Scaling Account-Based Marketing Shouldn’t Feel Like Rocket Science

 

You’ve got a list of target accounts. You mapped out a plan that covers every stage of the sales process. Your marketing and sales teams are working together to engage your buyers and close deals. But why does it feel so complicated?

If your account-based programs are so complex and manual that they’re difficult to scale across larger audiences, this blog post is for you. You shouldn’t need a rocket scientist to figure out how to roll out ABM across your organization.

6 Challenges with Scaling Account-Based Programs

By launching an account-based strategy, you’re one of the pioneers boldly exploring the next frontier of B2B. And as a pioneer, you’ve had to navigate uncharted territory with no roadmap and limited tools.

Unfortunately, this has led to over-engineered processes requiring time-consuming manual steps to fill the gaps left by outdated technology. Let’s look at six of the challenges you may be facing with your ABM strategy — and how you can demystify what sometimes feels like rocket science.

1. Too Many Tools with Siloed Data

As the ABM buzz grew, so did the technology vendors wanting to jump on the bandwagon. As marketing teams try to piece together a target account program, it makes sense to turn to technology to automate as much as possible. So, marketers end up with a lot of point solutions.

Many of these tools are great and have helped B2B marketing take giant steps forward, but they’ve also added to the complexity of scaling personalized ABM campaigns. Managing steps across different tools is often a manual process that doesn’t scale well. This also complicates reporting and makes it difficult to aggregate account insights from disparate tools that don’t integrate the way you need them to.

2. Target Account Lists Take Too Long to Create and Update

When you’re doing it manually, target account lists take a long time to build. Because the important data is spread across many tools, you have to spend a lot of time downloading and consolidating spreadsheets and then uploading the spreadsheets back into a tool like Salesforce.

CRM and marketing automation tools weren’t designed to be account-centric, so they’re challenging to use for target account list building. It’s also difficult to manage and reprioritize account lists, which poses a challenge to agile marketing and sales teams who want to pivot their strategy as new information becomes available.

3. Reaching Decision-Makers Takes Personalization

These days, decision-makers are increasingly hard to reach. Tried-and-true channels aren’t performing the way they used to due to competition or audience fatigue. The silver bullet to this problem has been personalization, but personalization creates its own set of problems.

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You may have seen amazing results with highly personalized campaigns, but they’re complex and time-consuming. The question is, how can you scale without sacrificing that personalized experience?

4. Sales Has Too Much Data

Sales transitioned from having little insight into their accounts to being overwhelmed by prospect data. With today’s tech, reps can now see if their account is showing in-market intent, engaging with key content, reading third-party reviews, attending an event — the list goes on.

To cut through the noise, you have to deliver actionable insights to your sales team — not all insights at all costs. This means you have to be thoughtful about the data sales is receiving and how that data is being visualized. You also have to be mindful of the triggers and actions the data supports. What will your sales team actually do with the information you give them?

5. Can’t Measure Success

One of the biggest challenges with account-based marketing is measuring success. Legacy marketing attribution technology ties pipeline and revenue to leads, not accounts. And lead metrics don’t tell the whole story of an account’s path to purchase.

Using traditional marketing tech to measuring the success of account-based programs is challenging, even more so when you want to scale your program. And without metrics to prove the value of strategic, account-based campaigns, it’s difficult to get the support to scale in the first place.

Make Account-Based Marketing Easier

ABM doesn’t have to be rocket science. The landscape is maturing, and you no longer have to be a lone pioneer without a map or adequate tools. Empower your marketing and sales teams to scale account-based strategies with the [ad_1]: Target. Engage. Activate. Measure.

• Target your best-fit accounts.
• Engage the entire buying committee with multi-touch marketing programs.
• Activate sales with actionable insights.
• Measure success with account-based metrics.

By simplifying your processes and consolidating your tools, your team can scale your account-based programs. No NASA scientists necessary.

Want to learn more about how to execute the TEAM framework and simplify your ABM strategy? Watch [ad_1], an on-demand webinar that breaks down how to succeed with a target account strategy.