Twice in a row, Angie Assennato, Senior Director of Growth Marketing at Signifyd, came into a marketing team that was already doing ABM but was getting limited returns. In this podcast, she discusses with Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber the challenges they had, the reasons behind the failing programs, and how intent data/ABM tech was not effectively being leveraged. As leadership at Signifyd also wants to go upmarket, we also discuss the changes that need to be made to engage and close higher-value deals.
Here Are the Key Learning Points From This Podcast with Angie:
1) Your ABM success will be dependent on the organization’s perspective of what ABM is and if you can get buy-in on the “true” value of ABM and the impact it should have on revenue and the business. Too often, teams think of ABM as “better targeting” and that it will source the pipeline, but ABM should change how you think about the business, how the teams are structured, how the teams engage buyers across the organization and the account experiences that are delivered across the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle. If teams aren’t bought into why changes need to be made across the GTM and the impact that ABM will have then all you’ll be doing is better targeting that builds a pipeline that fails to convert.
2) We need to go beyond account-based digital advertising and account-based tactics or demand gen. ABM is not about accounts to pipeline – it’s about accounts to revenue. It’s about driving greater customer lifetime value and to do this we need to build the right relationships and have the right interactions. Too often, teams do not have the account insights that are needed to guide content, messaging, interactions, and experiences. They do not have a clear understanding of their predictable ICP – accounts that have the greatest probability of landing and expanding with you. In most cases, they have a total relevant market that is not your ICP. And there’s very little GTM and buyer enablement at the account level. As marketers, we need to help sales, leadership and customer success teams see that ABM is more than just list-based marketing. It’s more than just creating assets and pushing them out to a targeted list on Demandbase. We must build a proper foundation as companies have been doing targeted demand gen, not ABM.
Click here to see how most companies are not ABM ready.
Click here to see if you’re just doing targeted demand gen or ABM.
3) ABM has the greatest success when it becomes an account-based GTM where all teams align with their best future and existing customers together, and they integrate (vs. just aligning on an account target list and activities) to deliver the right account experience to drive the greatest long-term growth with these accounts. While most teams talk about alignment – the reality is that in most cases, each team has their own agenda and teams are still working in silos. An account-based GTM is aligning and integrating all GTM teams, It’s about aligning on GTM goals and business objectives – and executing on these goals with GTM motions. It’s about aligning all marketing teams (not just 1 function) on identifying, engaging, nurturing, closing and expanding ICP accounts that are predictive of landing and expanding at a high ACV. It’s about integrating sales, marketing, customer success, product and leadership teams to win as 1 team. With an account-based GTM you win as 1 team and you lose as 1 team. If one team isn’t hitting their numbers to move the needle for the business, then all teams are not hitting their number. An account-based GTM brings together all teams to solve business revenue challenges along the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle.
4) The desire for scale is hurting ABM programs as companies focus on more accounts, more outreach, and more tactics. The more we focus on scale, the less relevant we become to accounts and the greater probability that accounts will go dark or become unresponsive – accounts that teams should have won if they created the right account experience. Listen to this podcast with Marta George on how Ping Identity scaled ABM’s impact on revenue by scaling back.
5) As ABM is about accounts to revenue and existing customers to even greater revenue growth, sales and customer success teams need greater enablement at the account level. This goes beyond providing a static playbook, sales decks and cadences for Outreach. SalesLoft or other sales automation tool. GTM teams need account insights to develop a more effective account plan. They need content for the selling conversations that sales must have with buyers and the internal buying conversations that are happening. They need tools, content, messaging and stories that will show the cost of inaction and give buyers the confidence they need to make a decision. Listen to this podcast on the account-based enablement that’s needed.
6) We need to overcome the belief that intent data is predictive. Even though 6sense and others will talk about intent being predictive, it’s speculative. Because companies show signs of being in-market, it doesn’t mean they will enter the pipeline, close and expand with you. Intent is just one thing we should look at when selecting accounts. Read this article to see the signals and account insights you should focus on besides intent.
7) To go upmarket, we need to redefine the ICP and then match the content, messaging and stories to the new ICP. Buyer personas need to be expanded as you want to embed your solution across the organization. We need to align with the strategic priorities of enterprises. And, we need to redesign the account experience. Read this article on how marketing can drive the changes needed to go upmarket.