Mindy Servello

I have built and scaled ABM strategies at start ups with no SDR function to larger $250M+ ARR organizations with a very robust, global sales team. Although I can go many directions with this question, I will leave it at this - no matter the sales structure when first building an ABM strategy, find a sales person that you have built a great relationship with that is open minded and 'marketing friendly'. Run an ABM pilot together. You'll be able to show the lift in results from ABM and non-ABM accounts. Qualitative data speaks for itself. Once other members of the sales team hear about this, they will come to you to be included and the data allows a robust business case to justify further investment into ABM.

The most critical internal partners to include for an account based marketing strategy are departmental leaders, sales and, depending on the organization, various areas of the organization - ex: design, web, marketing operations. ABM is a true orchestration between many areas of the organization. Departmental leaders (ex: CMO, CRO) are a key factor in the success of an ABM strategy because they set the expectations of their team's participation. This allows for faster buy in because ABM is seen as a priority for the business and their department. While the ABM motion progresses, if the participation is not at expectations, the leaders can also be pulled in to reset expectations in their team pulling their weight. Sales is vital in driving a successful ABM motion within all three stages - strategy, execution and results analysis. When it comes to strategy, a foundational aspect of this is identifying the target audience - what account and who within them. I also find their feedback on messaging is very fruitful because they are the feet on the ground having conversations with prospects and customers. When sales and marketing are both pulling equal weight in an ABM motion, it creates one ship cruising in the same direction. When sales is not involved or an equal participant, they are both sailing ships in different directions which ultimately is't going to deliver business results. Lastly, having key stakeholders within various areas of the organization will set up an ABM motion to get to market smoothly. If this seems overwhelming, create an ABM delegates team where each departmental leader nominates an ABM point person. If a different person from creative, web or marketing ops is assigned to various asks for ABM, the experience can become disjointed and disrupt efficiency. This approach can drive faster speed to market, better organization between teams and a 'one team' mentality.

Intent data is vital to leverage within an ABM strategy because it can help marketers identify in-market accounts. 6Sense recently shared that 78% of high-intent accounts they surface to clients weren’t even in their CRM. That means without leveraging intent data, we are missing out of SO many potential target accounts (and ultimately revenue left on the table for competitors). This data needs to be brought into the foundational step of crafting the target account list with sales. They bring their list, you bring the intent-data and you work together to map out the final target account list. Through intent data we can also tailor messaging, adjust spend and shift priorities for those accounts that are in-market for your organizations solution. It allows us to work smarter, not harder. I believe understanding how to use this data and the importance of it will set you apart in the job market as an ABM marketer as well. For my own ABM strategy I have used first-party (my own org's data - web visits, form fills, etc.), second-party (sourced from another organization’s first-party data ex: G2, TrustRadius) and third-party (more below) intent data. I suggest researching each, but for a high level summary - To drill in on third-party intent data - this is owned by organizations outside of your own and allows access to information within the market you'd otherwise be blind to. For example, I have used both 6sense and Bombora to see what topics my target accounts are researching. If a target account is actively researching keywords that tie into business challenges that my company solves for - that's gold. I now know that they are aware of their business problem and that they are further into the buyer's journey than other target accounts. This is low hanging fruit compared to an account that is totally cold on relevant keyword research / unaware of the business problem your company solves for. Now you can tailor messaging, adjust spend and shift priorities for those accounts that are in-market for your organization's offering. Overall, it's a game changer to leverage and makes your GTM motion more strategic.

Since ABM extends beyond marketing, it is very important that stakeholders are equipped to share information about the motion to their own teams. How you approach this can depend on the communication preferences/tools within the organization. That said, one way impactful way that anyone reading this can take with them is to create a deck that has all strategy (STP - segmentation, targeting and positioning), key messaging, target account list links, creatives, channel mix, results to date and more. This sounds basic, but sometimes basic is best! We don't need to overcomplicate. This deck will allow stakeholders to have all the information needed to share details on the ABM motion with their own leader, directs or wider team.

If this is asking how to identify the right target accounts, that is a collaboration between marketing and sales. This is a critical, foundational step when crafting a GTM ABM strategy. The two biggest ABM missteps I see are - 1. marketing working in a silo on their own target account list 2. marketing just taking sales target account list and running with it There should be a collaborative conversation between marketing and sales where sales brings their target account list and marketing brings intent data. While there will always be target accounts sales must breakthrough with to to make or break their quarter, marketing can bring other accounts to the table based off intent data. 6Sense recently shared that 78% of high-intent accounts they surface aren't in their client's CRM. Not even on their radar! That shows just how much potential revenue is missed if we go solely on sale's target accounts. Intent data brought from marketing will also inform how we decide to prioritize the accounts within ABM tiers - 1:1, 1:Few and 1:Many.

A marketing organization that is set on a traditional waterfall for KPIs (ex: AQL, MQL, etc.) will need to adjust metrics for an ABM approach. This does not mean the entire org needs to rip and replace their current success metrics, but when it comes to the specific ABM motion, it should be held to a different funnel than a traditional demand generation motion. The funnel structure I like to start with is as follows - 1. Identify: This is the holding pen for accounts that are identified to go to market, but have yet to launch. For example, if you are expanding into a new vertical like healthcare, having this holding pen is great when communicating what is to come to executives and other company leaders. 2. Surround: This represents the accounts currently surrounded with ABM tactics in market, but have yet to engage with those channels. 3. Engage: This represents the accounts that have our ICPs engaged, but have yet to hand raise to connect with sales. Leveraging an ABM tools like 6sense or DemandBase is great for this reporting. 4. Breakthrough: This represents the accounts that have hand raised to speak with sales. The funnel doesn't just end here. It's vital for the ABM owner to ensure these meetings occur, give guidance to sales on multi-threading in order to drive more penetration within the account and also have a strategy in place when a meeting doesn't end up coming to fruition. The above funnel is a starting point and can be tailored to a particular organization or even a PL motion. Having north star KPIs per funnel is important - ex: how many accounts are you benchmarking to breakthrough with? Overall, when proving out an ABM approach, compare the results between ABM accounts and non-ABM accounts. More often then not, you'll see a large lift in SDR efficiency, buying committee awareness, account engagement, meetings set and pipeline/ARR/revenue.

When it comes to net-new logos and expanding within current customers, the key differences are within two areas - brand awareness and a key point-of-contact (POC). When expanding within current customers, the brand awareness is there whereas it is not for net-new logos. Net-new logo target accounts required greater brand awareness efforts compared to expansion plays. With expansion, rather than needing to educate the audience on your brand, you may be able to start further funnel with generating awareness of the business problem that this particular expanded product offering solves for the ICPs within the target account. The caveat here is when the GTM motion sells into many different buying centers. When selling into many buying centers, you may need to assume that there actually is no brand awareness and treat the strategy as you would with a "net-new logo acquisition" play. A huge benefit when driving an ABM expansion motion is that you have a POC within the account you're targeting. You could leverage this relationship for internal introductions or creative ideas like an internally hosted webinar just for their organization that hits on the business pain points your company solves for. It's a huge bonus if this person is a passionate champion of your solution.

Trust is just as vital in B2B as it is in B2C. I think trust is built with many factors and having a great corporate marketing function greatly helps, but one main driver that demand generation can focus on is validity. Specific third-parties and customers are great for showcasing your organizations validity, competence and capability. For third-parties - analysts quickly show the validity of your company and product which increases trust. Prospects/customers already have trust built with certain analyst firms like Gartner. So when they see your org as a leader within a Gartner Magic Quadrant - trust increases. Another example is channel marketing. When you can tie your brand with another reputable brand/leader, you can capitalize off the trust they have already worked to build. For example, if you have an integration with Hubspot - try to collaborate on co-marketing materials like joint display ads to drive awareness, joint webinar where you can tap into their database, etc. This is a huge opportunity that I have seen many businesses look over in the early days. Leveraging a customer voice really moves the trust needle. Whether through testimonials on your website, customer case studies, customers at speaking in-person or virtual events that prospects are also in attendance of and/or leveraging awards from platforms like G2 your marketing mix - elevating the customer voice whenever and wherever you can build trust. So in summary - always elevate customer voices, leverage channel/technical partnerships where possible and incorporate key analyst firms.

Before getting to results, there should be an expectation set with the demand generation team that everything must have a hypothesis crafted before going to market. Then you report on that. I have found many marketers do not do this foundational step which can result in just doing work for works sake, not really knowing if something really performed to expectation and data dumps are the norm rather than clearly articulated expectations vs. results. Having a hypothesis crafted allows this tactic to have a purpose, allows you to triage the health quickly and zero in on learnings. If you thought it was going to do X, but it did Y - is that good or bad? What do you do next?

Before going to market, I believe any strong demand generation practitioner or leader needs the segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) crafted. An STP is a three-part formula to help marketers segment their audience, target the right buyers and/or influencers and position their solutions in a way to make the biggest impact. An STP will allow demand generation to understand who (company and person) they are targeting and what they are saying to them. Not only that, but it drives alignment between demand generation, product/solution marketing, sales and marketing leadership. Crafting an STP requires collaboration between these groups and (in an ideal world) it is driven based off focus groups, customer conversations and data so that there is confidence in it. When this fundamental step is skipped, I find that there is misalignment between who we should be going after and what we should be saying to them. The alignment driven by the STP process allows for everyone to be on the same page, demand generation can stay on strategy because there actually is one and demand generation practitioners get confident in who they are targeting and why - leaving less reliance on solution marketing which drives business efficiency. My guidance would be to research STPs and build your framework out from there.