ABM Insight 1: A clear perspective on ABM
Recently there have been a number of Account Based Marketing (ABM) definitions floating around the industry. Here is one that I like for its brevity.
“A strategic go-to-market approach that orchestrates personalized marketing, sales and success efforts to land and expand named accounts”
A few years ago, when ABM programs started to get major visibility within the sales and marketing community, to some clients they sounded like another label for strategic account selling. However, ABM is a lot more than that because it combines the marketing team, sales team, the sales lead generation and lead qualification activities within one framework. With the integration of all the go-to-market programs and capabilities, ABM delivers an effective and efficient customer acquisition and customer development strategy.
Good ABM programs have highly trained pre-sales prospecting professionals who will often outperform your own sales staff. They are willing to do cold calling and customized email follow ups deep into the target accounts over a longer period of time than your own staff is likely to do. True ABM service providers can qualify the potential of leads in target accounts, score them based on your criteria, perform due diligence on them and take them further into the sales process for a smooth handoff to the sales team. To be clear, good ABM partners can enhance both your brand and the productivity of your sales staff. You should insist on this level of excellence… we do.
One reason that ABM may be new to you is most of the suppliers of ABM technology and/or services have focused on the high-end of the market with big budgets. That doesn’t mean that you have to accept that. Some service providers offer custom solutions for the rest of the world with limited resources.
See more about DMP’s portfolio of ABM turn key services. Click here.
Check out our guide: A Practical Guide to Using Account Based Marketing.