Account Based Marketing Strategy Template – Capture the value of account-based campaigns more effectively with the Account-Based Everything framework, which includes five key features.
The original version of this article written by Tom Sears has now been published by TOPO. Account-based campaigns, historically known as integrated marketing campaigns, have long been a key business-to-business (B2B) sales tactic, but they often struggle to capture value because organizations lack the organization-wide commitment to mobilize efforts against the union. core team. target accounts. TOPO designed the Account-Based Everything (ABE) framework to help companies understand the fit and commitment needed to succeed with an account-based go-to-market strategy. Download the e-book. The Future of Sales Introduction to Account-Driven Everything Account-Driven Everything is the coordination of personalized marketing, sales development, sales and customer success efforts to drive targeted account engagement and conversion. A key focus is the entire lifecycle revenue chain from marketing to sales and customer success/account management. As a spin-off, account-based compliance spans the entire organization, including finance, product development, engineering and management teams. The Rise of the Account-Based Campaign Account-based selling has been around since salespeople began selling to large enterprises. However, since the early 2000s, the digital marketing revolution (e.g. Google AdWords, marketing automation, etc.) has shifted the focus of B2B marketing to powerful industry-leading demand generation engines that can generate large numbers of leads at scale. Now the pendulum swings back to computational methods. There are three main driving forces behind this change. Improved economics Advanced sales and marketing organizations have found that certain account types drive the most impactful customer acquisition costs (CAC) and lifetime value (LTV). A common example is a market that moves into business and/or vertical markets. For example, one client identified three industries that make up 80% of the defined customer base. Customers in these three segments outperformed all other key metrics such as close rate, annual contract value (ACV) and customer churn. However, only 5% (300) of the more than 6,000 monthly marketing-driven leads were from these key areas. And of the 25 monthly meetings held by sales development representatives (SDRs), only three or four were with companies in these key industries. To address these issues, the company restructured to account-based everything. It began by focusing its sales development efforts on key verticals and grew from four meetings per month to 25 meetings per month on target. Demand generation has also become more centralized. while delivering far fewer leads overall, it achieves four times the number of previous leads in key verticals. Market Dynamics Over the past 10 years, scaled revenue growth has been driven by inbound volume and velocity models. But for many companies, access, volume and velocity models have peaked, and they must now pursue targeted, account-based models to support growth. At a certain point, marketing cannot increase the growth rate of inbound lead volumes, so these companies must focus their efforts on new markets (usually the luxury market). Volume and velocity models cannot feed these new markets, and as a result they must shift to an account-based model. Proven Account-Based Results The modern version of the account-based movement is still new, but early adopters report that the programs are delivering impressive results, especially in terms of deal size metrics like ACV and LTV. For example, best-in-class account-based programs deliver a 75% increase in ACV and a 150% increase in LTV through account-based lead sales campaigns. The 5 defining features of Account Driven Everything are the coordination of personalized marketing, sales development, sales and customer success efforts to drive engagement and conversion of targeted accounts. It is defined by five attributes. 1. Targeted, high-value accounts Organizations maintain a defined ideal customer profile (ICP) and focus all of the organization’s efforts on ICP accounts. For example, an emerging ad tech company has built its entire revenue strategy around reaching and expanding into the world’s 50 largest consumer advertisers. 2. Data and Intelligence Driven Programs/Campaigns Data and intelligence are the lifeblood of account-driven programs. The key starts with having complete data on target accounts. Account intelligence shared across multiple organizations informs account personalization. 3. Orchestrate Marketing, Sales Development, Sales and Customer Support Organizations run multi-channel, multi-layered, multi-site campaigns to increase initial customer acquisition and ultimately up-sell/cross-sell revenue. 4. Valuable and personalized customer experiences In the volume and velocity model, there is no incentive for personalization and many marketing and sales nuances are built in. The basic volume of connections allows for low conversion rates. Account-based Everything is more limited in the number of accounts and requires providers to deliver relevant, personalized offers to these shoppers. 5. Systematic, High-Frequency/Working Outreach The entire organization is committed to maintaining high-contact, high-frequency campaigns until target accounts become customers over time. In the volume and velocity model, organizations view events collectively (how many people attended our webinar). In account-based everything, organizations plan and track activities for each target account. For example, “Over the next 12 months, we will run quarterly multi-tiered campaigns on a target account against 45 identified stakeholders.” The 77-element Account-Driven Everything Framework TOPO’s Account-Driven Everything Framework provides practitioners with a detailed review of winning strategies and tactics in developing account-based marketing, sales promotion, sales, and customer success programs. More details of the categories and items in the framework are as follows: Target accounts In volume and velocity marketing, programs are implemented for market segments where the company’s products are expected to be in demand. The focus is on getting enough buyers and influencers in these markets to fill the company’s demand funnel. In everything account-based, the focus is on interacting with specific named accounts to generate leads, pipeline, and revenue. The ICP defines the characteristics of the accounts that the company wants to attract, retain and develop. The process begins with identifying the ICP—the general characteristics of customers that best match the company’s revenue and business goals. It guides the list of target accounts and other key decisions during program execution, including defining ICP criteria, go-to-market strategy, media planning, hiring, messaging, gaming, and more. Involving key internal customer stakeholders at this stage creates a more accurate target list and promotes stronger organizational alignment. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Identify the common characteristics of accounts that a company is successful in attracting, attracting, closing and retaining business. Construct the ICP from three data sets: Qualitative inputs such as sales force feedback Internal data such as historical close/acquisition data by account type External data such as account level profitability Predictive customer satisfaction data/analysis Using these inputs to define ICP is premature Sales, aligning marketing and customer success. If these groups have different definitions of ICP, those differences must be resolved immediately, as ICP guides all other aspects of Account Driven Everything. In target accounts whose recipient characters match the ICP, it is imperative to identify common stakeholders and key compound types for each. The compositions, called buyer personas, describe the buyer’s daily activities, key challenges, career goals, role in the decision process, and other motivations for buying. This exercise also ensures that the resulting list adequately covers the target accounts, as marketing, SDRs, sales representatives, and customer success managers involve multiple stakeholders in each account. Target Account List The result of a well-defined ICP and detailed buyer persona criteria is a target account list that serves as the cornerstone of all Account Driven Everything activities. The list of target accounts includes: Named accounts that the company will include (new or existing) contacts that match the buyer persona criteria in these accounts; to attract target accounts. Build a revenue model that engages financial and executive support, creates a foundation for cross-functional alignment during project execution, and defines scalable processes and plays to guide the organization’s efforts. A winning strategy describes why the Account Driven Everything program is right for the company, how the program’s success will be measured, and how each stakeholder and participant will help the organization achieve that success. Revenue Model Account-Based Everything’s revenue model shows how investments in marketing and sales will increase revenue in targeted accounts. This includes evaluating key program outcomes such as transactions, revenue, lifetime value and acquisition costs. To build this model, evaluate leads and lead generation goals, sales development and sales force plans, funnel conversion rates, and ad spend metrics (such as CPM rates for list attachments, forwarded views, or email platforms). Corporate Compliance A successful account-driven everything program requires ongoing coordination between marketing, sales development, sales, customer success and executives. Part of the strategy is to ensure that this coordination is effective. Before starting a project, the cross-functional Account Driven Everything team must agree on project objectives and define roles during project implementation. It should also agree on the frequency and format of performance measurement and sharing of results. Anything account-based means change for an organization. This change will be reflected in the new functionality.