Sixty-nine percent of ABM programs are seeing revenue underperformance because most GTM teams and their agencies retrofitted ABM into existing systems and processes. They’re not making changes to:
- The interactions that GTM teams have with the human buyers in accounts they want to win, protect and expand.
- The account experience across the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle.
- Their approach to content.
They focused on efficient growth vs. efficient and effective growth. And, they’re just doing demand gen as usual, just more targeted. In fact, in recent conversations with CMOs, VPs of Marketing and even ABM leaders, I’ve heard that:
❌ ABM is a subset of your demand gen strategy
❌ ABM should be performing under the umbrella demand gen function for x% of your target audience.
❌ ABM fits in both demand gen and demand capture buckets.
ABM is not demand gen or demand capture
As depicted in the picture below that I borrowed from George Coudounaris (Host of the B2B Playbook Podcast in Sydney), demand gen fixes the pipeline. Demand gen is about building an intense desire in your Ideal Customer to make a change in their business and operations. It’s about qualifying accounts to ensure they that they are part of your active ICP (engaged with your content and there is a trigger/strategic priority in place) so #GTM teams focus on the high value accounts that will predictably lead to a high-revenue close.
However, ABM is much more personal.
It’s not about sourcing the pipeline. ABM is about identifying and engaging those who are already displaying some form of intent (that has come about from demand gen). We take the data and prioritize accounts based on their engagement and if there is a strategic priority or trigger. We look for the why behind the engagement and intent and now make interactions and experiences personal to those accounts (based on account intelligence) to move them forward.
ABM takes the relationship to the next level and expands that demand across the organization. It helps GTM teams have the right interactions to accelerate accounts to revenue and to protect/expand existing high-value accounts. It helps make the buying journey toward revenue as linear as possible as it brings GTM teams together to overcome the struggling moments that sit at the heart of every new, retention, and #expansion deal. It’s about accelerating demand, capturing a higher ACV and driving stronger ARR, GRR and NRR.
Click here to learn about our personal account-based approach.
Uniphore struggled to move $500K deals forward with tier 1 banks.
Because ABM is being treated like demand gen, many Demandbase, Terminus, 6sense, RollWorks, Triblio and Madison Logic customers are struggling with accounts going dark after initial engagement especially when sales get involved. This is exactly what happened with Uniphore – a conversational AI and call center platform that focuses on the digital experience, the customer experience, and the agent experience.
Uniphore came to Personal ABM because they were building a pipeline of accounts using Demandbase but they were challenged with accounts going dark. This was happening because:
- There was limited alignment with the tier 1 banks they wanted to win. Their content and messaging spoke to industries and personas vs. specific accounts, specific buyers and their strategic priorities, gaps and impacts.
- The GTM teams lacked relevance (content and messaging was not resonating as it didn’t tell the account’s specific story)
- They weren’t targeting the right people – and engaging mobilizers that can rally teams around big ideas that can move the company forward.
- They were not influencing the internal conversations that were happening which involved blockers that are in love with the status quo.
- The buyers were in a state of indecision due to their fear of failure. They were stuck in the wasteland between intent and action as their minds are swirling with all the things that can go wrong. Our client did not create an environment and an experience where the buyers were uncomfortable with their current state but also comfortable in making a decision.
Because they were taking a demand gen approach to ABM, the GTM teams slipped into a zone where they were just disseminating thought leadership and being top of mind. They wound up sending out content that was confirmatory. They showed prospects that they are smart, up to date on the latest issues and trends, and that Uniphore is a savvy, knowledgeable organization.
But they didn’t sell and market change. They didn’t show future and existing customers that they were missing something. The content spoke to the things that prospects already know about what’s keeping them up at night vs. what should be keeping them up at night. They missed the commercial insight that’s needed to change the buyer’s thoughts on their specific approach, process, gaps, and impacts. They missed the commercial insight that’s needed to uncover the specific big risks that buyers have not thought about before and unseen opportunities. They missed the commercial insight that’s needed to cut through the thought leadership noise because it’s provocative, it’s relevant, and it tells the buyers their story vs. a generalized industry story.
How Uniphore’s GTM teams were misaligned with their target accounts…
Bank of America (one of their target accounts) had a huge IT team that developed, integrated and is now expanding the capabilities of its own AI virtual assistant system named Erica. They have hundreds of AI patents. Awareness and generic “consideration” content and messaging would not move this account forward.
But that’s the content the team was delivering.
They focused content and interactions based on the buying journey: (awareness, consideration, purchase) vs. what the GTM teams will need to do to win the account (create demand, capture demand, progress demand, convert demand a.k.a close deals, retain demand and expand demand.) At best the company’s awareness content was thought curation and at its worst it was thought regurgitation. There was no clear POV. There was no teaching for differentiation. There was no driving change with status quo accounts and with those that would take in all the free information they can and then see how they can do it in-house.
The content, messaging and interactions did not show Bank of America that the GTM team understood gaps in the bank’s current system and how it’s creating challenges within our client’s focused use cases: collections, complaints management, and compliance. They didn’t show the bank that they understand:
- The bank’s strategic vision
- Their product roadmap for Erica
- The desires of the bank’s 8 different lines of business.
- The impact that our client can have.
- Why the bank should outsource vs. spend time and resources on having their internal team implement the changes that our clients would make.
They needed account intelligence to guide content, messaging, and interactions.
Through our deep account research, we learned that not only was Bank of America investing heavily into their self-serve platform, but they also invested in virtual reality to train agents and in voice of customer programs to get the feedback they need to improve the customer experience. But everything was siloed and Bank of America was not bridging the gap between the digital experience and the live experience that customers would receive on the phone and in the banking centers.
Bank of America wasn’t bridging the gap between the customer experience and the agent experience as they did not have the conversational AI and in-call guidance that would help agents follow the best practices they learned during the training to respond to their banking customers’ struggling moments. There were no processes in place to ensure that the feedback that Bank of America received from customers was being acted upon by the agents.
Uniphore wasn’t leveraging these insights in their content, messaging and interactions to drive the “why change” conversation and create a buying vision.
Click here for information on our account intelligence program.
By aligning with key accounts and changing their content, interactions, account experiences, Uniphore went from accounts going dark to closing $500K deals.
Uniphore needed to drive greater personal relevance. teach for differentiation through stories (vs. making baseless claims), make an emotional connection, reframe thoughts and ideas, and show a new way. They needed to change their interactions, the account experiences they delivered, their content and their thoughts on what ABM is as they were still doing ABM the old way.
Click here to learn about our account-based enablement program that will have you rethinking ABM.
Sixty-nine percent of ABM programs are seeing revenue underperformance because most GTM teams and their agencies retrofitted ABM into existing systems and processes. They’re not making changes to:
- The interactions that GTM teams have with the human buyers in accounts they want to win, protect and expand.
- The account experience across the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle.
- Their approach to content.
They focused on efficient growth vs. efficient and effective growth. And, they’re just doing demand gen as usual, just more targeted. In fact, in recent conversations with CMOs, VPs of Marketing and even ABM leaders, I’ve heard that:
❌ ABM is a subset of your demand gen strategy
❌ ABM should be performing under the umbrella demand gen function for x% of your target audience.
❌ ABM fits in both demand gen and demand capture buckets.
ABM is not demand gen or demand capture
As depicted in the picture below that I borrowed from George Coudounaris (Host of the B2B Playbook Podcast in Sydney), demand gen fixes the pipeline. Demand gen is about building an intense desire in your Ideal Customer to make a change in their business and operations. It’s about qualifying accounts to ensure they that they are part of your active ICP (engaged with your content and there is a trigger/strategic priority in place) so #GTM teams focus on the high value accounts that will predictably lead to a high-revenue close.
However, ABM is much more personal.
It’s not about sourcing the pipeline. ABM is about identifying and engaging those who are already displaying some form of intent (that has come about from demand gen). We take the data and prioritize accounts based on their engagement and if there is a strategic priority or trigger. We look for the why behind the engagement and intent and now make interactions and experiences personal to those accounts (based on account intelligence) to move them forward.
ABM takes the relationship to the next level and expands that demand across the organization. It helps GTM teams have the right interactions to accelerate accounts to revenue and to protect/expand existing high-value accounts. It helps make the buying journey toward revenue as linear as possible as it brings GTM teams together to overcome the struggling moments that sit at the heart of every new, retention, and #expansion deal. It’s about accelerating demand, capturing a higher ACV and driving stronger ARR, GRR and NRR.
Click here to learn about our personal account-based approach.
Uniphore struggled to move $500K deals forward with tier 1 banks.
Because ABM is being treated like demand gen, many Demandbase, Terminus, 6sense, RollWorks, Triblio and Madison Logic customers are struggling with accounts going dark after initial engagement especially when sales get involved. This is exactly what happened with Uniphore – a conversational AI and call center platform that focuses on the digital experience, the customer experience, and the agent experience.
Uniphore came to Personal ABM because they were building a pipeline of accounts using Demandbase but they were challenged with accounts going dark. This was happening because:
- There was limited alignment with the tier 1 banks they wanted to win. Their content and messaging spoke to industries and personas vs.
- The GTM teams lacked relevance (content and messaging was not resonating as it didn’t tell the account’s specific story)
- They weren’t targeting the right people – and engaging mobilizers that can rally teams around big ideas that can move the company forward.
- They were not influencing the internal conversations that were happening which involved blockers that are in love with the status quo.
- The buyers were in a state of indecision due to their fear of failure. They were stuck in the wasteland between intent and action as their minds are swirling with all the things that can go wrong. Our client did not create an environment and an experience where the buyers were uncomfortable with their current state but also comfortable in making a decision.
Because they were taking a demand gen approach to ABM, the GTM teams slipped into a zone where they were just disseminating thought leadership and being top of mind. They wound up sending out content that was confirmatory. They showed prospects that they are smart, up to date on the latest issues and trends, and that Uniphore is a savvy, knowledgeable organization.
But they didn’t sell and market change. They didn’t show future and existing customers that they were missing something. The content spoke to the things that prospects already know about what’s keeping them up at night vs. what should be keeping them up at night. They missed the commercial insight that’s needed to change the buyer’s thoughts on their specific approach, process, gaps, and impacts. They missed the commercial insight that’s needed to uncover the specific big risks that buyers have not thought about before and unseen opportunities. They missed the commercial insight that’s needed to cut through the thought leadership noise because it’s provocative, it’s relevant, and it tells the buyers their story vs. a generalized industry story.
How Uniphore’s GTM teams were misaligned with their target accounts…
Bank of America (one of their target accounts) had a huge IT team that developed, integrated and is now expanding the capabilities of its own AI virtual assistant system named Erica. They have hundreds of AI patents. Awareness and generic “consideration” content and messaging would not move this account forward.
But that’s the content the team was delivering.
They focused content and interactions based on the buying journey: (awareness, consideration, purchase) vs. what the GTM teams will need to do to win the account (create demand, capture demand, progress demand, convert demand a.k.a close deals, retain demand and expand demand.) At best the company’s awareness content was thought curation and at its worst it was thought regurgitation. There was no clear POV. There was no teaching for differentiation. There was no driving change with status quo accounts and with those that would take in all the free information they can and then see how they can do it in-house.
The content, messaging and interactions did not show Bank of America that the GTM team understood gaps in the bank’s current system and how it’s creating challenges within our client’s focused use cases: collections, complaints management, and compliance. They didn’t show the bank that they understand:
- The bank’s strategic vision
- Their product roadmap for Erica
- The desires of the bank’s 8 different lines of business.
- The impact that our client can have.
- Why the bank should outsource vs. spend time and resources on having their internal team implement the changes that our clients would make.
They needed account intelligence to guide content, messaging, and interactions. Through our deep account research, we learned that not only was Bank of America investing heavily into their self-serve platform, but they also invested in virtual reality to train agents and in voice of customer programs to get the feedback they need to improve the customer experience. But everything was siloed and Bank of America was not bridging the gap between the digital experience and the live experience that customers would receive on the phone and in the banking centers. They weren’t bridging the gap between the customer experience and the agent experience as they did not have the conversational AI and in-call guidance that would help agents follow the best practices they learned during the training to respond to their banking customers’ struggling moments. There were no processes in place to ensure that the feedback that Bank of America received from customers was being acted upon by the agents.
Click here for information on our account intelligence program.
By aligning with key accounts and changing their content, interactions, account experiences, Uniphore went from accounts going dark to closing $500K deals.
Uniphore needed to drive greater personal relevance. teach for differentiation through stories (vs. making baseless claims), make an emotional connection, reframe thoughts and ideas, and show a new way. They needed to change their interactions, the account experiences they delivered, their content and their thoughts on what ABM is as they were still doing ABM the old way.
