Account Based Marketing (ABM) is a common marketing strategy to target the right accounts and convert them into customers. According to a global survey of more than 500 B2B tech marketers, enthusiasm for ABM is evident with 91% of businesses running programs for at least six months. Four industry-leading marketing executives to discuss how their company’s ABM approach has transformed their marketing strategy:
- Andrea Cruz López, Associate Director of Digital Marketing at KO Marketing
- Rodolpho Fidalgo, Director of National Marketing at UiPath
- Nancy Harlan, VP of ABM & Customer Marketing at UiPath
- Rebecca Przybyla, Head of Campaigns & Partnerships at Cloudreach
Building the Right TAL (Target Account List)
Consensus is in, ABM tactics create a better experience for your prospects. One of the first steps Cloudreach takes is gathering audience knowledge to build the right ABM list. Rebecca Przybyla shares “we’ve compiled the necessary research, persona/vertical mapping and insights gleaned from historical data to fully define and understand our target accounts’ overall challenges, organizational structure, and their unique roles, responsibilities, challenges and how we can help.”
Nancy Harlan from UiPath echoes the importance of data when defining top accounts. “From intent data, benchmarking data, competitive and market position analysis, executive insights and historical and projected spend, our data and intelligence guide us as to what accounts, what departments/divisions and what individuals we should be targeting to drive expansion and capture the greatest share of spend.”
This information can come from first-party data based on the individuals coming to your site or you can work with a partner to understand which accounts are showing strong interest in your specific tech category. Andrea Cruz López goes deeper, explaining, “considering we are moving closer to a cookie less world, the data we own or the data we can collect through the users visiting our sites is going to make all the difference moving forward.” As you look to enhance and refine your TAL and marketing activities, ABM lets you test audiences and creative.
Marketing & Sales Collaboration is Essential for ABM Success
“ABM has been in motion for decades; the term has just become more popular in the last couple of years. Sales and Marketing have been working together since the beginning of times to target their prospects,” shared Rodolpho Fidalgo. He believes ABM has enhanced this partnership, saying “with the advancement of technology and targeting we have seen more direct messaging being sent to accounts which allows the marketing and sales team to be even more aligned.”
UiPath has ingrained the important of collaboration and begins the conversation with the entire account team, including sales, customer success, value engineering and beyond to set account goals and expansion efforts. Harlan shares, “the ABMer is part of QBR’s to update leadership on what they have accomplished, the impact and next steps in the ABM calendar.” And UiPath is not alone in this thinking.
Cloudreach has just undergone a massive operational and strategy shift to align marketing and sales more closely to ensure the sales team stays engaged and share regional insights from the field. Przybyla shared four shifts her team made for ABM success:
- Realigned roles to have direct dependencies and responsibilities for tight sales/marketing relationships.
- Built a model to identify sales and marketing generated activities.
- Employed a planning and reporting structure based on regional sales priorities.
- Rebuilt collaboration and cadence structures to align sellers, marketing, product, and other stakeholders ensure goals are met and the team remains agile based on response.
Celebrating ABM Successes & Preparing for 2022
As 2021 ends, it is important to reflect on the achievements that came to fruition and to prepare for the changes or growth expected for the new year. For UiPath, a new ABM team, under the leadership of Nancy Harlan, is already delivering expertise as they continue to build their infrastructure and future ABM plans. Fidalgo looks forward to using the ABM approach for more accounts. Cloudreach’s Rebecca Przybyla proudly acknowledges the unwavering nature of their marketing team and their ability to always get the campaign planned, live and generating results. In 2022, the implementation of new ABM tools promises to expand and enrich Cloudreach’s efforts. Andrea Cruz López looks forward to increasing KoMarketing’s campaigns that target the top and middle of the funnel to obtain data and insights around the users interested in specific services and products as well as obtaining insight that will enhance advertising effectiveness.
The ABM approach looks different for every company, but the insight gained are always valuable. Interested in fine tuning your ABM strategy? Check out 4 Essential Elements to Incorporate into your ABM Strategy. Don’t forget, that you are not alone in the journey as the cookieless future becomes a reality. IDG and our ABM (Triblio) and intent (KickFire) platforms can scale your data insights and reach.
