At this time of year the final touches are being made to Sales Kick Off's around the world, all business functions will (should) have their place on the agenda.
The article below caught my eye on Twitter earlier today. Accound Based Marketing was a critical part of most marketing strategies in 2017 and the signs suggest that this will continue into 2018 alongside the theme of personalisation. Reading that 80% of marketers find ABM less effective than they expected and 73% of 120 B2B marketers agree that “ABM is a term that lacks specific meaning and is used inconsistently today,” in a recent report by Forrester raises the alarm bells.
So why and what can be done?
Mike Boogaard details below 4 good areas to consider when planning and executing an ABM strategy.
The lack of specific meaning and inconsistent usage would suggest the program has not been communicated properly to the teams involved (Sales and Marketing).
Your SKO is possibly the one time of the year when you really can form a discussion with your entire organisation whilst setting macro and micro strategies.
Using this opportunity to communicate your account based and expert-to-expert strategy with your organisation will pay dividends later in the year. Personalisation was a key component of 2017 and with GDPR laws finally being implemented in Q2 2018 high quality, expert and authentic content that is relevant to the right people is going to be key.
Whether a start-up, SME or Enterprise it is an important time of the year to setup for a great 2018. Back in 2016 I wrote a post about tips for a successful SKO. Should it be of interest you can find it here.
1. Failing to coordinate with the sales teamSuccess with ABM requires your sales and marketing teams to not just align, but to partner. They must: Identify ABM targets together, deciding which accounts, which decision-makers and influencers are the most important and agreeing on what actions come next. Work together to create great content, combining the insights of the sales team with the creativity of the marketing team. Align the tools they use, such as CRM platforms, to ensure everyone is working from the same statistics and insights. Many marketing departments start ABM without the full sign-on of their sales team, who may be swamped and unable to give the project the support it needs. Getting this support is essential to success.
