To determine which solutions are the best for your business in each category, establish your required features, then review the offerings to see which ones meet your needs. While the products mentioned here are all well-rated, it’s always good to do your own checks on review sites such as G2 Crowd, Trust Radius and Capterra. Use the star ratings to direct you to the best solutions and then read individual comments to gain insights about product nuances that would be hard to find any other way.
- 1. Find Accounts You’d Like to Land — Sales Intelligence
The first step in ABM is to select the accounts on which you will focus your marketing and sales programs. To do so, you need to define your ideal account profile based on their firmographics (size, location, industry, etc.) and other factors that are important for your product offering. For instance, if you’re selling a technology solution, the accounts’ technological maturity may also be critical.
Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to find those accounts. For this step, you can use sales intelligence platforms, such as InsideView, which provides accurate lead data and information on what’s happening at target accounts. Plus, it’s integrated well with Salesforce.com. Other leaders in this space with high customer satisfaction include ZoomInfo and DiscoverOrg.
- 2. Find Accounts that Need Your Help — Predictive Analytics
Defining who you want to do business with, however, is only part of the puzzle. Since sales is a two-way street, you need to discover that subset of companies which meet your ideal account profile and are also in the market for a product or solution like the ones your company offers.
For this task, you need to layer predictive analytics on top of your ideal account profile. This step will enable you to identify the businesses that are likely to be receptive to initiating a relationship with your organization.
Top predictive marketing solution vendors include Bombora, EverString, Infer, Lattice Engines, Leadspace and Mintigo.
- 3. Get Attention — Advertising and Retargeting Management
Personalization is the cornerstone of ABM. The idea is to treat each account as a market. It makes sense from a human perspective. If you read, listen to, or watch content that speaks to your needs and wants, you are far more likely to respond to it than you are to something more generic.
Advertising automation software enables you to present the right messages at the right time to the right individuals and accounts through online advertising and retargeting. Platforms also provide reporting so you can gauge the responsiveness of each account. In this category, customers express high satisfaction with Demandbase, Engagio, Integrate and Terminus.
- 4. Engage — Orchestrate Campaigns
Now that you’ve gained attention from individuals at your target accounts, it’s time to engage them. That means personalized phone calls, emails, online demos, social media platforms and even good old-fashioned direct mail. You’re not just dealing with individuals. You’re trying to work with a complex network of company associates and leaders that make up the buying team.
It’s a complex task.
Luckily, tools such as Terminus and Engagio help you to choreograph your campaigns. By doing so, you build relationships, account intelligence and can initiate sales conversations. These solutions also provide analytics, so you can see what’s working and what’s not.
- 5. Refine — Measurement and Results
Account-based reporting solutions help you to determine how well your program is working. You can drill down to metrics such as the number of target accounts you’ve been able to reach and convert. Such reports are essential to continually improving the success of your ABM strategy.
Top performers based on customer satisfaction scores are Bizible, Terminus and LeanData.
- 6. From Start to Finish
According to Forrester, Demandbase is the ABM leader, covering almost every step in the account-based marketing process. It’ll model and recommend target accounts, who to contact and then create workflows for engagement. Not surprisingly, comprehensiveness comes with a price and some customers complain about the bite it takes out of their budget.
ABM is a challenging strategy. One that is all but impossible to execute without the assistance of today’s technology. However, it appears to be one with staying power. That’s because it’s driving results.
Call us at +1 813-320-0500 (US) or +39 06 978446 60 (EMEA), or contact us online to learn about how 3D2B can help you implement an account-based marketing strategy.
