There is a letter missing in ABM.
One of the things many marketing people are struggling with right now is how to communicate to customers, prospects and partners during COVID-19. Do you refer to it a lot? A little? Pretend it’s not there and go about your business as usual?
To me, this is not a new problem to wrestle with. Rather, this is a longstanding issue with a new consideration. At the core of this concern is the basic question of what you should communicate to your customers and prospects? This isn’t a new idea. In fact, it’s really (or should be) the basis for all marketing communications. What does your audience care about or need to know that will help you maintain or grow your role as a trusted advisor?
If you zoom out just one click, you realize this is largely the premise of Account Based Marketing (ABM). But for all the initiatives, strategies, campaigns, etc. I believe there is one single item that is missing from ABM. It’s missing the S. There is no way account based marketing will succeed without the S. The S is Sales. As marketing professionals, we really should have branded this ABSM and not ABM. We took on too much of the responsibility for the success that is only accomplished in partnership. This is not unusual for marketing experts. In general, marketing teams have unbridled optimism and believe they can do anything. Most of the time, that’s exactly the attitude you want. But in this case, we should have slowed down.
The very first step in the ABSM partnership is also the first letter: Account. You HAVE to identify and agree on the accounts for ABSM to work. As simple or obvious as this sounds, it is the make or break in the entire initiative. And while marketing can and should help sales with refinement and creating potential lists (based on size, industry, etc.), the sales rep needs to identify and agree to the accounts they believe will most benefit their territory. This is a very real stop gate at the beginning of the process. Only when they have set their sites should the marketing team come in and give the support to penetrate those accounts. If it doesn’t happen this way, ABSM will be seen as ABM: a marketing program. ABSM is not a marketing program. It will fail if seen that way. It has to be a joint venture between sales and marketing with common goals, targets and measurements.
A few of the key items to agree on and measure are:
- The Account List. What is the account list for the specific rep or territory? This is where the marketing team can help create a prospective list, but the final list must come from the sales rep and they need to build their selling plans and activities around those accounts.
- Account penetration – New Customers: This is measured as the number and value of sales to new customers in the target accounts. It’s useful to also measure this as a percentage penetration against the target list. But the list will need to be updated from time to time so the percentage will need to be recalibrated as appropriate.
- Account penetration – Products: This is the value of additional product sales to existing customers but it should also be measured as a percent of the products sold in the portfolio.
- Account penetration – Contacts: This is based on the list of identified contacts you want to have in an account and measured as a percent of those that you have meaningful engagement with.
These are the top-line key metrics to look at but each situation is different and may require other metrics to know what is/isn’t working. Things like contact engagements, # of outbound prospecting calls, website visits of targeted accounts/contacts, etc.
ABSM can make a significant impact to business growth but it has to have all four letters, not three.
