{"id":2978071,"date":"2023-11-16T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/plato-data\/youre-doing-abm-backwards-heres-why-how-to-fix-it-openview\/"},"modified":"2023-11-16T07:00:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T12:00:55","slug":"youre-doing-abm-backwards-heres-why-how-to-fix-it-openview","status":"publish","type":"station","link":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/plato-data\/youre-doing-abm-backwards-heres-why-how-to-fix-it-openview\/","title":{"rendered":"You&#8217;re Doing ABM Backwards. Here&#8217;s Why &amp; How to Fix It. &#8211; OpenView"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/youre-doing-abm-backwards-heres-why-how-to-fix-it-openview.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>ABM has been flipped, and I\u2019m not talking about the funnel.<\/p>\n<p>Companies looking to execute an ABM campaign have their priorities upside down. The promise of ABM has always been better sales alignment and innovation to drive insights about who marketers should target, in turn arming sales teams with the information they need to close deals.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we got a lot of display targeting technology that goes after accounts and not even the right people in those accounts. Around 70% of companies I meet with to discuss ABM start their process backwards. It usually goes something like this: They gather a list of target accounts from their sales team, buy an ABM software platform, and target those accounts and then high-five themselves any time an account that\u2019s seen an impression ends up converting.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s where these companies have gone wrong. They\u2019re starting with sales NOT marketing. Marketing has the data and insights to know <em>which<\/em> accounts ABM should be targeting \u2013\u00a0not sales. Sales might know who they\u2019d <em>like <\/em>to convert, but marketing has the data to best understand which accounts will actually convert and how quickly as they make their way through the funnel.<\/p>\n<h2>Sales &amp; Marketing Integration<\/h2>\n<p>Given the nature of ABM and its focus on driving high ACV accounts, marketing\u2019s role shifts from being a sales support team that just provides enablement material to a strategic partner that is accountable for pipeline creation. Marketing is now focused on informing sales about what accounts they should be going after as well as providing intelligence on those accounts to enable better conversations.<\/p>\n<p>Marketing has the technical skills to assess the ICP, define the digital profile of that ICP, and build a model to identify target accounts. In other words, marketing is best qualified to lead this effort.<\/p>\n<p>Still, most companies end up missing their ABM-related goals because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Their ICP is too broad. Instead, companies should focus on slimming this down as much as possible. In ABM focus wins.<\/li>\n<li>They lack a repeatable model for identifying target accounts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Marketing and operations teams should work together to analyze the data and identify the proper accounts. The goal here is to take emotion out of it. A good ABM program relies on objectivity. In other words, focus on demographic, firmographic, and technographic data and then events that signal different levels of intent, and not on who you \u201cthink\u201d might convert.<\/p>\n<h2>Demand Creation<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s marketing\u2019s job to drive interest in what you\u2019re selling by driving engagement on your site. Actions like a demo request or free trial start may signal high intent while events including a visit to the pricing page or product pages may signal interest. In ABM, marketers want to create a better pathway for these potential buyers to talk to sales. The ultimate goal shouldn\u2019t be ad impressions, it should be hand-raisers. When the goal is to generate hand-raisers, it\u2019s likely that marketing will create programs that generate higher rates of recall. Smarter goals mean better outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>But marketers shouldn\u2019t just stop at a hand raise. While many companies think driving demo requests is an inbound motion, we reject this notion. Marketers should look to drive the accounts as far down the funnel as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Once target accounts have been identified and your CRM is set up to inform sales, it\u2019s time to measure the impact of your work. You\u2019ll need to report on engagement, qualified accounts, pipeline generated and revenue driven.<\/p>\n<p>Marketing also needs to pass along relevant account information to sales including company size, company revenue, as well as characteristics that will help set your reps up for a good first call \u2013\u00a0that\u2019s how you\u2019ll identify the proverbial low hanging fruit. It\u2019s here that many companies skip to display ads. Direct outreach is going to drive more meetings and is a better bang for your buck in the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>Also keep these lower cost options in mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Co-marketing: <\/strong>Co-marketing with complementary companies \u2013 does their customer page feature logos that would be a good fit for your product? I like co-marketing because it\u2019s a high engagement channel, but also, it\u2019s an opportunity to align your brand with another strong, potentially more established business.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Network: <\/strong>Leverage your company\u2019s network \u2013 it\u2019s likely your sales team has sold to similar audiences, and it\u2019s also likely people at your company know people in your ICP. This includes leveraging organic LinkedIn engagement.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Leverage your database: <\/strong>Many companies overlook the already existing accounts in their database in favor of bringing in new accounts. Identify ways to move existing accounts through the funnel while also bringing in new accounts.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Drive accounts to high engagement content from paid social:<\/strong> Don\u2019t advertise to a new audience with a demo offer. Instead, introduce yourself first. Start to build demand by presenting the problem and how you solve it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Awareness<\/h2>\n<p>The cautionary tale here is about targeting. Yes, it\u2019s easy to find programmatic display options that are great at targeting accounts with impressions, but are they targeting the right people? Focusing on impressions to drive \u201cawareness\u201d won\u2019t create the desired effect. Someone who clicks on your ad, or views your content over and over is much more likely to remember you than if they\u2019ve simply seen your ads.<\/p>\n<p>Also, you need to ensure display impressions are targeting the right audience. Just because an \u201caccount\u201d gets an impression doesn\u2019t mean that those impressions are getting in front of the right buyer. This is the challenge with many display vendors.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting Started with ABM<\/h2>\n<p>Marketing\u2019s job in an ABM GTM strategy is to surface the accounts that are most worthy of investment based on real data and intent signals. Let\u2019s apply it now to your own business:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Narrow Your Target: <\/strong>Identify the characteristics of accounts that are most likely to produce by analyzing your company\u2019s sales data. We use a number of metrics to build a model including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Customer lifetime value<\/li>\n<li>Average deal size<\/li>\n<li>Conversion rates<\/li>\n<li>Deal velocity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>2. Define Your Digital ICP:<\/strong> Next, enrich and prospect data against these predetermined criteria to build a list of named accounts to deploy your programmatic ABM efforts against.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Streamline the Buying Process: <\/strong>Each programmatic campaign is then segmented by persona and buyer journey stage \u2013\u00a0nurturing the entire buying committee at enterprise-level accounts toward purchase.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Drive Engagement: <\/strong>Account engagement with programmatic efforts serves as a barometer for intent \u2013 they\u2019re a great fit AND show readiness to purchase. Surface these accounts from marketing to sales.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Drive Pipeline: <\/strong>Finally, sales and marketing bring it over the finish line together \u2013\u00a0increase your investment and switch to 1:1 and 1:few ABM tactics for the win.<\/p>\n<h2>Measuring Success<\/h2>\n<p>First, let\u2019s be honest, marketing\u2019s role is to build interest and demand in your product. So the easiest KPI is looking at hand-raisers. How many people are proactively coming to the site to say they would like to talk to the sales team or sign up for a trial within your target account list?<\/p>\n<p>When you set this as the bar, the goal from marketing moves from impression to high-quality lead. Inevitably, you\u2019ll build marketing campaigns that drive high recall even for the leads that don\u2019t come in and fill out a demo form.<\/p>\n<p>While we don\u2019t believe an impression should constitute a KPI for ABM, we do think engagement matters to drive recall. Recall will make it that much more likely for target accounts to engage with outbound email, InMail, meeting requests and other outbound efforts. You should also take into account brand touchpoints along the way, with a focus on high intent engagement like case study engagement, pricing page visits, event attendance, and other similar actions.<\/p>\n<h2>ABM: Strategy Not Tactic<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s not easy to know where to start with ABM, and maybe that\u2019s because ABM itself is nebulous and going to look somewhat different at every company and for every product. But to make it work, teams need to look at it as a strategy, not just a tactic. Taking a holistic approach, with marketing leading and sales following, is the key to ABM success.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"plato-post-bottom-links\">\n<li class=\"plato-post-bottom-link-amplifi\">SEO Powered Content &amp; PR Distribution. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amplifipr.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Get Amplified Today.<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"plato-post-bottom-link-platodata-network\">PlatoData.Network Vertical Generative Ai. Empower Yourself. <a href=\"https:\/\/platodata.network\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Access Here.<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"plato-post-bottom-link-platoaistream\">PlatoAiStream. Web3 Intelligence. Knowledge Amplified. <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Access Here.<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"plato-post-bottom-link-platoesg\">PlatoESG. <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\/aiwire\/carbon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carbon,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\/aiwire\/cleantech\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CleanTech,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\/aiwire\/energy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Energy,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\/aiwire\/environment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Environment,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\/aiwire\/solar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Solar,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\/aiwire\/waste-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Waste Management.<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/platoesg.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Access Here.<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"plato-post-bottom-link-platohealth\">PlatoHealth. Biotech and Clinical Trials Intelligence. <a href=\"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Access Here.<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"plato-post-bottom-link-source\"><span>Source:<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/openviewpartners.com\/blog\/youre-doing-abm-backwards-heres-why-how-to-fix-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/openviewpartners.com\/blog\/youre-doing-abm-backwards-heres-why-how-to-fix-it\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2978074,"template":"Default","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","type":"","auto_type":false,"post":"","stream":"","stream_url":"","waveform_data":[],"duration":0,"start":0,"end":0,"bpm":0,"downloadable":false,"download_url":"","purchase_title":"","purchase_url":"","post-count-all":0,"like_count":0,"download_count":0,"editor_note":"","copyright":"","captions":[],"sources":[]},"genre":[42891],"station_tag":[21246,38012,33649,38013,34957,21579,13775,9160,4263,69938,28442,9180,40086,5049,4398,7195,39830,13335,69109,76461,68862,9181,68956,12467,68950,13699,40507,18340,9773,68867,12974,9617,48551,3718,48552,71565,48553,12005,4522,9261,20131,30993,48554,13212,68863,9000,9224,14449,4139,14383,12356,13083,18477,40256,4526,4053,69017,3635,21850,10998,3636,48555,3886,4883,5560,14043,5729,47485,4146,22344,40361,21457,11364,4375,47330,3889,3830,10528,10850,10743,6978,5340,40028,70127,19997,11928,11002,13673,10964,11739,3642,5226,4155,5109,74674,3725,46660,5333,10420,68871,9163,3835,11046,9090,8665,69099,69339,9164,39854,22089,9423,11000,4739,3794,40307,69378,9094,12152,10900,3899,76579,11374,70117,69341,5237,13279,8999,13117,39835,42364,24740,9236,452,39858,3693,72509,3796,47295,40232,11931,69742,40056,3729,40057,40314,30994,47687,3772,4899,3730,4068,9420,12450,9874,48556,4177,4742,13351,13776,12649,70139,9007,14115,9229,9607,8080,40060,9167,70994,4491,75429,4311,48062,48557,9238,3732,3801,11629,11038,40488,76551,3694,4185,3650,48567,15962,40199,4078,11041,69344,3803,19265,9886,11736,3953,3733,40779,49906,3908,4617,4080,40062,4189,4190,3652,68944,14619,3698,3653,48564,10841,4537,12651,69019,13752,3805,13648,39838,4255,3735,10954,13568,10877,10272,48580,11472,457,4620,3911,13214,9169,29070,39916,71567,13777,39875,40730,7163,4451,43580,10963,4202,26118,72336,69345,3740,28755,12250,5852,475,12343,9170,34352,4094,10997,9483,26688,3706,26946,69523,37288,9486,39917,12636,3742,20482,14094,5489,68945,10785,75694,48559,3855,48560,4100,3661,4101,68946,14056,3663,69348,69755,13160,68865,11453,48573,72401,10279,4541,68458,71735,3966,27195,3861,7457,8453,9642,9876,11040,40134,4429,9231,9221,9992,3939,4682,3864,14147,5097,12393,40605,40965,9057,10949,6991,9775,10098,4410,4217,3667,7525,15116,10950,40226,41475,3744,11484,11101,3868,70535,13274,48565,4788,46458,69744,69193,13750,40195,3976,40628,39869,14209,12462,22346,14917,9232,40082,10572,3712,5075,40581,3779,4357,4282,44112,3924,4392,9173,9174,40743,3713,3714,3668,24661,20922,4122,43000,3928,13805,9484,5559,3929,3669,4806,5033,5577,39844,11996,70910,9175,3716,4675,12694,10092,14103,4126,41344,4127,68954,48561,13215,35824,39845,39871,69447,48566,69021,69351,68948,69022,9055,3671,19267,9084,22249,40076,4702,18249,10960,9872,37175,10367,9177,4236,40386,48587,22033,69349,23339,13218,68959,48571,9178,69189,36520,11454,3941,69024,27168,4335,39945,48562,3816,4757,3935,40788,77626,11461,32785,70615,68949,13217,40472,14555],"artist":[42903],"mood":[],"activity":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/station\/2978071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/station"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/station"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2978074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2978071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=2978071"},{"taxonomy":"station_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/station_tag?post=2978071"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=2978071"},{"taxonomy":"mood","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mood?post=2978071"},{"taxonomy":"activity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/platodata.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/activity?post=2978071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}