Five ways to improve your ABM program

Many of you are implementing Account-based Marketing (ABM) programs to seek alternatives to a lead-based funnel program that is no longer yielding good results.  However, your ABM program may not be showing the results you expected, and you are under pressure to improve it.  This blog may help you identify potential issues and correct them. 

Here are the five top issues I have seen when working with my clients to help improve their ABM program:

• Get sales-marketing alignment: The alignment between sales and marketing is the foundation of a successful ABM program.  Without alignment, the program will not succeed. This includes:
  • Agree on the program tiers – This varies from company to company, but below is an example of a three-tier ABM account structure and the key issues in it.
    • Engagement tier: This is a list of the top 50 accounts your sales would like to engage with (and they have no current engagement in those accounts). The objective is to initiate initial conversations with the key stakeholders in these accounts. It’s crucial that this list remains stable for at least a year, as it typically takes around 6 months to establish early engagement with a few of these accounts. Constantly changing this list hampers effective Account-Based Marketing (ABM) results. Additionally, it’s essential that this list aligns with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP); otherwise, you won’t achieve the desired outcomes.
    • BDR tier: This list comprises the top 50 accounts where there has been some interest, although they haven’t yet progressed to ‘sales qualified.’ The objective is to expedite their progression into an opportunity. This list should remain consistent for a minimum of 90 days and align with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
    • AE tier: These are the top 50 accounts that are in the early stages of the pipeline but may be stalled. AE needs your help to get the process jump-started. Again, this list should match your ICP, and you should ensure that the customer is still interested in solving their problem with your or a competitor’s product.
  • Align on objectives: Establish and agree on clear timelines and achievable goals for each tier of the program to ensure its success. For instance, expecting sales meetings within four months from 20% of the accounts in the engagement tier might be overly ambitious.
  • Agree on personas, themes, and campaigns: Sales and marketing need to align on the themes for each of the accounts within various program tiers. These themes can be informed by prior research into the specific needs and issues of each account. Establishing themes for each account also prompts agreement on the personas to be targeted within those accounts, streamlining the acquisition of contacts for each identified persona. Additionally, both teams should collaborate on planning the ABM campaigns. This alignment is crucial for maintaining consistency in messaging and outreach across BDR campaigns, AE interactions, and marketing activities in the target accounts.
• Ensure messaging by persona is defined and clear:  Personalized messaging geared towards each persona, and potentially industry, is pivotal for ABM’s success. It’s crucial to develop distinct, succinct messages that pinpoint each persona’s pain points in their industry. Clearly articulate how your solution addresses these pain points. This messaging forms the backbone of campaigns and content creation, including white papers used as offers. Many clients struggle in this aspect.
• Ensure you have specific content for each theme: Another common weakness in many ABM programs lies in their content strategy. Consider this scenario: you’re targeting 5 distinct personas, each with 2 to 3 core themes. To effectively engage them, you’ll need at a minimum 10 to 15 pieces of compelling content that resonates with their issues. Relying on ChatGPT or generic copy writers lacking industry understanding is not going to work. Too often, I’ve come across generic content that fails to offer unique insights to your target audience, making your interactions forgettable. Alternatively, there’s an overabundance of content that merely ‘educates’ customers on problems they’re already well aware of and grappling with everyday. This might be because curating such content from externally available sources is convenient and easy for generic copy writers.
• Map buyer’s journey across all touchpoints and ensure consistent messaging at each touchpoint: One common pitfall I observe in many companies is the lack of alignment between field marketing, the ABM team, and corporate marketing. For instance, a company I worked with introduced a headless solution aimed at developers. However, their website failed to provide a smooth buyer journey for this persona for a year; instead, it remained heavily focused on CXOs. It’s crucial to have the right website messaging, dedicated landing pages, and emails tailored to each targeted persona.
• Complement inbound marketing with an ABM program: Despite implementing an ABM program, engaging with your target audience in their preferred spaces remains essential. If they’re actively researching your industry, ensure that the messaging in spaces where they are (such as syndication sites, Google AdWords, etc.) aligns with your ABM strategy. Thus, continue with your inbound program alongside your ABM endeavors and ensure consistent messaging everywhere.

If you need help streamlining your ABM programs or creating messaging and high-impact content, please contact me via LinkedIn.