1. Identify and research accounts
The first step in an ABM strategy is to develop a list of target accounts. That list should consist of companies that meet your ideal customer profile and have bigger opportunities associated with them. Collect as much information as possible about each company.
2. Structure your team
ABM success takes collaboration from both sales and marketing. You can dedicate certain reps to focus on ABM, or you may choose to have the entire sales team dedicate a portion of their day. Your marketing team will also need to allot time to supporting ABM with content creation and advertising.
3. Prepare your tech stack
The technology your teams are using can enable them to be efficient and successful with ABM. Consider adding tools like a CRM, data sourcing/enrichment software, an advertising platform and reporting software to your tech stack prior to kicking off your ABM strategy.
4. Complete account mapping
When you have identified a company to go after, your reps should learn as much as possible about the people at that company and the different buying roles and personas they may come in contact with during the sales process.
5. Create marketing content
Marketing’s role in the ABM process is to help bring target accounts into the funnel through paid advertising and enticing content offers. They should be creating contextually-relevant guides, e-books and other premium content offers that address prospects’ pain points and challenges.
6. Set up targeted paid advertising
Paid advertising is one of the most efficient ways to get individuals at target accounts to come to your website. By serving contextually-relevant display ads on LinkedIn, Facebook and the Google Display Network, you can better attract and engage your intended audience.
7. Personalize the user experience
Every interaction your prospects have with your company needs to be personalized and intentional. Some of the elements you should consider personalize for those target accounts are chatbots, video outreach, emails and landing pages.
8. Draft sales enablement content
Creating content that your sales reps can use during the sales process will help them move target accounts down the funnel faster. This content should include battle cards, one sheeters, solutions presentations and case studies.
9. Build sales tools
When a target account converts on your site or says they are ready to speak to your sales team, timing becomes critical. Building out email templates, sequences and playbooks for your sales reps will help them craft their outreach faster and give them guidelines to follow for cadence.
10. Measure your success
You need a system to measure and track the progress and success of all your efforts. Review metrics like target accounts by rep, activity totals, account engagement, sales team follow-up for target accounts and target account deal progression.
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