How an effective ABM

strategy can help

companies turn sales
and marketing teams
into a well-oiled
revenue machine

Key findings:

How account-based marketing can help with

effective sales and marketing alignment

What steps to undertake to bring sales and

marketing teams to the next more synced level

What the role of technology is in creating sales

and marketing synergy and driving revenues
01
Account-based marketing (ABM) has become one of the enablers to target companies
and buying personas who are most likely to be successful with your products or services.
Moreover, a successful ABM strategy can help organizations to significantly grow
revenue, connect the dots between marketing and sales, and enhance interactions with
customers and prospects.
To successfully operationalize an ABM initiative and maximize the benefits, the approach

Account-based
requires not only a new set of steps and methods, but a new point of view on the
collaboration between marketing and sales pros.

marketing as
the key enabler 97% of respondents said ABM had somewhat
higher or much higher ROI than other
marketing initiatives. (Altera Group)
41% of B2B marketers plan to increase ABM
spending. (eMarketer)

of sales and 92% of B2B marketers consider ABM 83% of companies using ABM say the biggest
benefit is increased engagement with

marketing
extremely and very important to target accounts.
overall marketing efforts. (SiriusDecisions)

60% When ABM has been in use for at least

alignment 84% of B2B marketers believe ABM provides

significant benefits for retaining and
expanding current relationships.
(SiriusDecisions)
a year, 60% of users reported a revenue
increase of at least 10% & 19% reported
a revenue impact of 30% or greater.
(Forbes)

1/2 of all companies currently have ABM pilot

96% of B2B marketers say ABM is the key to
programs in place. (SiriusDecisions) their success. (Demand Metric)

20% Only 20% have had an ABM strategy

in place for more than a year.
71% of B2B organizations interested in
adopting ABM are testing it or alerady
(SiriusDecisions) using it. (Demand Metric)
 Today with more knowledgeable and self-directed buyers, customers have become new market

02
makers and are reshaping industries by changing the way businesses compete and win. As a
result, successful companies are those who quickly and effectively respond to rapidly changing
customer needs and demands. This requires flipping over the sales and marketing funnels and
putting a customer at the heart. Targeting high-value accounts is the prerogative of a successful
marketing strategy and guarantor of an increased number of closed deals.
For this reason, the core cannon of ABM is to get the two teams work hand-in-hand to accurately
create a list of target accounts and then efficiently work them in tandem throughout the lifecycle of

Flipping over
deals.

sales and
marketing
funnels to meet
the needs of
knowledgeable
customers Nearly two-third of B2B marketers identified
engaging key decision makers as their top priority.
(Forrester Research)
A fully developed ABM strategy enables marketers
to engage key personas at target companies,
which is why more than 80% say that ABM
outperforms other marketing initiatives. (ITSMA)

It is critically important for both teams to start thinking about the customer first and ask
customer-related questions: who are your target customers? Which companies would you
TIP like to turn into your loyal customers? What is your 'best-fit criteria? Make it as clear and
understandable for both teams as you can. As a result, your sales and marketing pros would
have well-defined and hyper-targeted marketing messages.
 To maximize a businesss bottom line and secure the success of ABM initiative, both marketing

03
and sales strategies need to be centered around common objectives. With marketing goals
becoming more closely tied to revenue, marketers find themselves more and more involved in
mid-to-later-cycle activities. For this reason, a clear understanding of objectives is essential for
both teams. Forward-thinking companies gear their marketing strategies toward sales-related
targets. With sales and marketing aligned, organizations can build a strategy that encompasses
multiple elements of marketing and sales interactions that directly impact the organizations ability
to drive revenues. Sharing common goals, having complete visibility of lead-to-revenue processes
as well as unifying formal core definitions can result in an increased number of closed mega

Unified goals deals and bring tangible results to the organization.

True involvement means regular meeting of sales and marketing professionals under one roof to

as the warrant set together the common goals and build mutual understanding of metrics and objectives, number
of accounts in the funnel, and define their work approaches. As a result, marketers steadily
increase their involvement deeper into the lead-to-revenue cycle naturally taking on activities

of deep traditionally handled by sales.

and trustful
82% of CMOs have goals that directly tie to
50% ABM directly addresses sales-marketing

collaboration
revenue and profit. (Forrester) alignment, challenging the 50% of sales time
wasted on productive prospecting. (101
B2B Marketing and Sales Tips)
10% Sales teams in companies not using ABM

of sales and are 10% more likely to rate the quality of

marketing-generated leads negatively.
70% of ABM-focused companies have mostly
or completely aligned sales and marketing

marketing teams 208% Companies generate 208% more revenue

for their marketing efforts. (MarketingPros)
teams. (MarketingProfs)

Before becoming closely aligned, marketing and sales must agree on what they consider
to be a target and qualified lead, or a marketing qualified lead (MQL). Once defined, it
is advisable to calculate each team's performance metrics and evaluate the results of the
TIP two departments on a weekly basis. If the sales team provides better feedback, this will
help marketers further understand their target audience and prioritize their efforts by
focusing on the quality of leads, not only quantity. It can enable both teams to get the best
results with minimal effort.
04
Not only is it crucial to know customers needs but, what is more pivotal for a successful
ABM strategy, to determine a target audience. Mapping out the key target accounts and
accurately categorizing them when entering the funnel is key to guaranteeing a successful
and effective ABM strategy. ABM is effective when youre targeting a few hundred rather
than a few thousand accounts. Define your audience of accounts and identify the right
buying personas and influencers to target with campaigns. List building can be done in
a variety of ways, including purchasing lists of emails from list vendors, or 3rd party data
providers. Linkedin is a great resource, and there is a plenty of resources available to
Accurate target develop your targeted lead list. Once you have your target companies and individuals, you
can use tools like Hunter.io to collect contact information like email addresses.

account list With the help of a data system and the attributes recorded there, marketing teams are
empowered with the right information and are enabled to target accounts with tailored and

building and personalized marketing campaigns and messages. This results in increased conversion
rates, lower churn, and higher customer satisfaction. To achieve this, it only requires a

segmentation as collaborative and effective communication between sales and marketing pros.
Communicating clearly and regularly ensures that none of high-valued accounts is missed out.

the prerogatives
of an effective
ABM initiative 49% Communication (49%), broken or flawed
processes (42%), and different metrics
(40%) are main challenges to aligning sales
66% say lack of accurate shared data on target
customer accounts is the biggest challenge
to aligning sale and marketing. (InsideView)
and marketing. (InsideView)

As successful use cases show, it is advisable for accurate list building and segmenting of
target accounts to employ intelligent data system that is repository of relevant and up-to-
TIP date information about the accounts and important decision makers. Reliable data lays the
foundation for personalized communication with each account and thus will greatly
increase the effectiveness of your campaigns.
 With digital savvy and self-directed customers, communication has become a pivotal tool to build

05
trust. Moreover, todays interlinked communication ecosystem sets new rules to reach out
customers. There is not one channel, but the intertwined bundle of various digital communication
platforms to talk to prospect, and the conversation can be everywhere. For this reason, its
important to coordinate between digital, online and offline communication channels to listen
to a customers voice and needs.
The goal should be to bring awareness to your product and brand, and then appear to be
everywhere the prospect turns. Its important to coordinate between email, landing pages, and

Omnichannel
blog articles not only for content, but to cookie and track each visitor. Once a prospect has a
cookie and is engaged, retargeting is simple. Keep in mind that unlike traditional display ads,
retargeting ads are highly targeted and less expensive because of the narrow, well defined

communication audience target - rather than. Social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin enable specific
audience targeting. Remember to evolve the message as the buyer progresses through the

as the key
funnel, so the messaging is relevant to the buying stage if possible.
For sales and marketing pros to establish fruitful and reliable communication with high-valued
accounts not only they should have the tools, but also they should be aligned themselves around

fundamental the common messages they share with their customers. No disruption of communication flow is
allowed.

of sales and
marketing On average in North America, it takes 16 marketing

16 VS 8 touches to close new business, while abroad it only

alignment and takes 8 marketing touches to close a deal

satisfied customer
Experts highly advise the utilization of tools that enable effective communication with the
prospect and future-to-be high-valued accounts. Employ various communication channels:

TIP email, landing pages, and blog articles or phone calls to track each visitor. Moreover, it is
essential to employ the tools to ensure that your both teams are informed up-to-date and
constantly in communication about the customers needs. Live chats are effective in
capturing early stage prospects and accelerating them through the funnel to close a deal.
06
Living in the digital age, data has become a paramount need that high performing
companies strive to achieve. Streamlined data is also critical to ABM success, since
it helps companies to determine which accounts to target and informs how sales and
marketing pros should collaboratively pursue them.
A clean and accurate database encompasses a total addressable market that both
teams aimed for as it provides essential and high-priced customer data to inform
account selection, insights, and engagement strategies. Intelligent Customer
Customer data Relationship Management (CRM) platform becomes a valuable repository of data
capturing every move of a customer: collecting a history of communications, customer

and technology buying patterns, or its tracks on the companys website and on the Internet, etc. CRM
has become an essential key to giving marketing and sales teams the closed-loop

are enablers of insight they need to coordinate their activities and drive revenue. As a result, this
intelligent tool transforms marketing and sales departments.

effective ABM
strategy and
aligned sales 20% Companies with aligned sales and
marketing departments are 20% more
74% Among organizations that use both marketing
automation and CRM as part of an integrated

and marketing
likely to use marketing automation than technology stack, 74% reported aligned sales
non-aligned companies. (Ascend2) and marketing teams. (DemandGen)

It is recommend to choose a CRM solution that allows for easily automating

core sales and marketing processes while also boosting operational efficiency.
TIP Employing cutting-edge CRM solution enables synergy between sales and
marketing tools by making everything visible, creating clarity and enhancing
communication between both teams.
Conclusion
Marketing and sales alignment is increasingly important for high performing
organizations. Account-based marketing changes the way marketing and sales work
together. In the past, the focus of the marketing department was mainly on top
of funnel activities, while sales pros drove the account selection and strategy.
However, today marketers are getting more involved in target selection and
developing the strategy for top-tier accounts. An effective ABM strategy becomes
a paramount agent turning marketing and sales teams into a revenue generating
machine by facilitating their alignment better, delivering shorter time in funnel and
more mega deals.
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