ABM Expert

Account based marketing (ABM) is a new and popular approach to marketing. This strategic approach emphasizes communicating with customer accounts or individual prospects as markets of one. Many marketing teams are adopting the ABM approach and are turning to ABM experts for guidance. An ABM expert can be a third-party analysis, from an organization that practices ABM, or from an ABM vendor.

Terminus’ ABM expert is Sangram Vajre, who is the author of two popular books about ABM. Vajre is one of the co-founders of Terminus and is an international keynote speaker. He is the author of the books Account-Based Marketing for Dummies and ABM Is B2B: Why B2B Marketing and Sales Is Broken and How to Fix It. The book Account-Based Marketing for Dummies is widely recognized as the first book about ABM. Vajre created the FlipMyFunnel community in the year 2014.

The purpose of the FlipMyFunnel community is to serve as a place for B2B marketing and sales to learn from one another and work towards developing an account-based mindset. Sangram is also a host of a podcast of the same name. The podcast FlipMyFunnel, which has more than 100,00 subscribers, has been recognized as a top 50 business podcast. Each episode of the podcast focuses on different topics, such as ABM, content marketing, leadership, B2B marketing, social media, agile marketing, customer success, B2B sales, marketing technology, buyer personas, content creation and promotion, sales and marketing alignment, and strategic partnerships.

The #FlipMyFunnel revolution emphasizes the advantages of starting with the best-fit customers. The traditional funnel is “flipped” to create the customer experience funnel, which is account-based. The customer experience funnel consists of the following steps: identify, expand, engage, and advocate. The process starts with identifying the best-fit customers and ends with the successful conversion of these customers into loyal advocates for your brand.

The best ABM certification programs in the market are developed by ABM experts for B2B marketers. These ABM certification programs are designed to be comprehensive and practical. B2B marketing teams can participate in these programs to learn the basics or advanced strategies for ABM. Read on to learn more about the value of the expertise of an ABM expert as well as why your B2B marketing team should look into ABM certifications, ABM certification free, best ABM certification, and ABM advanced certification.

Account Based Marketing

ABM is a marketing strategy that was developed in the early 2000s. However, even though this marketing strategy has been around for a while, it has only really started to take off in recent years. Account based marketing has become so popular that it is now recognized as a category on third-party websites like G2, Forrester, and Gartner.

ABM is a strategy that calls for the redirection of marketing resources to focused engagement with a limited selection of target accounts. The ABM strategy requires an alignment between the marketing and sales team of a B2B business. This alignment is necessary for the development of effective account-specific messaging. The main advantage of ABM and its emphasis on communicating with target accounts as markets of one is the potential for higher revenues in a shorter period of time.

Traditional marketing strategies involve using marketing resources to “cast a wide net” when it comes to lead generation. On the other hand, the ABM strategy demands that a B2B marketing team works closely with the sales team to identify the best-fit customers. After the identification of these accounts, the next step is creating customized messages and campaigns for these target accounts.

There are many channels that B2B marketing teams can use with ABM, such as LinkedIn, direct mail, email, and web personalization. Many of the most important tools for ABM are available on LinkedIn. ABM on LinkedIn tools allow B2B businesses to integrate data from marketing and sales. LinkedIn learning account based marketing will teach B2B companies how to use tools on LinkedIn to deliver customized content to the right target accounts.

One way B2B marketing teams can effectively execute the ABM strategy is by following the TEAM framework developed by Terminus. The four elements of Terminus’ TEAM framework are target, engage, activate, and measure.

Target: Identify the best-fit customers and use behavioral signals to prioritize your account database. Centrally manage the account audiences.

Engage: Create and execute campaigns for the target accounts across every channel, such as LinkedIn and direct mail.

Activate: Use deep account intelligence and engagement-based AI to improve the response rates to sales outreach and help deals move forward.

Measure: Measure total influence on target account efforts, such as pipeline, contract value, revenue and deal velocity.

Demandbase ABM

Demandbase, which was founded in 2006, is a targeting and personalization platform that serves B2B companies. Marketers are able to target their online ads to businesses identified using metrics and attributes like revenue, industry, products purchased, and customer status. Some of the services offered by Demandbase ABM include Facebook ad targeting, managed analytics consulting, and target account marketing. Demandbase’s platform allows B2B companies to execute an ABM strategy with sales and marketing.

While Demandbase is based in San Francisco, California, Demandbase serves customers internationally with Demandbase support and Demandbase training. For example, there is Demandbase Asia for B2B companies in Asia.

The Demandbase ABM platform allows for ABM audience creation, activation, management, as well as measurement. Some of the ABM tasks that can be executed through the Demandbase ABM platform include systems integrations, audience data analysis, and audience creation and management.

Demandbase provides a number of different training materials and resources through their blog and website. Their blog, in particular, serves as the Demandbase knowledge base for all features and functionality. Demandbase also offers ABM certification classes that will provide your marketing team with hands-on knowledge. The Demandbase ABM certification classes, Demand base ABM certification courses, and Demandbase courses can serve as a foundation for learning ABM for B2B marketing teams.

ABM Basics

Chances are, you’ve heard of the saying “You must learn to walk before you can run.” A common mistake that many B2B marketing teams make is failing to learn the basics of ABM before putting an ABM strategy into practice. ABM represents a significant divergence from traditional marketing strategies, which emphasize casting a wide net instead of treating target accounts as markets of one. Therefore, it can be difficult for marketers to wrap their head around the concept of ABM at first.

When it comes to ABM, there is a significant amount of terminology to learn as well as internal adoption to practice. There is certainly a steep learning curve that your marketers will need to get through before they can effectively put ABM into practice.

It is also incredibly important to learn about the essential tools for ABM success. These tools include a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, a marketing automation software, and an active, polished presence on LinkedIn. Using the right tools can mean the difference between success and failure.

A CRM platform is an important aspect of any ABM strategy. The CRM platform will help you align marketing and sales and keep track of your contacts and accounts. Chances are, you already have a CRM platform in place. However, you may want to switch to a CRM platform that is tailored for ABM. The purpose of the marketing automation software is to help you integrate marketing and sales. The software will also aid your marketing team with the management of ABM campaigns. B2B marketers should learn how to take full advantage of the analytics often built into marketing automation software. LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms for B2B marketing and ABM. While there are many ways that you can use LinkedIn for ABM, the main feature that B2B marketers should know about is the LinkedIn Account Targeting feature. Other potential ABM technology and tools include analytics, ad serving, customer intelligence, social media, account planning, personalization, and progressive profiling.

Not only should your B2B marketing team learn the ABM basics and the ABM foundations, but they should also learn the best practices for ABM. Knowing the best practices will make things easier for your marketing team.

ABM Classes

While it is possible for B2B marketers to learn the basics of ABM by using various resources on the Internet, taking ABM classes is one of the best ways to gain a solid foundation for all things ABM. This is even more true if you take a course taught by an ABM expert like Sangram Vajre.

Currently, Vajre is offering an intermediate course on ABM called Account-Based Marketing Foundations. Those who take this course will learn the fundamentals of ABM. This course also introduces the TEAM (target, engage, activate, and measure) framework and explains how to best select the tools and accounts to execute ABM well. Sangram stresses quality over quantity. By taking this course, marketers will learn how to craft quality content and analyze the results of the efforts to ABM. At the end of the course, Sangram walks through case studies to show how the TEAM framework works in action.

There are many other ABM certification foundations course, account based marketing coursera courses, and ABM online courses available. Many of these courses are available online for free. However, there are also courses that you will need to pay for. Some ABM vendors offer certification courses to their customers.

Not only should you consider having your B2B marketing team take ABM classes, but you should also consider having them attend industry events, such as Topo Summit and SiriusDecisions. These events and conferences are typically held every year. Therefore, if you don’t get a chance to attend one year, there is always next year.

Overall, ABM events and conferences are excellent opportunities for meeting marketing leaders and ABM experts. You don’t have to send your entire marketing team to these functions. Instead, you can send one or two people to represent your company. They can take notes throughout the event and inform the rest of the team of their findings. Of course, depending on the topic of the event, you may want to send the whole marketing team. For example, if a conference is offering free training on the basics of ABM, this is an opportunity that the whole team can take advantage of.