Great ABM programs were designed to ensure that highly-prized accounts find their way quickly through the buying lifecycle. As competition for budgets tighten, the make or break in any ABM program is a tailored buyer experience. But knowing how to do this from the ground up isn’t always easy. We recently launched the Folloze ABM/ABX Solutions Playbook to guide Folloze teams, partners and other ABM practitioners to deliver high impact, engaging buyer experiences that convert using the Folloze Buyer Engagement Platform.
B2B decision makers today use ten or more channels to evaluate a purchase, creating an unpredictable, non-linear and long sales process. The new guide will show you a data-driven model for targeting, tiering and prioritizing accounts, as well as tactics for rolling out personalized content and campaigns tailored for your specific audiences. And we’ll show you a use case for engagement broken out by account tiers, focusing on the tactics needed for high-engagement, average-engagement and low-engagement accounts.
Step 1: Tier Your Accounts
The first step in any ABM process is to define the target segments and ideal customer profiles that have the highest propensity to close based on attributes, intent and engagement signals. You’ll use tools like DemandBase to gather the data, and build a model for prioritizing accounts using engagement scores, content-viewing behavior, and pipeline activity.
Step 2: Build Buyer Journey Engagement
The real meat of our playbook encompasses engagement tactics throughout the buyer journey, including early-, mid- and late-stage interaction. The data you use for each audience segment and activation channel will fuel your targeting, delivery, messaging treatment and optimization.
In the early stages, buyers tend to rely on self-service research, so ABM teams must deliver a digital experience that eliminates friction to boost conversions to the mid-and late-stages. Early-stage engagement with Folloze focuses on proper account segmentation, buyer persona mapping, and content planning that includes social posts, G2 review sites, webinars, and virtual networking events, just to name a few.
Mid-stage engagement spans key evaluation and buying activities, and sales often revisits earlier phases to address new buying centers, requirements and customer objections. Folloze supports this process by accelerating buying consensus, shortening sales cycle by as much as 25 percent, and helping to steer buyers on a clear path to purchase. Tactical plays for this stage include demo videos, customer references, and interaction with PMs and customer success reps.
And it’s important to note that the ABM journey doesn’t end at close. The customer experience continues through implementation and ongoing service to renewal, upgrades, and continued customer advocacy and reference. In this late-stage engagement, ABM teams help push customers through long-term loyalty with online product training videos, help portals, product update emails, and engagement from various customer support teams.
Step 3: Ensure Sales/Marketing Alignment
And finally, ABM, frontline marketing and sales teams must all stay in sync to ensure cohesive delivery of your ABM programs. Various tactics include AE sync meetings and whether or not they’re using the insights provided, pipeline reviews, using ABM dashboards, and sales outreach based on engagement activity.
Read the ABM/ABX Solutions Playbook now and get some practical guidance for building ABM journeys that drive great results.
