Account-Based Marketing For Dummies E-Book

Sangram Vajre

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 528

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Grow your account list with an effective account-based marketing strategy Buyers have changed the B2B marketing game. Account-Based Marketing For Dummies is here to give you the tools to transform your current approach to find, reach, and engage with your potential customers on their terms to meet their ever-changing demands. Packed with expert tips and step-by-step instructions, this book shows you how to analyze current data to identify the accounts with the biggest ROI opportunities and execute effective, account-specific techniques that get results. This practical guide takes the intimidation out of account-based marketing in today's highly digitized world. You'll be armed with the knowledge you need to increase your reach in real time, giving you greater exposure to other decision-makers and influencers within an account. You'll discover how, through a combination of marketing technology and online advertising, your messages can be displayed where and when your customers already engage online. * Align your sales and marketing teams for greater success in your ABM efforts * Analyze data to identify key accounts * Target your messages for real-time interaction * Integrate your campaign with marketing automation software If you're a member of a sales or marketing team already using a CRM tool who's looking to increase your reach, Account-Based Marketing For Dummies has you covered! "Account-Based Marketing For Dummies clears away the confusion surrounding this much-hyped topic. It offers simple, direct explanations of what account-based marketing is, why it's important, and how to do it. Any business marketing professional will benefit from a look at this book." --David Raab, Founder at Raab Associates "If you're reading this book and just getting started with ABM, welcome to the future of what b-to-b marketing can be: insight-led, technology-enabled and, above all, customer focused. Our clients are delighted with the business impact they deliver using account-based marketing, and you will be, too." --Megan Heuer, Vice President and Group Director, SiriusDecisions "Like a Hollywood agent, marketing's job is to get sales the 'audition,' not the part. Account-based marketing is the key to maximizing the number of the 'right' auditions for your sales team, and Account-Based Marketing For Dummies explains how." --Joe Chernov, VP of Marketing at InsightSquared "Ever-advancing marketing technology is enabling a new generation of sales and marketing strategies to thrive, changing the playing field for companies of all sizes. This modern wave of account-based marketing has tremendous potential to improve your business, and Sangram Vajre is an insightful and enthusiastic guide to show you how." --Scott Brinker, Author of Hacking Marketing "Account-based marketing is shifting how businesses use customer insights to capture more upmarket revenue. This book teaches a new wave of data-driven marketers how to embrace an enlightened quality-vs-quantity approach and execute a scalable ABM strategy that delivers real results." --Sean Zinsmeister, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Infer "The book may be titled '...for dummies', but ABM is proving to be a smart approach for B2B marketers charged with generating sales pipeline and acquiring and delighting customers. Use this book to help you get started and advance your account-based marketing strategies and tactics that will thrill your sales colleagues, executive team and customers alike." --Scott Vaughan, CMO, Integrate

Leseprobe

Account-Based Marketing For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Account-Based Marketing For Dummies®

To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Account-Based Marketing For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.

Table of Contents

Cover

Foreword

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part 1: Getting Started with Account-Based Marketing

Chapter 1: Introducing the Basics of Account-Based Marketing

Defining Account-Based Marketing

Flipping the Funnel

Chapter 2: Making the Case for Account-Based Marketing

Understanding Why B2B Companies Need Account-Based Marketing

Starting the Conversation about ABM

Driving More Revenue from Account-Based Marketing

Chapter 3: Aligning Sales and Marketing

Setting the Right Marketing Goals

Driving Revenue through Teamwork

Renewing the Vows between Marketing and Sales

Chapter 4: Selecting Tools

Understanding Marketing Technology

Setting Up Your Platforms

Types of Marketing Activities

Part 2: Identifying Accounts for Marketing

Chapter 5: Targeting Your Best-Fit Accounts

Focusing on the Right Market

Creating an Ideal Customer Profile

Making a Value Proposition

Building Your List of Target Accounts

Chapter 6: Fueling the Account-Based Marketing Engine

Managing Your Existing CRM Data

Obtaining New Data on Target Accounts

Creating New Accounts

Protecting Data Quality

Chapter 7: Qualifying Your Target Accounts

Gauging Interest

Converting Accounts to Opportunities

Qualifying a Revenue Opportunity

Part 3: Expanding Contacts Into Accounts

Chapter 8: Reaching the Right People in Target Accounts

Preparing Your Account-Specific Plan

Using Tools for Expansion

Adding Contacts to an Account

Chapter 9: Using Marketing Automation for Your Account Strategy

Strategizing Your Expansion Tactics

Learning the Fundamentals of Scoring and Grading

Flowing Data Back into Your CRM

Chapter 10: Distilling the Key Roles of “Smarketing ”

Making Sales Your Marketing Team’s Number 1 Customer

Benefitting from “Smarketing” Alignment

Banking on Your Strengths

Part 4: Engaging Accounts on Their Terms

Chapter 11: Generating Velocity for Sales

Accelerating Your Pipeline from Click to Close

Advancing Opportunities to Closed-Won Deals

Growing Revenue Using ABM

Chapter 12: Personalizing the Buyer’s Channel

Mobilizing Your Message

Advertising on the Right Platforms

Engaging on Social Media

Chapter 13: Developing Content for Campaigns

Creating a Content Library

Humanizing Content

Reaching Through Technology

Chapter 14: Executing ABM: A Playbook

Centering a Strategy

Coordinating Your Efforts

Ranking Your “smarketing” Success

Part 5: Turning Customers Into Advocates

Chapter 15: Elevating the Buyer to Customer Journey

Prospecting to Contacts

Establishing a Customer Journey

Selling to Existing Customers

Chapter 16: Valuing Customer Advocacy

The Rising Influence of the Customer Voice

Making Your Customers Your Marketers

Engineering Product Development

Chapter 17: Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success

Nurturing Never Stops

Collaborating with Customer Success

Planning Your User Conference

Part 6: Putting It All Together

Chapter 18: Measuring the Success of Campaigns

Setting Key Performance Indicators

Testing Your Campaigns

Knowing You Aren't Wasting Money

Chapter 19: Tracking Metrics for Every Account

Ongoing Account Maintenance

Gauging Potential Opportunities

Providing Value Add

Part 7: The Part of Tens

Chapter 20: Ten Reasons B2B Companies Need Account-Based Marketing

Doing the Math

Needing a Strategy

Focusing on Sales Productivity

Utilizing Your Technology Stack

Prioritizing Tech Investments

Building New Skills

Leveraging Customer Experience

Treating Clients Differently

Developing ABM Relationships

Measuring More Than Leads

Chapter 21: Ten Obstacles Facing Account-Based Marketing

Measuring Leads as Success

Blasting Emails Too Quickly

Expecting to Engage Every Time

Relying on Marketing to Do It All

Sending All Leads to Sales

Asking for More Leads

Not Paying Attention to Customer Retention

Forgetting About Your Customer Advocates

Selling Instead of Serving

Changing the C-Suite’s Assumptions

Chapter 22: Ten Account-Based Marketing Blogs to Read

MarketingProfs

ClickZ

Funnelholic

Business2Community

CustomerThink

MediaPost

Heinz Marketing

Chief MarTec

MarketingLand

MarTech Advisor

Chapter 23: Ten ABM Thought Leaders to Follow

Jill Rowley

David Raab

Craig Rosenberg

Jon Miller

Chris Engman

Ann Handley

Matt Heinz

Megan Heuer

Scott Brinker

Jim Williams

About the Author

Advertisement Page

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Foreword

Nothing makes me happier than seeing the market embrace a good idea that works. For account-based marketing (ABM), that time is now. Why is ABM the new big thing in business-to-business (B2B), especially when it’s not really a “new” idea at all? There are a number of reasons why you may be opening this book and starting on the road to ABM. Here are my thoughts on why reading it and deploying ABM will be a smart investment for you.

The first reason that ABM is getting so much attention these days is that marketing and sales leaders have determined that the natural next step in their relationship requires account focus. Marketing has made great strides over the last few years toward building credibility with sales. Unfortunately, the last mile to ideal alignment with sales has eluded marketing, because they’ve maintained a focus on delivering volumes of leads. What’s the problem with that model? If you ask a sales person where growth will come from, he or she will name a list of accounts. Marketing, on the other hand, typically starts talking about personas and segments. Now, with ABM, marketing is speaking the language of sales. Efficient revenue growth requires focus on the specific accounts, and the people in them, who are most likely to deliver that growth. To sales, and now for those who embrace account-based marketing, anything else is a waste of time.

The second reason is the reality of how buyers buy. Marketing and sales finally agree it’s no longer a battle for who plays the most critical role in the buying cycle. Instead, common sense and ample research evidence show that marketing and sales together are needed to support buyers on their journey. This requires a balanced strategy, where sales and marketing understand their respective roles and how those need to be coordinated in every stage of buying. ABM is the way to operationalize that strategy as a partnership that's focused on delivering growth.

The third reason for ABM’s rise, which Sangram points out in this book, is that both sales and marketing have been ignoring the most critical driver of B2B buying: the post-sale customer experience. Fully 71 percent of the reason that B2B buyers choose to buy from a specific company is based on either their own direct experience with a company, or what they hear about the experience others have with the company. This means that the funnel as we know it makes very little sense. The real battle for customer hearts, minds, and investments happens after customers buy. It’s essential to balance pre- and post-sale requirements when building an account-based plan, because those non-selling investments in customer success deliver both retention and growth. Marketing’s toolkit is essential to both customer acquisition and customer engagement.

The fourth reason is around technology. You may wonder why now there’s so much fuss about a marketing concept that has been around for more than a decade. That’s a fair question. In the past, ABM had to be executed as a one-to-one, customized approach, with a focus on just a small number of very significant accounts. This custom approach was, and remains, labor-intensive and not the right model for every business. What’s changed to support the current wave of ABM adoption is the availability of technology and analytics to make one-to-few (or more than a few) much more realistic, even for small teams with limited budgets. The current wave of ABM is fueled by a data-driven approach to marketing that begins with the identification of ideal companies and contacts to target, and then uses technology to engage with them at scale in useful ways, both pre- and post-sale. The traditional one-to-one model still makes sense, and is successfully used by many companies who commit the resources to do it, but technology has democratized ABM.

If you’re reading this book and just getting started with ABM, let me be the first to welcome you to the future of what B2B marketing can be: insight led, technology enabled and, above all, customer focused. Happy reading!

Megan Heuer (@megheuer)

Vice President & Group Director, SiriusDecisions

Introduction

Our world is becoming increasingly connected. Today, the modern marketer is an innovator, creating new ways to connect with potential customers that defy the status quo. Technology has given a platform for business-to-business (B2B) marketers to reach customers, but it’s a blessing and a curse, because buyers are inundated with thousands of messages every day. This is why it’s essential for marketers to identify their best-fit customers before ever creating that first message. By targeting your ideal customers and determining how to engage them on digital channels such as mobile, social media, display advertising, and video, you can connect with your buyers on their own terms. This is called account-based marketing (ABM).

B2B marketing and sales teams have been doing ABM as a side project for years, but now it’s time to take ABM mainstream by making it a core part of your company’s go-to-market strategy. ABM is a program of various marketing activities, not using a particular software product. There are many elements to engaging individual accounts on their terms that go beyond just online or offline conversations. The question to ask is “Are you a B2B company that knows which accounts you want to target?” Focusing your marketing efforts on the best-fit accounts will allow your team to become more efficient and grow sales revenue faster.

In this book, I tell you all about account-based marketing: how it has evolved from traditional lead generation and why you should strongly consider using ABM in your B2B marketing and sales efforts. I show you how to use marketing technology (MarTech) and software to target your best-fit prospects, create contacts that expand into accounts, and engage them through content and marketing activities generating sales velocity to drive new revenue for your company. I discuss how to retain your accounts through customer advocacy, continuously engaging your clients throughout the customer lifecycle (and reducing churn). I will walk through a game plan with real-life examples based on my experience in seeing how more than 100 companies implemented ABM in their go-to-market strategies.

About This Book

This book exists to help you understand this new trend called account-based marketing. Whether you are new to the world of B2B marketing, work as a salesperson for a B2B organization, or you’re an experienced CMO, having a strong understanding of account-based marketing is a must. The reason account-based marketing has become such a buzzword in the B2B marketing world is because it solves an issue of how to target and engage your best-fit prospects and customers at scale.

I will give you an overview and blueprint of how to do account-based marketing unlike any other publication available on the market. I’ve laid out this book to give you a foundation of B2B marketing, how account-based marketing takes your efforts to the next level utilizing readily available MarTech solutions, and increase new and existing revenue for your company.

Here are some terms used in this book that you should know:

ABM is the abbreviation of account-based marketing. I interchange with this across the start of each chapter.

When possible, I’ve included the Twitter handles of key people, companies, or technology solutions when possible so you can follow them on social media. Using social media is an essential part of ABM.

Web addresses and programming code appear in monofont. If you’re reading a digital version of this book on a device connected to the internet, you can click the web address to visit that website.

Foolish Assumptions

The most foolish assumption you can make about this book is that you already know all the intricacies about B2B marketing and therefore can do account-based marketing. The basic concepts for account-based marketing are different than the traditional lead-based marketing techniques used in B2B marketing, especially for the sales funnel. With account-based marketing, I literally flip the funnel on its head so B2B marketing teams are no longer concerned with generating tons of leads to pour into the top of the funnel. I show you how to think correctly about account-based marketing so you identify your best-fit contacts, expand those contacts into accounts, and engage them on their terms through digital channels to accelerate pipeline velocity and close deals faster.

If you’re a beginner in the field of B2B marketing, I want to encourage you to start reading from the beginning of this book to understand the basics of our industry. The world of B2B marketing is different from business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, or the world of mass consumer advertising. B2B marketing is about selling your company’s products and services to companies who can and want to use what you’re selling successfully. B2B and B2C marketing require different activities and tactics, and account-based marketing adds another layer of complexity. However, if you're new to the world of B2B marketing, starting your experience with account-based marketing early will help put you ahead of the curve. Because you aren't used to the old ways of lead-based marketing, you can start your career in B2B marketing as an innovator who already understands the principles of ABM.

If you've already established a career and are experienced in the world of B2B marketing, you can skip around the different chapters of this book. Make use of the information you want to learn to help improve your existing marketing and sales techniques. If you’re doing traditional lead-based marketing, which most B2B marketers are, then approach this book as a new way of taking the good data you already have about your customers and prospects and make it work even better using targeted account-based marketing strategies.

Lastly, if you work for a B2B organization that's using a customer relationship management (CRM) software (such as Salesforce), plus a marketing automation tool (such as Marketo, HubSpot, Eloqua, or Pardot), and you have a website and social media, then you must read this book. You already have all the tools to do account-based marketing. I will show you how to use these technologies to impact your marketing efforts for increased sales revenue.

If you approach account-based marketing without having an appreciation and understanding of marketing technology solutions such as a CRM, marketing automation system, and digital presence on the web then you will not accomplish your goal as a B2B marketer, which is to help drive business for sales. In the end, you will end up having to hire a consultant who can set up your CRM and create a process for your marketing and sales teams to do account-based marketing, which could potentially cost tens of thousands of dollars. Reading this book will save you time and resources as it will give you the steps to implement account-based marketing strategies: the basic elements of identifying accounts, targeting them using technology, and how to improve your marketing campaigns over time.

The B2B marketing industry has new buzzwords every day. Account-based marketing is more than just a buzzword because it’s a proven strategy to make more money for your business. ABM is laser-focused B2B marketing.

Icons Used in This Book

The Tip icon marks tips and tricks which you can use to make account-based marketing even more successful.

The Remember icon notes the pieces of information which are especially important to keep in mind. You’ll need this information while you read this book, and as you go beyond this book to implement your own account-based marketing campaigns.

The Warning icon tells you what not to do (like wasting time in a Dummies book explaining a Warning icon). Seriously though, you should keep an eye out for the Warning icons because I give you useful information which can help you from making mistakes as you do account-based marketing.

The Technical Stuff icon notes where I call out certain technology providers which you will need for ABM. It is also an icon to note where I tell you how to set up data in your CRM, create workflows, and segment lists.

Beyond the Book

I have written extra articles you won’t find in the book itself. Go online to find the following

Online articles covering additional topics: www.dummies.com/extras/account-based-marketing

Here you’ll find resources such as the ten ways to get started with account-based marketing, building a game plan for your company to switch from lead-based marketing to ABM, and much more.

The Cheat Sheet for this book at

www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/account-based-marketing

Here you’ll find additional articles about the stages of account-based marketing, including how to identify, engage, and accelerate your accounts across all stages of the buyer’s journey, creating customer advocates.

Where to Go from Here

I wrote this book with the goal of having you read modularly. You can jump between different parts of this book to find the information you need to be successful with account-based marketing. Use it as a guide to start doing B2B marketing campaigns from scratch, or to take the contacts you already have in your CRM to create accounts and segment into lists to tailor your messaging based on the particular needs of your best-fit customers or personas. Keep it on your desk at the office or where your marketing and sales teams sit so they can have it handy.

If you follow me on Twitter (@sangramvajre) and Tweet a photo of yourself (even a “selfie”) reading this book, then I’ll send you an autographed copy to help share the good news about account-based marketing and how it will revolutionize the B2B marketing world.

Part 1

Getting Started with Account-Based Marketing

IN THIS PART …

Understanding ABM and how it’s changing the status quo of B2B marketing and sales

Flipping the traditional lead-based funnel on its head for an account-based approach

Unifying marketing and sales for one “smarketing” team to drive more revenue

Leveraging marketing technology (MarTech) to remove manual processes