A Zoho MarTech Agency
An account-based marketing strategy gets your business started on the right note. It can help you generate revenue and build a solid clientele base 5x faster than any other marketing approach.
It can also help you work more efficiently, as it limits and cuts excesses out, patching you with the right fit for your business from the outset.
Imagine a business operation that does not need to hard-sell anything to anyone. A business that knows who the major customers and heavy spenders are? Wouldn’t that business generate better revenue quickly?
You can be that business, and account-based marketing is how you can get it done easily and quickly. If you’d like to hear about the intricacies of account-based marketing strategy, this article will introduce you to the 4 major concepts of account-based marketing, what they are, and why they are vital to your business growth. Let’s dive in!
Repurposing your marketing approach to target the right audience using the right approach is the best growth hack you’d come across. At best, it defines who your audience can and can’t be, and its results are quite evident in your skyrocketing campaign result and increased revenue.
You can do that with account-based marketing (ABM). However, you must choose a structure that works by dividing your database into actionable segments. To properly define these segments, you have to be clear on your ideal customers and why they make a great fit for your organization.
As a result, you can program your ABM strategy to provide value to segments that fit the ideal customer profile through dedicated activities and focused messaging to nurture whichever leads fit your description.
There are many criteria for proper segmentation, and they include:
Each of the categories you develop using the criteria above can exist as a stand-alone list or be merged with a list having many similarities.
For example, if most of your clients are found in Atlanta, Georgia, you can use geography as the only criterion for the selection of other possible leads or merge that list with other segment lists that fit your model.
It’s essential to define your audience segment. Take your time to ensure it’s properly defined and generates the ideal message to fit and resonate with each segment.
ABM isn’t a magic trick; so it has many step-by-step processes to help you simplify sophisticated marketing automation techniques to help you act appropriately on information that relates to the account.
Establishing a spatial alignment between marketing leadership and sales plays a major role in ABM implementation. Usually, marketing and sales approaches are conflicted due to the complexities of managing well-placed communication at the account level.
Many of the latest ABM automations are smoothed out to make segmentation effortless and very effective. This would induce results in lesser time and with lesser efforts. This, therefore, makes sales effortless, thanks to a more pronounced and established sales bridge the ABM builds for you.
With it, you can identify customers’ pain and struggles, reveal what motivates your customers, build customer relations and trust, and effectively close even more deals.
You could employ some follow-through methods to drive the heart of sales in your customers while leveraging your service to help them. This is possible because you can categorize the account for each of these clients.
ABM efforts should be measurable; otherwise, they’re worthless and would soon crumble. Whatever levels these efforts kick in should show a significant up-climb of revenue or resources.
With the help of leading marketing automation, you can find the insights or metrics that define and showcase the results of your ABM effort at any level it’s applied.
These results can help the sales and marketing teams understand what works within their ABM system and what doesn’t.
The example reports of these ABM efforts will include consolidated opportunity history, scoring of account activities, and account list summaries. These reports can create a feedback loop for the sales and marketing team. Feedback is essentially the centerpiece in driving more sales and improving service, but in this case, it will help you refine your go-to-market strategies.
With all of the above concepts in place, you can implement a complete 360 approach that includes:
Traditional ABM implementation finds it hard to root into the examples above, although each of these areas is crucial to a sustainable program.
ABM is the clear-cut marketing and sales solution; it solves many problems, including the essence of groups and the selection of who should be your prospect. Account-based marketing will set you many years ahead of the struggles and pain that come with wrong prospecting.
Get in touch with our team right away to set up a compatible ABM strategy for your business and set yourself up for success
Your Company Logo |
+
Account Company Logo |
Account Strategy [Template]
[Account Company Name]
Drafted by: [Account Manager, Rep, or Project Manager Name]
[Contact Info]
Section 2: Key Business Initiatives
Section 3: Customer Relationship Landscape
Section 4: Customer Products and Revenue
Section 5: Account Competitor Analysis
Section 6: Buying Process and Selling Points
Section 7: Relationship Goals and Strategy
Section 8: Sales Opportunities, Targets, and Risks
This section should serve as an overview for the account your team is focusing on. It should include fast facts about the company and information on its history so you can understand how your product or service can best assist them.
Fast Facts
Company Name: [Insert Company Name]
Company Location: [Insert Company Location]
Company Website: [Insert Company Website]
Industry: [Insert Company Industry]
Year Founded: [Insert Year Founded]
Annual Revenue: [Insert Annual Revenue]
Number of Employees: [Insert Number of Employees]
Point of Contact at Company Name: [Insert POC Name]
Email Address: [Insert POC Email]
Phone Number: [Insert POC Phone Number]
Company Vision, Mission, and Goals
[Insert Company’s Vision, Mission, and/or Goals]
Company Target Market(s)
[Describe ompany’s Target Market(s), including buyer personas, market size, psychographics and demographics, location, etc.]
Here, you’ll focus on your customer’s value expectations to create opportunities to grow customer relationships that are more strategic in nature. These relationships safeguard against competition while increasing customer loyalty.
Using the foundations from the previous section, fill out the prompts below so you can understand the priorities of the account. If you’re in direct conversation with people from the account, ask them these questions so you can better help the company.
Short-, Medium-, and Long-Term Priorities
[Insert Company’s Short-, Medium-, and Long-term Priorities]
Key Projects
[Insert Company’s Key Projects and outline how your business can help.]
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
[Insert the metrics that the account is focusing on.]
We included prompts in the first section for the point of contact, but if that POC is unknown – or if that existing point of contact may change – this section will help you narrow down the best person to be speaking with.
Additionally, as your relationship strengthens and grows with this account, it’s inevitable that more people from either side of the coin will become involved. Therefore, it’s important to map out all stakeholders and the development of that relationship over time.
(Ideal) Client Profile
[Identify which job title(s) you’re targeting, how many of those exist in the account you’re planning for, and what use they have for your product.] Â
Customer Interaction History
[Briefly summarize or list out bullets on your history with this account. This should include initial outreach attempts, project status, and lifecycle stage.]
Stakeholders
[List out the main stakeholders you have or expect to have involved in this relationship from both your and your account’s side. Each person represented should have his or her:
Seek to build and maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with the accounts you want to partner with.
Chances are, your (prospective) clients have a laundry list of options, and if you want them to stay with you, you’ll need to show them you’re more than just a vendor to them. This section should outline how you’ll do so.
Include the following information:
Whitespace Analysis
[Illustrate the whitespace you have for helping your account and how you plan on appealing to that gap.]
Sales Performance
[What is your revenue from this account (projected if the account is the prospect), and how does each individual product or service you offer contribute to that number?]
Margin Performance
[What is your profit from this account (projected if the account is the prospect), and how does each individual product or service you offer contribute to that number?]
Annual Revenue: Wins and Loses
[Include actuals or projections for onboarding costs, upsells, downgrades, price increases, and/or churn rate over time.]
Every company worries about its competitors, and if you want to partner closely with your key account, you should care, too.
Based on your research on and conversations with representatives from your account, compile a list of your account’s competitors, as well as its comparative strengths and weaknesses.
List your customer’s:
Account Competitors
[List your account’s key competitors.]
Competitors’ Strengths
[List your account’s key strengths in comparison to its competition. This can be formatted as a list of strengths that the competition does not have, or as a chart comparing your company’s strengths linearly to competitors.]
Competitors’ Weaknesses
[List your account’s key weaknesses in comparison to its competition. This can be formatted as a list of weaknesses that the competition does not have, or as a chart comparing your company’s strengths linearly to competitors.]
This section should outline how and why the account chose (or will presumptively choose) you to partner with. Consider where your account is with you at this stage and why it would need you.
The Buyer’s Journey
[For existing accounts, explain the process of the buyer’s journey – the timeline, the lifecycle stages, and where the account is now. For prospects, highlight a projected buyer’s journey and the timeline for how you’ll get the account from stranger to customer.]
Content & Channels
[Think about what information your buyers consume – specifically pertaining to your industry and your product – and where they might consume that information.]
Evaluation Criteria
[What factors does/did your account consider before purchasing, and do you fare in these categories, and what lessons did you learn about your performance in these categories for future sales?]
Key Decision Criteria
[What factors are the most important for the person or people you sold (or are selling) to? How did you (or how do you expect to) win with your performance in these criteria?]
No matter where you are in your relationship with your account, you should have a clear idea of how you want it to progress – be it acquiring the customer or setting policies in place to upsell or maintain the current arrangement.
Current Relationship Status
[What are you to the account at this time? (Potential) Vendor, Preferred Supplier, Planning Partner, Trusted Advisor, etc.]
Core Business Partners
[Are any other accounts, companies, or customers involved in this relationship, and if so, to what extent?]
Relationship Target
[What relationship status or lifecycle stage do you want this account to achieve, and by when?]
Relationship Progression Strategy
[What process will you plan and execute on to progress your account to your desired stage?]
In this section, list out the products/services that will help your account attain its goals, alongside revenue goals/projections and any blockers or potential objections.
Products & Services
[List the products(s) and service(s) you intend to sell or have sold to this account. Include each line item’s price point, quantity, and how long each will last for the customer before renewal/reorder.]
[Time Period] Revenue Goals
[For the time period of your choosing, what are your revenue goals for this account?]
Cross-sell & Upsell Opportunities
[Outside of previously listed opportunities, what can or will you pitch as a cross-sell or upsell opportunity as your relationship with the account strengthens over time?]
Risks, Barriers, Limitations, and Operational Restrictions
[What issues lie in the way of selling, cross-selling, or upselling your account on any of the above mentioned line items? Address how you will counter them – if possible.]
All of the previous content should lead up to this section. Outline what steps your company will take to secure this account’s business for the long term. Specifically, this section should address the following areas:
Top Five Objectives
[What are the five predominant deliverables and expectations from this initiative. It can be revenue, a contract length, and order size, a timeline, or anything else you determine to be of the utmost importance.]
Map Critical Resources
[List the resources available to your team for this project. Examples include your ABM Software, customer retention manuals, how to sell documentation, communication methods for the team, the account’s company website, and more.]
Assign Tasks and Key Stakeholders
Using the DACI framework, outlines who is responsible for contributing to this project and what role each person has. Specifically, highlights who the driver of the project is, any approvers of specific parts of the project, contributors who handle deliverables, and those who need to remain informed. There is a DACI framework template attached below.]
Driver | Accountable | Contributor | Informed |
NameEmail Address | NameEmail AddressResponsibilityÂNameEmail AddressResponsibilityÂNameEmail AddressResponsibility | NameEmail AddressResponsibilityÂNameEmail AddressResponsibilityÂNameEmail AddressResponsibility | NameEmail AddressResponsibilityÂNameEmail AddressResponsibilityÂNameEmail AddressResponsibility |
This is a resource provided by HubSpot
If you have experience with Zoho’s marketing software stack ( MarTech ) and understand this inbound marketing strategy foundations, you have a very powerful marketing starter pack ready to be configured and unleashed!
QuakeCinch can always help with your Zoho Marketing initiatives, just reach out to us!!
+1-606-401-1470
Copyright 2023, QuakeCinch | Zoho Partner | Zoho Inbound Marketing Experts | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy
