I first heard about Account Based Marketing (ABM) in 2013. And yet, I still am hearing about big companies who are just starting to think about ABM as part of their GTM strategy… ABM started for me when I went to a Terminus conference in downtown Boston. Terminus had partnered with Marketo to talk about how to do account-based marketing. The room was FULL of marketers who were looking to switch from the good old “spray and pray” method, to a more targeted “relationship first/personalized” method of marketing. I remember thinking that the reason we were able to actually do this now, was because marketing automation had finally advanced enough that marketers could understand on a large scale more about their target audience. It did mean that many processes were going to have to change. And, that’s when I realized that ABM is actually more about change management than anything else. And, even more so, without great change management, ABM as a marketing and sales strategy will fail.

As I’ve worked with clients who are making the switch or looking to test out ABM I have ended up using a few of the same tips each time. So, I thought I might as well get them down in a post, maybe someone else can use them.

1. Know yourself, but more importantly, know your audience: This sounds like something my therapist would say, but if you have been reading this blog, I actually think it’s a good tip for marketers ALL the time, not so much about themselves, but about their company and their market and the connection between the two. ABM is essentially targeted marketing. You pick a small list of companies that you want to sell to, and you figure out all that you can about them: what are their pains, what’s going on with them in the market, what are their goals, who are potentially on the buying committee for your product? Then you come up with ways to communicate how your product/service/solution can help them achieve their goals faster, stop the bleeding faster, etc. So, you HAVE to know your audience, and you have to know if your solution actually solves their problem, and/or enough of your ABM target audience actually has the pain you’ve outlined. If they don’t and your success to date has been realized based on weird human decisions, ABM might not be for you. But, if you KNOW you have a solution that fits a small audience (you have to know your revenue numbers here to know if this is a good enough strategy to sustain your company) and you know the messages have resonated in the past, then it’s just a matter of executing. But, all of that starts with a solid understanding of your prospects, their pains and your ability to solve those pains.

2. Cross-functional teams: Gosh, I can’t say this enough, but when you change to a new sales and marketing method, you HAVE to get everyone on board, early. And, it’s actually not just sales and marketing, it could be product and engineering, it could be finance or support. If you are going to change how you go to market, think about the impact on your business as a whole. If support calls start coming in from a specific industry that you’ve targeted in your ABM strategy and those questions are detailed and your support teams don’t have that level of expertise in that industry, that’s not a great experience for your new customers. So, get people from all of these groups on a team and walk through what ABM means. It doesn’t just impact what marketing is doing. I should note here, that, ideally, you got buy-in from senior leaders (read COO, CEO) who have sway over multiple departments, before just deciding to “do ABM,” because ABM doesn’t just “get done” after you’ve completed a list of operational changes.

3. Operations: Speaking of operational changes, these changes aren’t just switching from using a “Lead-> Opportunity-> Account” to “Account->Contact->Opportunity” process in Salesforce. The impact on operations could touch commission structures, marketing MBO’s, support KPIs and even hiring strategies. Yes, you have to figure out how you want to use correctly use your CRM and marketing automation tools, or if you want to add additional tools, but ABM, really is a strategic shift in the way you do business, not just how you market and sell. So, give your operations teams the time and space to make those changes, correctly.

4. Clean data: Pretty sure my second favorite thing to write about is clean data. It just goes hand in hand with knowing your audience. There’s no sense in spending all this time knowing your audience if you are just going to have weird automation things happening because your data isn’t clean. Take the time to clean your database and have it reflect the amount of work that you’ve put into understanding your audience.

5. Pilot programs: So, if you’ve read this far, you might be feeling REALLY overwhelmed. I hate that feeling. So, I am actually a super fan of doing pilot programs. Pick 20-100 prospects, 2-3 salespeople, 1-2 marketing people and try ABM out. Find a target group that doesn’t require a change to your support and finance teams. Still, get the buy-in from the people in charge of those teams, but pitch it as a pilot and illustrate goals, timeline, responsibilities, results and decision dates. This helps you test the impact of the message, your channels, the new process and the impact on your organization without making EVERYONE endure change unless you are 100% sure it will drive the revenue you need.

Change management doesn’t have to be hard, and hopefully, these 5 tips have given you some peace of mind as you embark on the journey that is ABM.