How Do I Know If I want an ABM-Focused Platform?

How Do I Know If I Want An ABM-Focused Platform? – With the increase in demand for Account-based Marketing strategies, more and more companies are considering joining the movement. With these five questions, you will be able to establish if you should start trusting ABM

More and more companies are deciding to implement Account-Based Marketing programs within their Marketing and Sales departments. According to data from HubSpot, 67% of companies worldwide benefit from ABM techniques in one way or another, and the percentage continues to increase.

With the budgets dedicated to this type of strategy growing every year in those companies that already have it active – according to a Forrester study, around 10% per year – many companies are beginning to question whether their team should also be applying ABM strategies.

As with any marketing software, an ABM strategy should answer a series of simple questions about the needs of your customers and your team, evaluating them concerning the business organization, staff capabilities, management, and financial resources.

It is essential to keep this in mind because not every business will benefit from ABM. For example, if you sell low-cost products or services to a volume market, as is often the case in B2C and large corporations, perhaps ABM is not the best strategy.

However, if your business sells high-priced products or services to a high-value, limited-scale market where the number of potential accounts is in the hundreds or if your buyer’s journey is led by the sales team rather than the e-commerce team, these four questions can be a start to find out if Account Based Marketing is the right path for your company:

What Do we want to Achieve with ABM? – ABM-Focused Platform

It is the essential question we must ask ourselves before deciding. If we don’t know exactly what we want, it’s impossible to tell if what we need to achieve is an ABM strategy or a series of different tools.

Although it is part of the benefits of implementing an ABM program, we must go beyond improving ROI and short-term benefits. We can look for a better workflow, a better amortization of marketing budgets, and greater customization of all processes. Still, we need objectives on a larger scale since ABM is not the only way to achieve the previous ones.

Therefore, we need to carry out a study assessing our long-term goals. In other words, Are we looking to increase upselling and cross-selling opportunities? Expand into a new market or territory? Reduce the average time it takes to close a sale. Increase the quality of potential customers? Each company will have unique needs, and you must define yours.

IS Simultaneous Alignment of Departments and Management Possible?

Collaboration is one of the key supports of ABM execution, and the inability to collaborate is the main weakness of those who fail. Therefore, it is essential not only that the sales and marketing departments agree on the accounts to target but also that they have the support of the company’s management.

ABM is a strategy that emphasizes specific accounts. For this reason, the marketing team’s definition of a high-priority account must coincide with that of sales so that their joint effort guarantees the company’s unidirectionality. As a result, this synergy creates much more agile processes, where teams can focus directly on customer attraction processes by working together.

Senior decision-makers should cooperate in defining and selecting target accounts, as ABM is often championed by executives high up in the organization. This is mainly due to the need for a solid budget to lean on, which only they can guarantee. However, they are also crucial pieces and allies in developing the strategy that will help us make a detailed forecast of the return on investment and expenses.

Do we include All Costs? – ABM-Focused Platform

When a company transitions from a process more oriented to a massive funnel to a particular and reduced number of accounts, the capture and conversion of clients inevitably becomes more complex. A more significant number of elements begin to take part in the company and, according to B2B Marketing, these factors – which are necessary to budget for – can be divided into two groups: “Those that affect the number of people to be addressed in an organization, and those that affect how much you have to spend to target them. You have to take both into account.”

Among those factors that affect the number of people we must address, they point out above all those responsible for making decisions within our company, the number and capacities of the departments, and the size and scalability of the business infrastructure.

These are all factors to account for since, as the company meets its objectives in the long term, it will be necessary to have a team that meets the demand for new processes and new clients. On the other hand, we will also have to attend to short-term measures, which must be budgeted together with the previous ones, mainly related to promoting our company’s brand and product.

First, it will be necessary to analyze if our potential client knows the brand – the less awareness they have. The more significant your company is, the greater the required investment. The same happens with the product or service we try to sell. The more compound it is. The more difficult it will be to explain it, the more it will require a more excellent investment.

Among the factors that will affect the budget is the client’s need. Since they switched to a new solution last year, it will be much more difficult to arouse their interest in the competition. Since the more competitors target these people, the more effort they make. They will have to make to differentiate themselves and capture their attention.

ARE WE PREPARED TO MEASURE AND REPORT GRADES? – ABM-Focused Platform

Results measurement is as important a process as any other within ABM. The analysis may be even more accessible than using different marketing methodologies. We can’t underestimate its importance to the overall strategy.

For this motive, it is crucial that the definition of success. And the methodology to be used to monitor it should be agreed upon before the program’s implementation. Whatever they are, they are collected during the development of the ABM through coherence. And understandable reports that can be transmitted to the team and the board.

These objectives should include two different types of goals: short-term and long-term. While short-term results will help maintain the project’s credibility daily. An excellent long-term development will help raise critical factors for the company’s survival, such as ROI.

In an ABM campaign. We also must remember that the main objective of measurement is to isolate. The data of the key people in each target account to see how your efforts are working. For example, ABM metrics should measure web visits by account and account groups, not just visitors. ABM-Focused Platform.