Adam Goyette, VP of Marketing at Helpscout, once mentioned: There seems to be this thought that ABM is a silver bullet. Run some display ads, send some direct mail and do some targeted gifting, But these are just tactics. It’s not what ABM should be about.
Peter Zawistowicz, Director of Growth Marketing at Gremlin, once stated that ABM became the flag under which we deploy flashy, expensive, and often ineffective tactics, all in the name of driving up engagement.
As the technology evolved, ABM’s definition became diluted, and ABM programs have become account-based awareness, account-based advertising, and account-based lead gen programs. In this episode, Kristina Jaramillo talks to Nick Bennett, Director of ABM and Field Marketing for Alyce, about what ABM is and how it should be a company-wide initiative to increase average account value, decrease time to close, improve win rates and reduce churn along the complete buyer’s journey, and customer lifecycle. You will see how Alyce is using ABM to improve its interactions with tier 1 accounts and ultimately drive stronger revenue growth.
Here Are the Key Points to Remember From This Podcast with Alyce’s Nick Bennett
- ABM needs to be a company-wide initiative and you need company-wide support to impact more than the pipeline and to grow in the same direction. ABM should focus on increasing average account value, decreasing time to close, improving win rates and reducing churn along the complete buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle. To achieve this, teams need to go beyond sales and marketing alignment and become integrated. You need a team approach.
- Sales and marketing’s desire to scale is limiting revenue performance. The more we try to scale, the more ABM becomes account-based demand gen and account-based lead gen. The more we scale, the less intimate we become with key accounts and buyers that can provide the greatest revenue lift. When you listen to this podcast, you’ll learn how Nick Bennett and Alyce focuses most of his time on improving the interactions they’re having with tier 1 accounts and the experiences they’re delivering. This is important as Alyce is looking to go up-market. By focusing on interactions and creating the right moments, Alyce created more deals in the last 90 days than they ever did in a 6-month period.
- There is a difference between personalized ABM and personal ABM. When you’re personalized, you’re still campaign-based and you’re still speaking at accounts and at buyers as you may add some info about the company but then go back to general persona pain points. When you’re personal, you speak to and with accounts and buyers where each interaction is focused on the buyer, their strategic priorities, their needs, their business challenges and their unconsidered gaps and impacts. Personalization may work with accounts that are already looking at you but you need to get personal to create a buying vision with the 60% of the accounts that are stuck in status quo. Sales and marketing needs to increase their relevance across all levels as ABM requires absolute customer obsession.
