Heinz strategy to action by B-design

THE MODERN MARKETERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WORKSHOP ABM: From Strategy to Action and Results

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE SPEAKERS 3 WHAT IS ABM? 4 The Key Message 5 Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO)

6 Loosen the Status Quo 6 Commit to Change and Justify the Decision 9 ABM ROI Calculator 13

what is your market? 15 ABM Account Insight Checklist 17 Wrap-Up + Recap 18

DEFINING OBJECTIVES 19 20 22 23

Develop Key Metrics (Marketing & Sales Together) ABM Acount-Based Milestones Defining Roles Internally

target audience

Accounts 26 Individuals 28

Sales coordination 30 ABM Roles Assignments 30 Sales & Marketing Kick-Off Agenda Daily/Weekly Checklist for Sales Reps

32 33

buying stages

35 Content 35 Offers 36 Signals 38 Operational Strategy Across Internal Teams 39 Wrap-Up + Recap 42

PLAYS 43

Integrated Plays 45 Development 46

tech stack for abm 48

Minimum Tech Requirements 48 High-Level ABM Tech Diagram 48 Evaluating Tech Stack Components 49

management & measurement

52 Scorecards Review Cycles/Cadences 55 OODA Loop 56 Wrap-Up + Recap 58

common abm questions 59 More resources 60 about heinz marketing 61

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About the Speakers Matt Heinz Prolific author and nationally recognized, award-winning blogger, Matt Heinz is President and Founder of Heinz Marketing with 15 years of marketing, business development and sales experience from a variety of organizations and industries. He is a dynamic speaker, memorable not only for his keen insight and humor, but his actionable and motivating takeaways. Mattâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s career focuses on consistently delivering measurable results with greater sales, revenue growth, product success and customer loyalty. Matt is a repeat winner of Top 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management and Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers. Matt is living through the renovation of a 105-year old historic farmhouse in Kirkland, Washington with his wife, Beth and three young children. You can follow Matt on Twitter @HeinzMarketing and view his background on LinkedIn.

Robert Pease Robert leads our Pipeline Performance Practice and has over 20 years of experience leading teams, taking products to market, and building customer and partner relationships. He has been a CEO, CMO, and has held various marketing and sales related positions during his career. He has extensive knowledge of sales and marketing strategy, process, and enabling technologies and works with clients to improve how they identify, engage, and convert customers. He has designed and implemented account-based marketing strategies and sales development programs in companies of all sizes and industries with an emphasis on SaaS/software and technology. He is the father of two daughters, an avid runner, and is always on the hunt for good BBQ as a Southern transplant to the Pacific Northwest. You can follow Robert on Twitter @RobertCPease and view his background on LinkedIn.

ÂŠ Heinz Marketing 2017

WHAT IS ABM? Account-Based Marketing is: • A coordinated, integrated go-to-market effort between sales & marketing • An integrated approach to engaging & building consensus amongst the internal buying committee • A proven methodology for increasing velocity & conversion of target accounts

Account-Based Marketing is NOT: • A marketing-only initiative • A channel or campaign • A complete replacement for other marketing • An all-or-nothing effort

What is ABM?

The Key Message ABM has been heralded as a forcing function for marketing and sales alignment. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true, SiriusDecisions found that companies whose marketing and sales organizations work together have 19% faster growth and 15% higher profits than companies where there is no alignment between the two groups. How do you introduce and drive urgency for ABM amongst a variety of internal stakeholders? At a high-level, this is why each department should adopt an ABM strategy:

Function

ABM Value

Marketing

More focused, more efficient, and more connected to revenue

Sales

Greater precision, coordination, and velocity in Target Accounts

Finance

Greater precision, coordination, and velocity in Target Accounts ROI

Better coordinated platforms between sales and marketing

Notes

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Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO) Loosen the Status Quo

When looking at your internal organization, what are the pains some of your colleagues may be facing? To justify ABM to other internal stakeholders, you need to show them how an ABM approach could solve their problems and generate more business. Write down some of the pains or motivators these members might have: Function

Role

Marketing

CMO

Pains/Motivators

Key Metrics Impacted

Head of Demand Generation

Marketing Operations

Event Manager

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Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO) Loosen the Status Quo (continued) Function Sales

Role

Pains/Motivators

Key Metrics Impacted

VP of Sales/CRO

Sales Manager

Sales Operations

Nmed Account Sales Reps

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Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO) Loosen the Status Quo (continued)

Function

Role

Operations/Finance

CEO

Pains/Motivators

Key Metrics Impacted

CFO

CTO/CIO

Â© Heinz Marketing 2017

Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO) Commit to Change and Justify the Decision

Before you make the final decision on whether ABM is right for your organization, ask your internal stakeholders (and yourself) these questions below:

Function

Role

Justification

Marketing

CMO

What is the opportunity cost of not hitting your enterprise sales number? What is the impact of not aligning enterprise sales targets with relevant/related marketing efforts?

Head of Demand Generation

What’s the opportunity cost of hitting the organization’s enterprise sales number? What happens if marketing can’t demonstrate direct impact on sales pipeline and revenue? How important are enterprise deals to your 2017 success, and can you achieve them without coordinating an account-based marketing effort?

Marketing Operations

Do you have the tools and approach necessary to hit 2017 enterprise sales goals? Can you current operations investments bridge the gap between sales & marketing effectively?

Event Manager

Will you lose the impact of events on enterprise sales contribution without an ac count-centric approach? Will too tight of a focus on individualized marketing reduce your event budget, and neuter its impact on enterprise sales velocity?

Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO)

Commit to Change and Justify the Decision (continued) Sales

Function

Role

Justification

VP of Sales/CRO

Can we hit our enterprise sales goals with this year’s marketing approach? Will my sales team be as efficient and effective with the same types of leads and marketing support? What can happen to our results if my goals/approach are fully aligned with that of our CMO?

Sales Manager

Will my reps be able to sell without more tightly aligning and coordinating messages, campaigns and plays between sales & marketing? Does my team have the tools, messaging and internal buying committee intelligence they need to succeed?

Sales Operations

Can sales operations truly support the organization’s sales goals without full support/alignment with marketing? Do we have the resources and alignment required to hit our 2017 enterprise sales number?

Nmed Account Sales Reps

Can I hit my quota without aligned support from marketing? Could I increase my close rates and deal velocity/confidence with better focus on internal buying committees and consensus-building?

Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO)

Commit to Change and Justify the Decision (continued)

Finction

Role

Justification

CEO

Can we hit our 2017 number without greater alignment between sales & marketing? Am I getting results from marketing today, or can we make changes to increase effectiveness?

CFO

Can we afford to miss our 2017 number? What impact and internal costs are associated with an increasing divide between sales & marketingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach/strategy?

CTO/CIO

How painful is it to manage conflicting approaches between sales & marketing today? What would happen if cost of maintenance of sales & marketing systems decreased by 15-20%?

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Justifying ABM to your Org (and CFO) ABM ROI Calculator Premise

More tightly coordinated, account-based programs between sales & marketing are proven to increase your sales potential & yield. Conversely, a widening gap between sales & marketing can have a measurable decrease in sales. This calculator demonstrates the sales upside of adoption ABM in your organizations (and the potential downside of waiting).

How this Calculator Works

Insert your “actual” monthly sales numbers from the preceding 12 months (or most recent calendar year) in to the yellow fields below. The fields underneath will auto-calculate the potential sales results (or losses) by launching ABM and more tightly integrated sales & marketing programs.

Sales Realization Benchmarks

Based on research from Demand Metric, these percentages represent the percentage of potential sales that can be achieved through various levels of integrated activity between sales & marketing. For example, if sales & marketing don’t work together at all, you will likely only achieve 36% of your sales potential. For the purposes of this ROI calculator, we assume that your organization has “minimal” sales & marketing integration and therefore calculate your sales as 56% of what would otherwise be possible.

None 36% Ineffective 44% Minimal 56% Moderate 68% High 80%

Month 1 Actual Sales $$ $120,000 Implied Total Sales Potential $214,286

Month 2

Month 3

3 Month Total

$140,000 $250,000

$145,000 $258,929

$405,000 $723,214

Improve to Moderate $145,714.29 Incremental Possible Sales $25,714

$170,000.00 $30,000

$176,071.43 $31,071

$491,786 $86,786

Improve to High $171,428.57 Incremental Possible Sales $51,429

$200,000.00 $60,000

$207,142.86 $62,143

$578,571 $173,571

Decrease to Ineffective $94,285.71 Decrease in Actual Sales -$25,714

$110,000.00 -$30,000

$113,928.57 -$31,071

$318,214 -$86,786

ÂŠ Heinz Marketing 2017

What is your market?

WHAT IS YOUR MARKET?

ABM turns what an organization would typically do to launch new marketing programs on its head. Instead of beginning with ‘what message do we want to get across’, first determine ‘who should receive our message’ and then ’what message matters to them’. Messaging and content for an Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy should be the last step. With this process in mind, you will more effectively connect with your target audience and build a path to achieving your goals. At first thought, who do you think falls in your ideal market? Write it down.

What is your market? To generate an ABM strategy that rocks, first you must understand your market. Answer these questions:

Who are your ideal buyers?

What motivates them? What causes them pain?

Who/where are your competitors?

Where is there white space?

Do you include customers? Is lifetime value, retention, upsell included?

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What is your market? Before you can begin content creation and message mapping, you have to understand your audience. Use this checklist as a guide to make sure you have the necessary details to begin.

ABM Account Insight Checklist From Engagio

The Information you need to collect:

The Market

The Buying Centers

Industry Dynamics

Org Chart

Key Trends

Key Buying Centers

Competitors

Whitespace within Buying Centers

Growth Drivers and Inhibitors

The Company

Relationships and Connections Key Contact Profiles

Financial Health

Relationships to Each Other

Growth Areas vs. ‘Cash Cows’

Relationships to Your Company (Relationship Map)

Renewal Risk

Attitudes, Preferences, Biases

SWOT Initiatives and Organizational Priorities Triggers (funding, acquisitions, personnel moves, etc.)

Wrap-Up + Recap Getting internal stakeholders on board to implement an ABM strategy for your business is just the first step. With careful planning and consideration, and examination of the facts in your market, it should be easy to paint a picture of how ABM will impact your business long-term (and how to convince your stakeholders!) It all starts with your current market and how it is penetrated. Before you can look at the details of an ABM strategy, take the time to understand what you need to sell ABM throughout your organization. Then get into the nitty gritty details. Don’t forget, this is an iterative process. Questions to think about: - How do you introduce and drive urgency for ABM amongst a variety of internal stakeholders? - Who within the organization should be involved in an ABM strategy? - Do marketing and sales operate from the same plan? - What metrics are you currently tracking? - How will you manage expectations as your organization transitions to an ABM strategy? - What do we know about our target market? - What’s different or unique about our target market? - How do our competitors’ offerings compare? - What does a typical buying committee look like? - How does communication flow?

DEFINING OBJECTIVES ABM alignment begins with shared goals and a common definition of success. As marketers, it’s easy to get distracted with ‘vanity metrics’ (like open rates, CTRs, etc). After all, they are the easiest metrics to track. However, they don’t demonstrate the true impact of ABM. Take a step back and make sure all stakeholders use the same language when talking about their goals and objectives, what they want to get out of an ABM initiative. Think in terms of business impact rather than marketing impact. And align your scorecard with the sales team’s goals and your CFO’s priorities. What terms do you use in your organization?

Defining Objectives

Develop Key Metrics (Marketing & Sales Together) If Marketing and Sales works together to develop key metrics, they will better align their efforts to reach the right audience, thus a successful ABM approach.

ABM - Lead-Opportunity-Close Model Assumptions Mid-Market ASP $ 65,000 Small Enterprise ASP $ 120,000 Large Enterprise ASP $ 240,000 Opp/Close % 25.0% Lead/Opp % 5.0%

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

TOTALS

Mid-Market Sales # Small Enterprise Sales # Large Enterprise Sales # Total Sales # Mid-Market Sales $ Small Enterprise Sales $ Large Enterprise Sales $ Total Sales $

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Defining Objectives

Develop Key Metrics (Marketing & Sales Together) (continued)

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

TOTALS

Mid-Market Pipeline # Small Enterprise Pipeline # Large Enterprise Pipeline # Total Pipeline # Mid-Market Pipeline $ Small Enterprise Pipeline $ Large Enterprise Pipeline $ Total Pipeline $ Mid-Market Leads Small Enterprise Leads Large Enterprise Leads Total Leads

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Defining Objectives

ABM Account-Based Milestones Setting milestones for your ABM strategy is a good habit prior to launching. This gives both marketing and sales a benchmark to work towards. Use this grid below to see example milestones for each stage, and add your own as need be. Buyer’s Journey Demand Gen Stages ABM Success Measure

Prospect

Customer’s Journey

Pipeline Velocity Opportunity

Customer

Adoption

Increase in:

- MQLs - Contact Activities - Audience - Executive Awareness - Number of Appts.

- Opportunities - Engagement in Accounts - MarketingSourced Pipeline - Pipeline Velocity

- Closed/Won - Usage Deals - Retention - Engagement in - Church Opportunities - Sales Velocity - Deal Size - New Logos

Upsell/Cross-Sell

Land & Expand

"Always On" Air Cover

Increase in:

- New Business - Deal Size - Revenue per Account - Engagement in Accounts

- New Business - Deal Size - Current Customer Revenue - Engagement in Accounts

- Awareness (more impressions) - Engagement (traffic to site)

Notes

Defining Objectives Defining Roles Internally

Who within your organization will own various components of your ABM program? Use this spreadsheet as a guideline or starting point to clearly assign which departments will tackle which projects in your ABM strategy. Sales

Marketing

Support

Operations

Strategy & Objectives

Target Audience Definition

Content & Engagement Strategy

Execution Detail

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TARGET AUDIENCE Knowing who you’re marketing to seems like common sense, but to really see positive results, you need to first determine the target account you want to market to, and only after that can you start to drive a deeper understanding of the stakeholders within that account.

- Who are they? - What are their needs? - Their interests? - Their focus areas? - Their pains? As you begin to understand these stakeholders and decision makers, you can start to identify the areas where you can provide more than just products – but real value. Show your prospects that you not only know about their issues, but also that you can relate to them. You can think of this as matter of depth – to really demonstrate your knowledge of a prospect’s situation, you need to move past a surface-level problem admission and towards a deeper, more profound validation of the problem and its place within the organization.

- Where does it originate from? - Who does it affect? - What are the outcomes of not addressing it? As you move closer to the source of the problem, you begin to solidify credibility, trust, and expertise. Leverage what you know to craft a meaningful marketing strategy that demonstrates to your prospect that you know who they are, what problems they face, and how those problems affect their day-to-day business operations.

Target Audience Accounts

Creating a well-defined target account and persona template makes the difference in a true ABM strategy. Gathering data for your target accounts should come from a number of different sources: sales reps, marketing automation system reports, predictive analytics tools and ABM website tracking software. Use this template below as a guideline. Audience

Drivers

Pain Points

Value Propositions (bullet points)

Key Messages

Vertical #1 CEO

IT/CIO

CFO

CMO

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Target Audience Accounts (continued)

Audience

Drivers

Pain Points

Value Propositions (bullet points)

Key Messages

Vertical #2 CEO

IT/CIO

CFO

CMO

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Target Audience Individuals

Title of Specific Audience Member Profile Overview:

Responsibilities: Profile Attributes: Demographics:

Pain Points:

Firmographics: Key Drivers/Motivators: Geography: Other Considerations:

Validations and Influencers:

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Sales Coordination

Marketing and sales are both part of the solution at all stages of the buying process - in equal parts. Making sure the teams are aligned on strategy and on execution is key to bring the marketing and sales functions closer together. Fill out this table with which ownership makes sense for the various components of the plan.

ABM Role Assignments Sales

Marketing

Support

Operations

Strategy & Objectives Define ABM objectives Define monthly/weekly objectives Determine meeting/reporting cadence

Target Audience Definition Establish named account target profile Develop target account personas Develop target account prospect list

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Sales Coordination (continued)

Sales Coordination

ABM Role Assignments Sales

Marketing

Support

Operations

Content & Engagement Strategy Complete content map Define lead & opportunity stages Develop engagement offers

Execution Detail Determine account/prospect details in CRM Develop tactical instructions for sales reps Develop training program for sales reps Set up buying signal alerts for sales reps

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Sales Coordination

Sales & Marketing Kick-Off Agenda Objectives

Process

Discuss specific sales goals Discuss specific leading indicator goals (opportunities, regular account engagement/ penetration momentum metrics)

Roles

Discuss rhythm of working together

-Quarterly business reviews

-Monthly progress reviews

-Weekly tactical reports/improvements Discuss specific roles for each group

Discuss who owns what:

-Executive sponsors

-Sales & marketing program managers

-Front-line staff

Definitions Agree on definition of Named Account Agree on specific set of Named Accounts to pursue Agree on decision-makers, titles and/or roles to pursue

-Marketing Lists Content Outreach templates Social & trigger event signals Technology -Sales All outreach CRM-driven reporting Qualitative feedback from the field

Reporting Develop specific reporting formats, cadences Define meeting rhythm for review, optimization

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Sales Coordination

Daily/Weekly Checklist for Sales Reps Now that you have identified and explicitly described your target audience amongst both marketing and sales, marketing has gone out and begun via both inbound and outbound demand gen efforts to generate leads. The strongest ABM programs, however, align closely with sales to ensure automated, personalized messaging is supported by structured sales team efforts. To enable marketing and sales collaborative efforts, use this checklist below to make sure your sales reps are bolstering marketing efforts on a daily and monthly basis.

Daily Read news from your assigned Named Accounts (via Google Alerts, First Rain, LinkedIn and other tools) Read and respond to individual trigger events and news from Named Account decision makers (from LinkedIn, Google Alerts, Newsle and other tools) Interact with social updates from your Named Account individuals (favorite/retweet their Twitter updates, favorite or respond to LinkedIn updates, etc.) Scan key “trades” for relevant articles Post interesting third-party articles into your LinkedIn updates, Twitter feeds

Weekly Look for new individuals or decision-makers within your Named Accounts, get introductions and engage where appropriate Identify and start following any industry-specific hashtags (including upcoming conferences) to both engage with Named Account targets and find new content to curate/share with them via your email and social channels Look at last week’s meetings and presentations, add any new Named Account targets to LinkedIn, follow on Twitter, add them to your Twitter lists of Named Account targets to follow via Hootsuite 33

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buying stages Content

Content for each target account will vary depending on how well you actually understand your accounts and target individuals. How well do you understand the prospect’s ecosystem, content consumption habits and preferences, as well as their internal and external influencer? Below are a number of content types to both spark inspiration, as well as promote engagement within your target accounts. WRITTEN

VISUAL

AUDIO

Blog

Webinar

Podcasts

Whitepaper

• Live

E-book

• On-demand

Radio

Guide

Video

Checklist

• How-to

Tip sheet

• Customer testimonial

How-to

Infographic Graph/Chart

buying stages Offers

What content do you already have? What could you develop more of? Performing a content audit on what you currently have will shed light to both the personas and the areas of the funnel that arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yet fully developed. And you need content for every persona in every stage of the funnel for a successful ABM program. Use this matrix here to perform a content audit on what you already have developed. This grid will clearly show where you should work with your content team to develop some interesting and engaging pieces. Category

Persona

Stage 0 Attention

Stage 0-1 Acceleration Offers

Stage 1 Loosen the Status Quo

Stage 1-2 Acceleration Offers

Stage 2 Commit to Change

Stage 2-3 Acceleration Offers

Vertical 1

Vertical 2

Vertical 3

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buying stages Offers (continued) Category

Stage 3 Review Options

Stage 3-4 Acceleration Offers

Stage 4 Commit to Solution

Stage 4-5 Acceleration Offers

Stage 5 Justify Decision

Stage 5-6 Acceleration Offers

Stage 6 Make final Decision

Vertical 1

Vertical 2

Vertical 3

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buying stages Signals

Understanding buying signals is important to know when your prospect is ready to move forward. Moving forward could just mean a hand-off to sales versus the actual purchase of your product or service. Use this grid to map out each step of the buyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey to know when your prospect is ready to move forward or where they have hesitations. Buying Journey Stage

Pain

Signal

Location

Action

Dissatistifed with Current Solution Open To Engagement Loosen the Status Quo Commitment to Change Actively Seeking Solutions

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buying stages

Operational Strategy Across Internal Teams Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve mapped out the buying signals and you know which offers are appropriate where. Now you can identify roles in your organization of who owns what at each stage.

Leads Stage

Definition

Open/Not Attempted

New lead, has not been attempted or contacted by sales

Attempting to Contact

Sales has begun the process of following the lead follow-up process to reach the prospect live

Interested

Prospect has expressed interest in ABC Company and/or achieving better results, and is interested in learning more; full qualification criteria intent/ purchase timeline still unknown

Nurture

Prospect is interested, but there is no near-term opportunity to buy (prospect may have other immediate priorities, or may just need more time to consider interest/intent)

Unresponsive

Haven't been able to get ahold of prospect after repeated attempts

No Further Action

Marketing's Role

Sales's Role

Operations' Needs

Lead is not a qualified prospect

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buying stages

Operational Strategy Across Internal Teams (continued)

Opportunities Stage Qualified

Definition

Demo has been scheduled or completed; working through objections & questions

Proposal

Formal proposal is in process or has been delivered outlining terms, services, fees

Closed Lost

Sales's Role

Operations' Needs

Prospect has a need & budget, and is actively evaluating solutions

Presentation & Demo

Negotiation

Marketing's Role

Prospect has verbally agreed to do business; both sides are working through final legal/term/ service/fee details Agreement has been signed and returned

Opportunity has stalled indefinitely or is dead

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Wrap-Up + Recap For ABM to be successful, alignment needs to happen around a core set of organizational objectives. These objectives lead to a common set of success metrics from which every part of the organization -- sales, finance, marketing and operations -- maps their efforts. Similarly, every ABM strategy needs a well-defined target audience with an understanding of the pains and motivators. And, marketing and sales needs to be in agreement on all of these pieces in order for the strategy to work. Without this alignment, leads won’t flow or transition naturally from marketing to sales throughout the different buying stages. This part of setting up a successful ABM strategy is highly tactical, but necessary if you want to see results. Questions to think about: - Are you measuring the right data that directly impacts revenue? - How closely are your marketing metrics aligned with those of your sales organization? - Are marketing and sales using the same terminology to describe leads? - Have roles been identified across all teams (marketing, sales, operations) and job descriptions been agreed upon? - Does your current content benefit all stages of the funnel? - What natural, integrated calls to action can you implement that increase engagement and velocity along the buyer’s journey?

plays In order to run a successful ABM campaign, you have to have a playbook with a number of different plays to choose from. Why is this so important you ask? Because without these plays, you’re not really optimizing ABM the way you could be; you’re randomly reaching out, offering content, scheduling demos and likely not focused on your business objectives. Creating and brainstorming different plays is sometimes the hardest part. Here are 6 plays to get you started:

1. Cold Outreach

Arguably one of the most used and most poorly executed plays out there. Done properly, this can add new opportunities to the sales pipeline quickly. This requires a coordinated and measured approach that involves both marketing and sales to work closely together.

2. Give, Give, Get

This play can be run by marketing or sales. It involves building credibility and sharing information with target prospects that would be valuable to them even if they never talk to you. The goal, of course, is to get a conversation but approaching that goal with a bit of patience and thoughtfulness goes a long way.

3. Surround and Astound

This can be run in parallel with other plays or as its own play. It is designed to “surround” the target personas in their web and social activity. There are many technology providers that can enable this for web activity including Adroll and Terminus and social platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook all have the ability to tightly target based on a wide set of criteria.

4. Action Required

This play assumes some “warm up” work has been done and the target prospect is aware of the company and the problem it solves. In other words, don’t run this one first.

PLAYS continued 5. Recycle

Companies spend a significant amount of time and effort generating new leads and handing those off to the sales team. They often spend less time and effort following up once they have gone cold or are no longer in an active sales conversation. This play is designed to re-engage with previous leads that made it through the qualification hurdles in place to “recycle” them. Even if you have an active nurturing program in place, this segment of Target Contacts needs more contextual engagement than a newsletter or drip campaign.

6. Known Unknowns

This play is focused on taking anonymous visitors to the website and converting them into known visitors. There are a variety of tools out there that will do IP mapping of website visitors like KickFire or MaxMind and most marketing automation systems have made this part of their core feature set. At a minimum, use Google Analtyics to see if this play can be run from data there. The trick is to filter out the ISP addresses which aren’t helpful from those that are mapped via 3rd party service or have been named specifically. Are there any other plays you’ve heard of or used in the past?

plays

Integrated Plays Once your playbook is developed, it’s time to start thinking through how these plays can work together for your audience. Here’s an example:

plays

Development When deciding which play to use, answer these questions first.

Who are my targets?

What is my message/offer to drive engagement (top of funnel)?

What channels do my targets use?

Which channels will marketing own? Sales own?

What communication/channel sequence will I follow?

How will follow-up communciation adjust to measured activity?

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Tech Stack for ABM

Minimum Tech Requirements As with all marketing and sales programs, you need some kind of infrastructure or system and processes to house the plan. A marketing and sales technology stack map is key to showing how pieces will work together. Though donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be mistaken, this tech stack map is no replacement for the strategy itself. It will only work together effectively if there is a strategy to back it up. When looking at the grid below, what tech systems do you already have in play ready to use? Fill in the blank grid with the tools you currently have. If there are gaps, you may need to think through options to fill them.

High-Level ABM Tech Diagram

Integrations between systems can vary greatly based on organizational strategies and specific needs. This diagram outlines very common integrations between the ABM systems.

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Tech Stack for ABM

Evaluating Tech Stack Components Now that you’ve identified the gaps in your marketing and sales tech stack, use this grid below to write down the necessary items each of your technologies needs to succeed. After you’ve filled this out, you can compare and contrast tools to decide which will be enable your organization and employees to reach your revenue goals. Technology Category

Vendor Name

Sales Development Automation

(e.g. Salesloft)

ABM Platform

(e.g. Engagio)

Content Distribution and Management

[e.g., Highspot]

Proposal and Quote Management

[e.g., Apttus]

Sales Floor Gamification

[e.g., Badgeville]

Consultancy/Analyst Reports

MarTech Influencers

Peer Advice/ Insights

Tech Stack for ABM

Evaluating Tech Stack Components (continued) Technology Category

Vendor Name

Sales Development Automation

(e.g. Salesloft)

ABM Platform

(e.g. Engagio)

Content Distribution and Management

[e.g., Highspot]

Proposal and Quote Management

[e.g., Apttus]

Sales Floor Gamification

[e.g., Badgeville]

Current MarTech Partner Advice

Vendor Website/ Content

Vendor Product Demo

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Management & Measurement Scorecards

Operational and executive scorecards are both important in any ABM strategy. And, it’s important to distinguish between the two. At an executive level, you’re tracking results from an ABM program – new opportunities created and closed deals primarily. With your operational scorecard, you’re tracking results from your ABM plays. Use this operational scorecard to provide insight into what’s working, what’s not, and what adjustments you need to make to existing and future plays to increase results. Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Number of accounts Number of contacts

New contacts added Insight and Engagement

Number of engagemed contacts Number accounts engaged Reach

Management & Measurement Scorecards (continued)

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Number of accounts Number of contacts

Demos scheduled Development and Conversion

Demos completed Pipeline created # open opportunities Conversion target to opp

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Management & Measurement Scorecards (continued)

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Number of accounts Number of contacts

Impact

Number of accounts won Revenue (ARR)

Emails Activities

Phone calls Direct mail Social touch

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Management & Measurement Review Cycles/Cadences

Use this scorecard to map which metrics need to be pulled weekly, monthly and quarterly. Depending on the efforts and buying stages, these metrics will vary thus the reporting needs to reflect that. Cadence

Key Metrics

Weekly

i.e. target account contact interactions

Monthly

i.e. net-new target account opportunities opened

Quarterly

i.e. target account opportunities closed

ÂŠ Heinz Marketing 2017

Management & Measurement OODA Loop

As you are reviewing your dashboards and analyzing your efforts, remember that your objectives are constant, but your operational strategy/execution can be intensely agile. In other words, the end goal isn’t agile but how you get there can be. As you execute on sales and marketing plays moving forward, consider developing a cadence that reflects the OODA loop – observe, orient, decide and act. Decide what is working or isn’t working and isolate variables of campaigns that can be adjusted or optimized. Work closely across sales and marketing to make tactical and strategic adjustments to better align execution with intended results.

ÂŠ Heinz Marketing 2017

Wrap-Up + Recap Every successful ABM strategy has a playbook that outlines a number of different strategies. It all comes down to deciding which plays are going to resonate with your target audience. And it’s good to remember that every play will NOT work for every person or account, even if they fit within the same target. That’s why you have a playbook. And as you trial and error, keep track of what works and what doesn’t. A number of organizations begin an ABM strategy without any kind of meaningful reporting or tracking dashboards in place. Without reporting, you can’t make smart decisions on how to best move forward. Taking advantage of technology here can streamline this process, but it doesn’t replace any of the strategy you’ve developed. An impactful ABM strategy will get better with time as different programs fail or succeed. Questions to think about: - How do you know which play is right for each target account? - What additional resources (inside and outside) of the company are required to execute your plays fully? - What parts of the process can you systematize or automate – both now and within the next 12 months? - What review cadences will you put into place to evaluate and improve content ROI? - What data gaps in reporting and attribution measurement exist today that you will seek to fix in the next 12 months? - How can you begin to implement the OODA Loop in marketing, and eventually across sales and marketing together?

Common ABM Questions

Common questions or statements we hear about ABM on a regular basis:

Aren’t we doing ABM already by naming and pursuing our target accounts?

We already have our best field reps targeting our most important accounts…

This sounds like a program that sales can do on their own…

Why do we need special tools and content to go after our target accounts?

Can we just use internal/existing resources to get this started?

Doesn’t (insert marketing automation platform name here) do this for us already?

Why doesn’t marketing just focus more, why does this require sales involvement?

Can we do a trial or proof-of-concept phase of this first?

ABM is going to be expensive, more than I have budget for...

We’re already too busy, how are we going to to implement an ABM strategy as well?

There won’t be enough leads from ABM to hit our pipeline and revenue goals...

more resources

If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to learn more, here are some resources available to you: Developing an Account-Based Marketing Program: A Workbook The tools you need to put Account-Based Marketing into Action A Guide to Selling the Value of Abm in Your Organization The Clear & Complete Guide to Account Based Marketing

ÂŠ Heinz Marketing 2017

About Heinz Marketing Heinz Marketing is a B2B marketing and sales acceleration firm that delivers measurable revenue results. Every strategy, tactic, and action has a specific, measured purpose. Instead of focusing on the activities, we focus on the outcomes. What really matters is sales pipeline, closing business and accelerating revenue. Want to learn more? Get in touch with us.

marketing@heinzmarketing.com

877-291-0006 www.heinzmarketing.com

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ÂŠ Heinz Marketing 2017