ABM in the 'Dotlight'

The Hardest Part of ABM: How to get Leadership buy-in for your ABM strategy

How to get Leadership buy-in for your ABM strategy

ABM is simple, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy.

Account-based Marketing is straightforward, direct and not complex. (simple).

While at the same time, Account-based Marketing is difficult, requires effort, and can present difficulties.(not easy).

ABM is all about immersing your ideal customers in an account experience that is relevant, contextualized, and lands at the right time.

Ultimately, that’s it. Simple right? Absolutely. But easy? No! Account-based Marketing can be hard.

Want to road test your ABM strategy?

Connect the dots

ABM is much more than a marketing strategy (despite the name).

It is an organization-wide strategy. It is much more than Marketing.

Indeed it is much more than Sales. It is each and every department that ‘touches’ a client (present or future). It’s Customer Success, it’s Operations, it’s C-suite, it’s the Board - get the point?

And as such, without that crucial buy-in and support from all areas of the business, an ABM campaign is always going to struggle to achieve its goals.

And how do you get that important buy-in? Us Marketers need to help connect strategy and execution across the divides between Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success.

Equally, the ABM road can be rocky at times. The results are rarely there at the beginning (by results I mean revenue).

The strategy needs full support from your Leadership team.

It’s hard to build that all important alignment with Sales.

It’s hard to get to grips with what messaging resonates well and when.

It’s hard to build a clear picture of who the right personas and job roles are in the accounts you want to target.

It’s hard to put the right value proposition and messaging into the right channels

It’s hard to create the right formats that engage your audience.

It’s hard to cut through the noise.

But I think the hardest part of all when launching an ABM program is making sure that your strategy is fully aligned with what your organization is looking to achieve.

And this, more than anything else, is what will determine whether your ABM campaign succeeds or fails.

Here are some of my thoughts on how to get that important buy-in from your Leadership team.

It needs very clear communication from Leadership to the entire organization that:

ABM when done well is all about integrating Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success as tightly as possible.

ABM when done well is all about breaking down the ingrained cultural divisions that exist in organizations.

ABM when done well is all about engaging more deeply and effectively with your most important customers (current and future) that will ensure the long-term success of your business.

Educate leaders

A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers.

Helen Keller

And this is where your Leadership team can play a huge part in the success of your Account-based strategy.

Your leaders possess significant business experience and a strong strategic mindset, capable of making high-quality decisions and managing conflict, and are adaptable.

Learning how to harness this wealth of experience should be high on your list before you embark on your ABM journey (or correct the one you are on).

So what should you do?

1 FIND A CHAMPION

Which senior Leader can be your champion? It may not be the obvious one? It may be the CFO or the COO? Build that important relationship - particularly if the CMO is not part of the Leadership team or a member of the Board.

2 FIND ADVOCATES

Find supporters. Ensure that your voice is not the lone voice on this strategy. Numbers count. Equally, each voice might bring a different element - data, strategy, internal alignment, etc. Mobilize your allies, build a coalition, gain credibility.

3 TAILOR YOUR MESSAGE

Tailoring your pitch to Leadership is directly associated with a successful outcome. It’s essential to familiarize yourself with your audience’s unique mix of goals, values, and knowledge and to use that insight to shape your messages.

4 FRAME THE ABM CASE

What is important (and/or urgent) for you may not be for others. If you want to gain buy-in and support you need to package it correctly.

How does your ABM program support a strategic objective? Once you are able for others to see how your initiative fits into the bigger picture then they will be willing to invest in it and you.

Be sure to frame the ABM case with solid business outcomes and benefits. It may also be useful to underscore the urgency as an opportunity that should not be missed or a way to see off a threat that is on the horizon. Highlighting a threat - a consequence of not adopting your strategy - can also create pressure to act now.

5 MANAGE EMOTIONS

Selling anything is an interpersonal skill. Emotions often run high when personal investments are involved. We’ve all made good and bad decisions in our business lives - your leaders are no different. Channel these emotions correctly, e.g. if a previous Marketing strategy had not succeeded show why and how this ABM strategy is different and have the data to back it up.

6 GET THE TIMING RIGHT

Timing is everything. Be very aware of this. Has something happened to the organization? Has there been a new strategy announced that you can align with? Has there been a change of personnel - a person blocking that is no longer there, etc.?

7 SHOW THE DESTINATION

Make the tangible intangible. Show the solution, the journey, and the final destination. This will build confidence and support for your plan and in you. It will also show Leadership what and who is involved and needed.

Agree business outcomes

More often than not an ABM strategy is deemed unsuccessful by a Leadership team due to the fact that unrealistic expectations (objectives) were set at the outset.

Over-promising or suggesting that ABM can solve all of the business’ problems is setting yourself up for failure. Agreeing realistic business outcomes is fundamental.

What is the ultimate outcome that you, the business, and the Leadership team are looking to achieve with the ABM program?

Reverse engineer this to uncover the key performance metrics that you should be tracking throughout the campaign.

The 3 Rs, Reputation, Relationships Revenue, are a very solid approach to deciding which metrics are important for you to monitor, and in particular, as a way to communicate the impact and performance of the ABM program to the Leadership team and the wider business.

What is also key is time to results.

ABM is not a quick fix. Never has been and never will be. Take the effort to show what the early indicators of success are, your expectation on pipeline growth, and the eventual impact on Revenue uplift.

Align with business objectives

This part cannot be understated. Any investment must see a return. This is one of the main tenets of business.

ABM is resource-hungry - people, time, and money.

That should not put you off.

It will not put your Leadership off either.

As long as...

you have sold the benefits of an ABM strategy,
articulated the challenges that you may face,
documented the Return on Investment,
and clearly shown what will happen and when.

Importantly, if the goals of your ABM program match the goals of the wider organization you will have ‘economies of scale’ on your side and more people invested in you and your program being a success.

Show quick wins

ABM is a journey - some would say a marathon. That does not mean that you need to wait until the finish line to show success.

Road test your ABM strategy

Build strong communication channels with your Leadership (e.g. dedicated Slack channel or monthly ABM report).

The key is to over-communicate and share results of the progress of your ABM campaign.

Quick wins? Think number of new contacts made, number of meetings achieved, attendance at your Executive events, positive PR from the target accounts about your brand, etc.

The goal should be that you eventually put a $ value

to a lot of the key interactions you have in the Reputation and Relationship building phases, but first you have to build those Relationships and that Reputation!

Being transparent and honest - what's working, what's not - means that you will build trust with the leadership team.

Conversely, they may be able to point you in the right direction for solutions or support. A recent guest of Let’s talk ABM puts it succinctly:

One of the tenets at Google is 'fail early, fail fast, learn fast'. And that's exactly what we did. We took stock of where we are, what's working, what's not working. We paused our program and rethought it in certain ways.

Akriti Gupta, Global Head of ABM, Google Cloud

Involving the leadership team and other areas of the business in the planning, data acquisition, and campaign setup phases will also increase their interest and buy-in - it no longer becomes just your program, but theirs as well.

Systematize your dialogue with Leadership

Long term, the goal is ultimately to be influencing revenue and a strategic Go-to-market shift with your ABM program.

If you're successful in this, all conversations around investment and buy-in from the Leadership team become significantly easier. It’s important not to get complacent with the processes and strategies that you implement.

There is always room for improvement, to optimize campaigns as well as introduce new content and messaging as the market develops and changes.

Quarterly and annual reviews of the program with your Leadership are a great way to maintain their interest in the program and demonstrate its effectiveness. Get them involved, keep them involved, and make them part of the overall strategy and success.

Final thoughts

Aligning with the leadership team on ABM may be one of the most difficult aspects of setting up a program, but it's also one of the most rewarding.

When done right - when you have full buy-in, when you have a shared ownership of and interest in the program - you start to see results across the board.

The trust and relationships that you build could have far-reaching consequences for you, your business, and your clients for years to come.

Road test your ABM strategy with our ABM Lunch & Learn