Feature: Top 10 ABM Challenges

Part 2: No. 5 down to No. 1

Top 10 ABM Challenges

[No. 5 to No. 1]

In last month's DashDot we ran through Numbers ten to six of the top 10 ABM Challenges.

Here a reminder of what they are:

10. Which accounts should we target?

9. How do we pivot to ABM?

8. How do we change the perception of ABM?

7. How do we resource ABM?

6. How do we drive more opportunities?

Let's take a look at the final five ABM challenges as voted for by top B2B Tech Marketers.

Challenge No. 5

What is the right tech for ABM?

FES

I love technology. I work in the technology sector. We sell to technology companies. We work with some great technology partners.

But technology doesn't add value unless you have the right strategy, and then you can insert the right technology to meet those strategic goals.

It's great to bring in technology, but you need to understand where the key drivers are for that technology.

For example, I talk about the value of video in Sales and bringing in a video platform - you need to have some consideration for the Sales teams around perhaps a level of media training, how do you use video at different stages in the buyer journey from top of funnel to customer conversion and beyond.

So there's a number of different things that you can consider there. And working with the right stakeholders in business, having the right conversations and setting the right expectations is key for technology.

Want to discuss your ABM tech strategy? Join us on an ABM Lunch & Learn workshop

I always say, you put crap in, you're going to get crap out with technology. You have to have the right strategy and the right process to get the value out of it.

And we've done some great work in the Agency working with partners like Turtl and intent data partners like Cyance to get some real value out of those platforms for our own Agency marketing and our audience see that value all day, every day in the campaigns that we run and there are some great experiences that you can create.

But I know, Declan, that you've done a lot of work looking at what their capabilities are and how to create that experience in those platforms.

DECLAN

Yes. My slogan is 'strategy first, technology second.' And I think if you go that way, lead with strategy first, then think about the people, processes and then technology will always follow after.

Challenge No. 4

How do we get started with ABM?

FES

Pilots can mean different things to different people depending on the maturity, size and shape of your organization.

Pilots for some companies can be very small and tactical and a pilot for other organizations is much more scaled, but in the context of their organization, it's still a small program, right?

So think about the pilot in terms of your organization, your maturity, what resources you have available to you.

Some companies have an amazing existing technology stack so you can take advantage of that in your pilot program.

Other teams are doing very rudimentary ABM activities just to build up their learning and knowledge about the process and really building that process without a lot of technology.

There's loads of education out there, like our Let's talk ABM series and the other partners are doing some great content. And I think what I'm seeing is people are taking advantage of the resources out there and they're coming to our ABM Lunch and Learn workshops with some insights and understanding.

Then we help them refine their thinking and whether they run a pilot with us or not, whatever, they've almost validated a little bit of their strategy before they start to implement.

Challenge No. 3

What is the right budget for ABM?

FES

Again, this depends on the size and shape of your organization. But ultimately ABM is designed to engage, win, retain your highest value account.

So you need to set that expectation in the business from day one - we need to put on our best show for these accounts and we need to think about how are we going to add value to their business and what does it really take to get to that level of engagement with the teams we want to engage with at the Enterprise executive level.

So I think there are different ways you need to evaluate your budget across internal resources, people in teams, external resources, partners and technology.

Think about how you can get the right blend of budget across the different areas to meet your objective.

The budget allocation will depend on your objectives, whether this is an existing customer strategy or new acquisition focus, for existing customers you might not need to spend as much, but you might want to go a bit broader internally within that account.

With net-new, you're going much earlier into the buyer journey so this is a completely different program that you need to run.

DECLAN

If we're going to give some numbers, some broad numbers around spend, there are two answers.

The fact is, if you're running it in-house, you’re going to have your personnel, your team, and you're going to have the technology that you may or may not add to your budget. You're going to have the media spend and the creativity, etc.

If you're using an agency for part or all of your ABM strategy, what kind of budget are we looking at, ballpark numbers?

FES

Well, there are some numbers out there that talk about market level in terms of pilot programs that can be up to $300,000 for a program, but that might include your people, technology and content creation, media spend, all that kind of thing.

Ultimately, ABM is for your most important accounts and the payback is significantly greater than the investment.

DECLAN

And I think just to add to one final point about this. We help our clients to understand whether ABM is a good fit for them or not.

And generally speaking, we kind of have this rule of thumb. You need to have an average annual contract value (ACV) somewhere north of $30-50,000.

You need to be selling complex, long lifecycle purchase solutions into mid-market or enterprise, and you need to be trying to influence many people in the organization. It's not like just one person that buys your solution.

So bear in mind the return that you're looking to achieve needs to warrant the investments.

Challenge No. 2

How do we measure the success of ABM?

FES

It's something that many people who launch ABM don't put enough time into and then they have the problem of justifying what they're doing.

There are essentially two types of reporting that you need to consider; Executive-level dashboards, and then operational dashboards.

So at the Executive level, we need to understand what's important to internal stakeholders depending on your strategy and objectives.

You need to design the right dashboard that talks the right language, and that they can understand and see value.

At the operational level, again, you need to think about the ‘Three Rs’ of ABM (Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue) - getting down into the more granular details around how to track the engagement across those phases.

Challenge No. 1

How do we align with Sales?

FES

A few things really, find the advocates in the Sales team that are willing to work with you on the program and are interested in trying to do things differently.

I also think learning to speak the language of Sales is really important and talking about opportunities and how to start conversations, that's really key.

Aligning on the right objectives with the Sales team and agreeing what those objectives look like at the outset is key to this, and making sure that everybody's driving towards that goal as one team.

There are a number of different ways that you can do that depending on what type of Sales team you have in house - SDRs with AEs, or full-funnel Sales reps, or whatever the structure of your Sales team is.

Understand where their challenges are, understand what the blockers are for them, and understand how you can help them open the doors to conversations with their best accounts, with their top accounts.

Don't just focus on the top of funnel, think about the whole experience from a Sales perspective.

What can you do to pave the way?
How can you build that from a marketing perspective?
How can you create offers for customers that they'll engage with?
How can you create content that follows up from a great sales conversation?
What happens next after that?

DECLAN

I would say, number one, with Sales you need to make the intangible tangible, so you need to show your Sales colleagues:

What does the ABM journey look like?
What's their part in that journey?
What do they have to do as part of the ABM journey?

We create playbooks for our clients to help them show Sales that journey in terms of email templates, social media templates, showing them all the assets that are going to be created, showing them the account experience, showing them what each account is going to go through, and when.

I think also over-communicate with your Sales colleagues.

One message, one slack message, one email, one launch is not enough - do more than you would actually think is necessary because they've been very busy people.

They've got their own priorities, they're doing their own sales, they've got their own issues to deal with. So over-communicate and share success.

Success is contagious. People in Sales love to see success and so share successes, share early wins, share those milestones that you're going through on that journey with them, and you'll get them on board.

You'll find it becomes one team and then you look back and think, well, this has changed our business.

So there you have the top ten challenges that people face when it comes to launching an ABM program.

Learn how to align with Sales in our ABM Lunch & Learn