This document discusses how marketing automation can help address common challenges organizations face in achieving account-based marketing goals. It outlines a workflow for account identification, stakeholder mapping, predictive modeling, sales and marketing alignment, account messaging, campaign structure, and measurement. Common barriers like a lack of personalization at scale, sales/marketing misalignment, and siloed thinking are examined. The document provides advice on developing an implementation plan, understanding your audience, setting expectations, experimenting, and celebrating small successes.

1. Building a
foundation for
success
21st June 2016

2. A (very) brief intro

3. ABM Consultancy & Services
Our end-to-end workflow for Customer Lifecycle ABM ensures actionable insight is at the heart of everything we do:
Account
identification
and prioritization
Stakeholder
mapping
Propensity-to-
buy modelling
Sales &
marketing
alignment
workshops
Account Value
Proposition
(AVP)
messaging
Campaign
structure
Content strategy
Engagement
channels
consultancy
Personalized digital
assets
Sales enablement
content
Social and IP-based
advertising
Marketing automation
ROI measurement
Marketing attribution
Audience and Account
Profiling
ABM Strategy ABM Engagement
Planning
Campaign Execution Impact Measurement
Insight at the heart of everything

4. What are people trying
to achieve

5. We need to up-sell/cross-sell
more to our key accounts…
...by understanding our target audience’s pain points
...through engaging in a more personal way
...as well as defending against competitive
propositions
We need to win
new target accounts…
...through initiating relationships with decision makers
...by driving and shaping buying cycles (pre-RFP)
...by engaging target accounts as part of bids
Our customers’ common drivers

6. Four barriers
stopping
organisations
achieving
these goals

7. Only 33% of the buyer journey consists of a direct engagement with a brand
And so, the challenge is simple. When a buyer does engage, how do you
manage an-insight driven, timely engagement using the right content and channel?
Dealing with a self-guided buying cycle
Acquire Engage Pitch Win Retain Upsell Evangelise
‘Visible’interaction‘Invisible’research
67%
*SiriusDecisions
33%

8. Struggling to personalise at scale
Not enough time
Personalisation of engagement efforts is rated as the number one priority by
33% of CMOs*, the highest of any factor. However, a number of barriers stand
in the way of this:
*Adobe
The wrong insight Lacking skills Not utilising
technology

9. A lack of Sales / Marketing alignment
Issue #1:
50% of sales time is wasted on
unproductive prospecting —
but sales reps ignore 50% of
marketing leads
(The B2B Lead)
Issue #2:
Across the board, 87% of the
terms used by sales and
marketing to describe each
other are negative
(CEB)
Issue #3:
90% of marketers can’t
calculate the
ROI of their digital marketing
spend
(Fournaise)

10. Silo-based thinking, preventing
a joined-up approach
Sales
pick target accounts based on
assumptions and
generalisations
Research/ analytics
seek to understand accounts
with limited context and often
at single point in time,
meaning output is bland and
high-level
Marketing
lack time, resource or
understanding to interpret
insight, so resort to generic
campaign briefs and activity
Creative
builds a campaign based on
overarching messages and
non-specific personas
Campaign execution
resort to tired mass-marketing
tactics hoping to reach leads with
generic messaging and content
Marketing ops
invested in a range of
technologies but struggle to
track success of campaigns
through to the impact on sales
CMO/CFO
struggle to see value of
programme and cut budgets

11. How does Marketing
Automation address
these problems?

12. How Marketing Automation helps
Problem faced by Marketing team How Marketing Automation helps
Self-guided buying cycle Web tracking and web personalisation
Personalising at scale Automation of nurture tracks, web experience and
access to objective data
Lack of sales/marketing alignment Objective scoring, integration with CRM
Silo-based thinking Objective data to provide evidence for future
activity

13. How best to implement?

14. Have a plan
● What are you trying to solve?
● Why are you trying to solve it?
● Which other stakeholders do you need to explain
your thinking to - CFO, IT director, sales director
● Have they bought in to your vision?
● What other resources/tools/skills do you need?
● Are your current sales/marketing processes set up
for this?
● What will success look like and how will you know
if you’ve succeeded?

15. ● Don’t be swayed by shiny lights and promises
● What is the functionality you really need versus the
nice to have
● Are you planning on integrating with your CRM?
● Are there any data compliance issues unique to
your business/industry sector?
● What is the business case behind your answer to
each of the previous questions?
Achieving your plan

16. “Don’t count the people that you reach,
reach the people who count”
David Ogilvy
Understand your
audience

17. ● Relevant
● Tailored
● Personalised
● Multi-channel
● On their terms
The journey

18. ● Education, education, education
● Seek feedback
● What does good look like
● How will you communicate this back
Sales / Marketing
alignment

19. ● Be clear on timescales
● Evolve, experiment, test
● Pilot vs full deployment
Expectation setting

20. In summary

21. ● Be clear on what you’re trying to
achieve
● Understand your audience
○ What journeys
○ What content
○ What channels
○ What message
● Set expectations
● Experiment!!!
● Start small and celebrate success
Things to
remember

22. Liam Jacklin, Partner, agent3
liam.jacklin@agent3.com
+44 (0)757 265 6342