Starting a new pipeline ABM program
In this newsletter we share a case study about how 2 different ABM programs performed, and a step-by-step guide to building an ABM program to acquire new customers.
Your executives agreed to start a new ABM program and provided a budget for ads and ABM software. The sales team is excited.
Things look good?
Let me share with you a story about two Account-Based Marketing (ABM) programs focused on generating new pipeline.
Program 1.
Experienced and knowledgeable GTM team.
Great logos on their website.
Local well-known ABM agency is involved.
Program 2.
Marketing and sales with no understanding of customer challenges or product knowledge (very technical product and audience)
ICP is not active on social, very skeptical by nature and gives zero chance and credibility to marketers/sales.
SME (subject-matter expert) has limited time to help ABM team
Which one of those two is set up for success?
Today we’ll share:
How these 2 ABM programs performed and why
How to develop an effective ABM program to generate new logos (pipeline)
A list of ABM tactics we used to make one of these programs successful
Become a better B2B marketer
If you are a B2B marketer, your core KPIs are really simple: sales-qualified opportunities and revenue. Period.
To generate sales-qualified opportunities and influence revenue metrics such as ACV, deal close-rate and sales cycle length, you need to run demand generation, account-based marketing, lead nurturing, deal expansion and sales enablement campaigns.
It might be frustrating, especially, if you don’t have a prior background or experience of selling to mid-size/enterprise accounts.
So isn’t it time you stopped guessing at every turn… and started running these campaigns with a proven process, frameworks and techniques?
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How the 2 ABM programs performed and why
If you thought that the first program was set up for success, you are absolutely right. All the resources were in place, but the program sucked.
On the contrary, the second program generated a 7-figure pipeline despite the difficult start and disengaged sales.
So why did the first program suck and the second actually work?
The difference lies in the strategy.
The first program is lead gen-based, the second one is full-funnel account-based marketing.
The ABM agency had a few sessions with the team. They created a simple program targeting 1200+ accounts with account-based advertising, and following up with an automated cold email cadence.
After 6 months and 7-figures spent on agency fees, our client ended up with:
Lots of engaged accounts, but very few conversations
Only four discovery calls and two qualified opportunities
No won deals.
They decided to stop the program.
The first program playbook.
Here is one lesson about ABM most B2B companies need to learn the hard way:
Lead generation is not a synonym for ABM, and works opposite for B2B companies with high ACV.
To get more results from lead gen, you need:
Volume
Bigger budget
Automation to reach a broader market
More SDRs
Drawbacks caused by lead gen:
Non-differentiated positioning and marketing message
Lack of account research and personalization
High cost of acquisition
Lead gen ABM enables scale, but I don't know any company for which it worked.
To develop a successful ABM program you need to have strong fundamentals and develop a multithreaded full-funnel program.
I'll share the process below.
Drive pipeline THIS quarter with a full-funnel ABM programs.
If any of these challenges sound familiar:
You are aligned in theory with sales but don’t do anything in practice aside from receiving wish lists from sales and sharing with them your marketing plan. In reality, you work in silos and miss the revenue targets and are being pressured by your executives.
You understand that your marketing and sales playbook is broken (mqls, gated content) but despite many attempts you don’t know how to fix it
Your outbound, paid ads and organic pipeline drastically decreased while CAC increased mostly because most of your market is problem unaware and not buying.
You lack brand awareness among target accounts and sales can’t get even a reply.
You clearly see that you're already behind your revenue targets
We can help.
We'll develop a custom full-funnel ABM strategy aligned with your resources, budget and stack and execute it together to drive results THIS quarter.
How to develop an effective ABM program to generate new logos (pipeline)
One caveat.
This diagram might create a wrong perception that the buying process is linear, which is not true.
The goal is to visually demonstrate the pillars of a new pipeline ABM program.
Let's cover them one by one.
1. ABM fundamentals and readiness assessment.
Don't get discouraged by this long list.
Most of our clients start with close to zero checks on the checklist, but we figure out answers in only a few weeks.
Instead, treat it as a roadmap: what you need to do in order to implement a successful ABM motion.
a. ICP (Ideal Customer Profile).
Answer these questions.
Do we have a clear ICP, including:
A recent revenue analysis, broken down into verticals and geographies, including ACV, win rate, expansion rate and sales cycle length
Alignment between marketing and sales on high priority target verticals, geographies and account clusters (classification of accounts in small groups based on the shared buying journey trigger, stage, and a set of challenges related to specific jobs-to-be-done)
Win-loss analysis of the five largest and five fastest won deals, and five largest lost deals from the high priority target verticals
Customer interviews with the top five customers from the high priority target verticals and geographies about their buying journey
Specific account (dis)qualification criteria to build a list of companies that are likely to buy our product
Detailed breakdown of the buying committee structure, with common profile keywords, KPIs, and specific needs or objections related to your product.
*Here is a guide where we describe how to develop an ICP for ABM programs and work on each of these pillars.
Ideal Customer Profile for ABM programs (w/new template)
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b. Pilot team.
Do we have:
An experienced B2B marketer full time to run the pilot program.
A salesperson to join the project part-time (1-2 days a week), with adjusted KPI during the pilot
A subject-matter expert from the target industry that can dedicate a couple of hours each week providing input for content development
A dedicated content resource (50% FTE)
c. Alignment on ABM goals, KPIs and metrics.
Do we have:
Alignment between marketing, sales, and executives on measuring the program?
Agreement on leading indicators to measure early traction of a new program
2. Capacity planning and goal decomposition.
You can craft the best possible program, but what's the purpose of it if you don't have the capacity to launch and maintain it properly?
Start by breaking down revenue goals between ABM motions:
expansion
acceleration
renewal
new logos
Then, plan how many new logos from different tiers you can include according to your team's capacity.
*If you are interested in the ABM planning process, let me know in the comments.
3. Account selection and prioritization.
You don't need thousands of accounts to target - Marketing and sales are not a bingo.
When selecting accounts you want to target, answer a question:
If I was going to bet my compensation on accounts that are likely to become sales opportunities, what are the criteria I need to apply to identify them?
*Here is a guide where we describe how to develop an ICP for ABM programs and work on each of these pillars.
4. Account research.
At this step, we gathered and analyzed all the publicly available information about the target accounts' key initiatives and strategies.
The next step - map out the buying committee and gather insights about their involvement in the key initiatives.
We analyzed:
Their role in the defined initiative
KPIs/OKRs/Jobs-To-Be-Done
Challenges
Goals
5. Value proposition mapping.
For every account in the active focus list, we discussed and brainstormed:
Do we need to switch them from a competitor or from a manual inefficient process?
How can we educate them on the necessity of the swithc?
How can we present our product value aligned with their challenges?
6. Program planning.
The highest-ROI ABM programs we've ever run include a mix of warm-up and activation tactics, including.
Our program included:
Multithreaded buying committee engagement on social and in communities
Personalized invites to participate in demand gen programs (e.g. invites to the live webinars or field events)
Content (organic and paid) aligned with the current needs of the target accounts
Content collaborations with a joint content distribution
1-1 consultations, workshops. audits & recommendations
Personalized content hubs
Social selling based on engagement and intent insights
Check out our LinkedIn thought leadership and social selling course where we show how to run these activities.
Initially, we wanted to do way more activities (see the diagram above), but because of disengaged sales, we did only the activities I shared above.
7. Analysis.
You need to define a program report and leading indicators to measure your program performance.
For regular review, we schedule weekly ABM meetings to discuss:
Target account engagement and updates
Next actions per account
What accounts should be added and removed from the program
Last thing I'd like to share.
Just because it's called ABM, it doesn't mean you can expect immediate revenue.
Even if the accounts you're targeting have a product need evidence, multiple things must be true before they buy.
1. They need to be actually buying.
Even if there is a need, it doesn't mean it's a priority.
Even if it's a priority, it doesn't mean they won't try to solve it themselves first.
Even if they have decided on acquiring a solution from your category, it doesn't mean they have the budget yet.
2. Multiple buyers need to reach an internal consensus on purchase criteria and the vendors.
They need to reach a consensus that your solution can actually help them achieve their goals AND that you are the right vendor that can be trusted.
All this takes time, and that's exactly what ABM helps with.
It's not about showing a buyer a display ad with their logo that leads to the same programmatic landing page, or "personalized" email that buyers don't trust anyhow.
The buyer journey is not linear.
Just because we decided to market to specific accounts and called it ABM doesn't mean they are ready to buy now.
ABM helps you focus on engaging with companies that have high revenue potential and are likely to buy your product.
But this requires a shift in mindset:
Going from linear time-limited campaigns to regular programs that include meaningful and personalized engagement with high-priority accounts.
Make sure you have an alignment and strong fundamentals in place. Then, develop a multithreaded full-funnel program.
Allbound marketing: how to create joint marketing and sales playbooks
In this episode of Fullfunnel Live we dive deeper into developing a new pipeline ABM program and cover:
How to define the accounts that are likely to buy your product this quarter
Two sub-lists for the demand gen, ABM, and sales
How to plan the right activation actions instead of doubling down on outbound and demand capturing
Listen on Spotify or YouTube below.
OUR SPONSOR - DEALFRONT.
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Intent data
Account enrichment and list building
Social signals
What sets DealFront apart?
It has intent data, data enrichment, social signals, and data verification. You can identify the right accounts for the ABM program and quickly define target buying committee members.
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