and accounts.
WHO IT’S FOR
Companies that want to use intent data to better understand their audiences, improve their content strategy and ad campaigns, and enhance the way they segment and target accounts.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
Exterro subscribes to a Bombora “growth package” that includes Bombora integration with both LinkedIn and SalesForce.
Bombora is then able to consolidate information from both LinkedIn and SalesForce into a single “intelligence dashboard”, which tells Sales who their most interested accounts are on a weekly basis.
WHAT THEY DO
Uses AI, big data, and machine learning to deliver data on anonymous buying behavior and accounts in-market to help revenue teams generate more opportunities quicker and increase deal sizes.
WHO IT’S FOR
B2B organizations looking to engage resistant buying teams with more personalized, multi-channel and multi-touch campaigns.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
Within seven weeks of launching their first 6sense campaign, MindTickle saw over $1m in additional pipeline and has since experience 6x increase in conversion rates. 6sense provides predictive analytics and intent data across a series of dashboards.
When an account fits MindTickle’s ICP and moves into a 6sense (predicted) buying stage that marks them as “ready to make a purchase decision”, the account is considered a Marketing Qualified Account (MQA). MQAs are then populated onto a dynamic dashboard to help Sales prioritize the account.
PART 1 OF 4: DATA
LEANDATA
WHAT THEY DO
Offers a suite of Salesforce-native products to help revenue teams to automate the way they match, route, and engage persons and accounts.
WHO IT’S FOR
For organizations whose sales people are constantly hunting and pecking for the right data to help them along their sales problems and need technology to do the hard work of fixing data issues and organizing workflow rules (e.g., routing, attribution).
EXAMPLE USE CASE
6sense uses LeanData ‘Matching’ and ‘Routing’ with their own platform, which together increased 6sense’s pipeline by 60% per month. Through their own technology and operations, 6sense successfully finds a great amount of high-quality accounts and are constantly working to get them in-market.
However, 60% of all of their in-market opportunities were getting thrown out the window, until they started to use LeanData’s Matching’ and ‘Routing’ capabilities. LeanData lets them automatically match and route their leads (e.g., giving them time stamps, making sure they get worked, etc.) as soon as they come in, rather than letting them sit on a shelf and fizzle out.
PART 1 OF 4: DATA
DEMANDBASE (ENGAGIO)
WHAT THEY DO
Uses AI, predictive analytics and intent data to identify and unify disconnected person and account data (including both first- and third-party data) into a single dashboard that measures intent, engagement, ICP fit, pipeline predictions, custom account journeys, and more.
WHO IT’S FOR
For B2B revenue teams that want to improve and scale the way they find, consolidate, segment and engage with in-market accounts.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
DocuSign increases sales pipeline by 22% for its top six industries, page views by 300% and click-through rates by 300%. Using Demandbase’s ‘Company-Targeted Advertising’ and ‘Website Optimization’ solutions, DocuSign’s team was able to focus on attracting and engaging the companies most likely to convert into revenue.
PART 2 OF 4: MEDIA AND ADS
N.RICH
WHAT THEY DO
Using intent data from your website, ads and marketing automation platforms to create ABM segments (using lookalike-, firmographic-, and technographic data), find and match accounts to your ICP, and view everything in a single platform.
WHO IT’S FOR
For organizations that advertise to enterprises via platforms such as Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn and that are looking to use real-time account data to boost their digital ad efforts, account segmentation, and revenue attribution.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
If a marketer is already doing ABM on LinkedIn, N. Rich acts as a complementary ABM component by providing ABM account analytics and cookie analytics from sources such as Google and Facebook.
PART 2 OF 4: MEDIA AND ADS
TERMINUS
WHAT THEY DO
Consolidates person and account data into a single dashboard, integrates with various platforms (e.g., CRM, MAP), and allows teams to run multi-channel engagement campaigns (via ads, email, chat, and website).
WHO IT’S FOR
Organizations looking to boost ad, email, chat, and website experiences, as well as consolidate data into a single platform (e.g., first-party CRM and MAP data, intent data, behavioural and engagement data, etc.).
EXAMPLE USE CASE
Terminus influences 92% of pipeline and 1900% ROI for CRMNEXT by helping them figure out what the market is saying and how they're engaging with the company, from awareness to post-purchase. The team targets accounts with digital ads and weaves in engagement data from Terminus and intent data from Bombora. This enables them to track search and engagement activities across ads, email signatures, chat, social media, and webpages.
PART 2 OF 4: MEDIA AND ADS
TRIBLIO
WHAT THEY DO
Ties into over 100 ad networks (e.g., Google Ads, LinkedIn, etc.) to help organizations target known and unknown stakeholders in the top-revenue producing accounts.
WHO IT’S FOR
Teams looking to retarget, nurture and grow awareness among key stakeholders through ABM advertising.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
Trapeze uses Triblio to automate digital advertising and calls-to-action for each of its top 10 accounts. Results show a 240% improvement in pages/session, a 243% improvement in session duration, a 140% reduction in bounce rate, and a 314% increase in form-fill conversions. Trapeze’s ABM program encompasses 100 target accounts, divided into 3 account tiers.
This targets not only large new logos but also dozens of smaller accounts, upsell, and cross sell opportunities. Tier 2 and Tier 3 accounts receive segment-specific personalizations like industry-based popups and event-specific CTAs. Top tier accounts receive 1:1 marketing and sales attention across the web and throughout the purchase journey.
This includes a personalized view of the website, from home page messaging and landing pages where prospects can view calendars and book meetings, to case studies and resources pages, also powered by Triblio.
PART 3 OF 4: ENGAGEMENT
DEMANDBASE (ENGAGIO)
WHAT THEY DO
Uses real-time behavioural data, integrations (e.g., with MAPs, CRM systems, etc.), and advanced data orchestration capabilities to find and engage with in-market accounts, as well as to match leads and contacts to those accounts.
WHO IT’S FOR
Teams looking to emphasise their marketing strategy on prioritisation of accounts that are engaging most and providing more personalised web experiences that drive engagement.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
Since using Demandbase, Lacework has seen a 2x increase in both sourced pipeline and sourced bookings. Their Sales and Marketing teams are now able to meet weekly to discuss which accounts are engaging the most, and therefore set up an integrated strategy for each one. Marketing budgets are also assigned based on the importance of each account, so that they can maximize their return on investment.
PART 3 OF 4: ENGAGEMENT
MARKETO ABM
WHAT THEY DO
Uses AI and automation technology to build and segment target account lists, apply predictive scoring to prospects, and generate account-level personalisation across multiple channels (e.g.,email, web, ads, mobile, events, nurtures, etc.).
WHO IT’S FOR
Organizations that want to leverage Marketo (marketing automation) to execute account-based strategies.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
With Marketo, SchoolDude runs large ABM campaigns that include up to 30 lists covering 140,000 educational institutions. The campaigns personalize content and experiences based on school name, location, size, email addresses, domain names, and known lead profile data such as job title, status, and opportunity.
SchoolDude uses Marketo Real-Time Personalization to entice prospects to complete specific activities: adopt new products, register for demos and events, etc. In adopting this strategy, they’ve increased average session duration by 394% and average pages per session by 405%.
PART 3 OF 4: ENGAGEMENT
DRIFT
WHAT THEY DO
Drift is a revenue acceleration platform, that helps generate more qualified pipeline in a faster way – using chat functionalities combined with live chat to hugely reduce speed to lead time.
It helps grow revenue more efficiently by identifying site traffic and quickly engaging visitors in the right way.
Drift helps deliver better engagement & a more positive customer experience. Your customers can now get the information they want 24/7 by using your ever-working Drift Chat Bot. Drift also helps engage target accounts with a VIP experience and can alert sales in real-time.
WHO'S IT FOR
Drift is ideal for Marketing teams that need better support with shifting to digital marketing tactics and have an ever-online presence, all the while delivering a personalized experience. It enables a better alignment between sales and marketing efforts and can assist on quick and easy lead (dis)qualification, whilst gathering and tracking actionable customer data.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
Read more.
PART 3 OF 4: ENGAGEMENT
OUTREACH
WHAT THEY DO
Outreach is an engagement and intelligence platform that helps sales teams, together with marketing’s input and content guidance, manage workflows, gain actionable insights, and navigate the increasingly complex buying process - in real time - to beat your sales goal.
Additionally, there is the game-changing AI assistant, KAIA, who helps guide reps with offering real-time relevant content during meetings (which can hugely reduce onboarding time!), track key moments with live transcription, notes and bookmarks, plus automatically tracked action items and post-call meeting summaries.
WHO IT’S FOR
Organisations who need to improve their sales processes, improve execution and visibility into their deals, their buyers and their teams.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
At Zoom, they were able to improve the alignment drastically between marketing and sales. They were finally able to get data-drive insights into messaging tactics and were able to leverage the tailored messaging by persona’s that Outreach supports. A hugely important benefit was that they were able to streamline onboarding and provide specialized coaching to their teams.
“Having Outreach to target a certain title, or a certain line of business was the real game changer because we were able to go after the right people at the right time, with the right message." Lindsey Liranzo “ Director of Online Sales & Sales Development
Visit the Outreach Use Case page.
PART 4 OF 4: CONTENT
FOLLOZE
WHAT THEY DO
Lets revenue teams develop and analyse micro-targeted audiences, which Folloze pulls from 1st and 3rd party data and powers with AI, and offers a no-code designer for users to easily create content boards for them in just a few minutes.
WHO IT’S FOR
Organizations that want to improve the way they segment and analyse audiences, deploy ABM campaigns globally, and develop adaptive and micro-targeted content within a single platform.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
ABM is a key component and driver of FireEye’s overall go-to-market efforts. It builds a whole new level of partnership with sales that marketing never had before.
With Folloze ABM program, FireEye achieves 5x more engagement and pipeline and get to 20x more C-level people, compared the performance of the rest of their marketing team/efforts. Specifically, FireEye builds unique content and omni-channel experiences (e.g., Folloze ‘content boards’) for each of their customers.
They also leverage Folloze’s deep data integration with other platforms (e.g., marketing automation and CRM systems) to continually analyse their results.
PART 4 OF 4: CONTENT
UBERFLIP
WHAT THEY DO
What started as a content hub / resource centre builder is now an end-to-end content experience platform that helps organizations upload, edit, publish, organise, display (e.g., on microsites), and analyse their content in a single space.
WHO IT’S FOR
Customer-facing teams looking for a content experience platform that helps centralise and organize content, as well as to better distribute and analyse content experiences to audiences at every stage of the buyer journey.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
With the help of Uberflip, Degreed generates $3.4M in pipeline in three months with only USD 40,000 spent on campaign efforts. Degreed targets specific accounts with general messaging on ads served on LinkedIn or Terminus, then driving accounts to an Uberflip destination where they could self-select the pain point that resonated best with them and choose to read more content associated with that pain point.
PART 4 OF 4: CONTENT
TURTL
WHAT THEY DO
Allows teams to develop highly visual, responsive, and interactive (e.g., polls, videos, audio, form fill-outs, etc.) pieces of content in specific Turtl-doc-formats, which are designed based on the science of how humans like to read and engage with content.
WHO IT’S FOR
Brands that want to elevate the look, feel, and conversation rates of their content, as well as to analyze the digital “body language” and demographics (e.g., unique readers, reads, links clicked, time spent on pages, average read times, geographic location) of their audiences in a single platform.
EXAMPLE USE CASE
With Turtl, Cisco achieves 7x more engagement at 10% less cost, and also reduces content production time by weeks, if not months in some cases. Within one year, Turtl is now used globally by 24 different Cisco teams in over a dozen countries and languages. Overall, Cisco uses Turtl to lower the cost of content creation, reduce production time, dynamically update existing content, streamline brand consistency across teams and geos, and get insights into audience behaviour and demographics.
