by KAMIL REXTIN for 42 Slash

42/ MINIS

Account Based What?

KAMIL REXTIN

MAY 11, 2023

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Marketers are doing mental gymnastics, trying to define and redefine ABM. Then vendors are falling over themselves to sell new technologies at 100,000 price tags so ‘marketers can do ABM’ – But… it doesn’t have to be that complicated. 

ABM is simply ‘selling to your top 10-50 dream accounts’, and the irony is that marketing *is not* in the driver’s seat. Sales is. 

Fluffy theory aside, if you are asked to *put together* an ABM campaign or plan by your CXO tomorrow. What do you even do? Where do you even start? 

We hope this helps:

• Don’t panic. Keep Calm: ABM can sound complicated and scary, but it can be more straightforward. Sit down with your sales team, and understand who they’re trying to sell to.
• Start small: Run a pilot with 1 BDR & 1 Marketer & 5 accounts.
• Build a list of accounts: ABM is only good as your target account list. Ensure you don’t include folks who will never buy or are not a fit for what you sell. For example, if you are selling sales software and the company doesn’t have a sales team.
• Do account research: Create an Account Planning Template that outlines who they are, key stakeholders, backgrounds, and potential warm intros + company priorities.
• Align your systems & measurement to the account-based model. You can absolutely still generate *leads* but from the target accounts.
• Don’t worry about intent data, ABM platforms, or IP-based Ads. Upload your account list to Zoominfo to target specific accounts & drive engagement, lead & web visits—Re-market on Search / Display and Social.
• Leverage events to get F2F time with prospects (both new & existing pipeline)
• Design thumb-stopping creatives customized for each account.

ABM is a sales activity. Marketing needs to surround its market with its messaging and appear like *you are everywhere* – the above is an oversimplified ABM list of tactics. You can go deeper into custom content, OOH direct mail, field marketing, outbound, and social selling (the list goes on and on). 

You can deploy tech and resources as you scale and prove your success, but never start with *I can’t do ABM because I need X tool*. Measurement can be based on net new leads from target accounts, connect rates with BDR outbound, and “engaged accounts” + pipeline velocity.