ITSMA

New to ABM and need a good source of educational resources? We recommend checking out ITSMA. As ABM pioneers, they lead the way in defining and building excellence in the future of B2B marketing. In addition to publishing helpful resources (like ABM for B2B ebooks), they also have a significant presence at B2B marketing conferences. 2020 will be no exception, as we expect to see our ITSMA friends at many virtual and in-person events.

If you check out their website or social media, you’ll see that they’re currently promoting their Marketing Excellence Awards Webcast Series. In this webinar series you’ll be able to hear from ABM experts about tips, tricks, best practices, lessons learned, and predictions for the future. If you’re new to this approach and need some guidance or reassurance, think of this as “ABM medicine” that can help keep you motivated and on the right path.

As marketing continues to grow and evolve for B2B organizations, ITSMA can provide services and resources for insight, advice, and hands-on help. The fact that this credible source that many marketers trust fully embraces and promotes ABM only further confirms the fact that account based marketing is more than a buzzword. As mentioned before, if you’re looking for account based marketing examples, case studies, benchmark reports, guides, or other resources, the ITSMA resources section and YouTube channel can become your best friend.

Account Based Marketing Tactics

In addition to a strategy and technology, which we’ll get to later, execution is key. That’s where account based marketing tactics come into play. What are specific plays a team can execute that ultimately benefit their ABM strategy and revenue goals? This could include targeted web ads, targeted email ads, direct mail, regional events, web personalization, and much more.

Oftentimes, the number of account based marketing tactics a team can run and scale depends on the technology that they use. What are the ABM capabilities of Terminus? Teams have the flexibility to run many different plays across many different ABM channels with the platform. From web to email to even account-based chat! An ABM strategy won’t be successful with just one play or just one channel, it takes a “surround sound” approach to get your brand in front of your most important prospects and customers.

These tactics are different from traditional top-of-funnel activities. They’re more personalized, focus more on the persona, industry, or account of the target audience, and intentionally try to be very relevant. Account based marketing tactics 2019, 2020, and of future years will follow this theme. And the ABM conversion rates prove the success. Whereas traditional “overflow the top of the funnel” digital marketing methods result in average conversion rates of 1-2% (from lead to customer), a recent Gartner study reported up to a 25% win rate with ABM targeted accounts. With this approach, teams can run personalized tactics across many different targeted channels. Here are a few that are most popular among Terminus customers:

• Employee email banners (Sigstr)
• Account-based chat
• Web personalization
• LinkedIn sponsored content
• Retargeting
• Display advertising

Terminus ABM

The Terminus ABM platform gives revenue teams all the tools and data they need to “wow” their most important customers and prospects with amazing experiences. More channels, more data, and more tactics, all in one platform. Terminus can help your customer success, marketing, and sales teams:

• Find the perfect audience for your message.
• Amplify your message across every channel, in a super targeted and personalized way.
• Get all teams to work in perfect harmony and focus on your most important customers or prospects.
• Understand your team’s performance at every level.

In addition to the technology, you’re also getting a partnership. Every Terminus customer is supported by a dedicated team that’s here to help you win with ABM. We call it Terminus 360, and it allows the customers to be surrounded with creative and strategic direction, along with cutting edge solutions and best practices that can help deliver results.

Even for non-customers, Terminus is here to help. That’s why we started the FlipMyFunnel community, as it brings together like-minded marketers and sales professionals who can share ideas, tips, and tricks. This ABM membership is free and you can sign up simply by visiting flipmyfunnel.com or reaching out to a Terminus contact. The community and program is led by Sangram Vajre, Terminus’ Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist. Sangram has led many different workshops and keynote presentations. He has written many account based marketing articles and even authored ABM is B2B (PDF version is now available by the way)! Above all else, he is a genuine and enthusiastic human being who wants to see your marketing and sales team succeed with ABM (regardless of which technology you use).

Account Based Marketing Strategy

Before a team invests in technology, or puts hours of work into a personalized campaign or targeted tactic, they need a strategy. An account based marketing strategy motivates a team to prepare and execute towards a common goal. For most teams, that’s simply more revenue. For others, it could be a higher average contract value, more booked meetings, higher qualified opportunities, retaining key customers, or generating more upsell opportunities. In B2B account based marketing, all of these metrics are important. That’s why Terminus created the TEAM account based marketing framework.

It might be hard for some to find a starting point with their ABM strategy. Possibly even overwhelming, confusing, or just too complicated. The TEAM framework simplifies things and divides an overall ABM strategy into a phased approach.

• Target the right accounts! With Terminus, you’ll find the industry’s most robust B2B account graph. Through relationship data, engagement, intent, and firmographics, the Terminus platform makes it easy for teams to understand and prioritize the right accounts to target.
• Engage across every channel! Customers use Terminus to get their message or content in front of the right audience, no matter where they are. This includes display advertising, retargeting, employee email (Sigstr), LinkedIn, personalized web pages, and now even chat!
• Activate your teammates! Sales and marketing teams can now easily align from the first engagement with a prospect all the way through the customer lifecycle and renewal. Terminus can automatically alert sales about meaningful engagement, centralize key information for each account, and deliver better pipeline prediction to accelerate opportunities.
• Measure everything! Now revenue teams can easily measure how all of their tactics are moving the needle. From specific campaign performance to c-level reporting, Terminus’ influence and attribution reporting allows teams to have a clear view on what’s working best.

Account Based Marketing Examples

The best starting point for a strategy or ideas on specific tactics is to first look at account based marketing examples. See what other teams are doing to “wow” their top target accounts, and see how you can replicate that success with your team. We don’t mean a word-for-word copy and paste approach, but rather take a general idea or concept and customize it in a way that’s most relevant for your business and revenue goals. If you see a particular email that is super personalized or an eye-catching account-specific banner ad that caught your eye, make a note and turn those examples into something of your own.

Where can you find great examples of these types of tactics? The Terminus blog and resource center shares new account based marketing best practices and ideas weekly. You can even sign up for our newsletter to have this type of content delivered straight to your inbox. Account based marketing case studies are also wonderful resources to evaluate what works best. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Relationship data and email signature marketing drive Snowflake’s ABM program
• 30 days to ROI with intent-fueled ABM with GTreasury
• Pramata lowers customer acquisition cost by 60%

Another great type of resource for examples? An account based marketing PPT! Not only can you put together slides of your favorite examples and notes on how to make it your own, you can also use it to put together a presentation to educate other internal team members on ABM. Chances are you’ll need to “sell” your c-level, marketing leadership, and sales leadership stakeholders on the impact of ABM. Use slides and examples to your advantage for this initiative.