Sales and marketing teams have utilized various forms of “key account” strategies for decades, and recent advances in marketing technology and data have allowed marketers to increase the number of companies monitored, analyzed, and communicated with as “key accounts”.

These advances are the primary force driving the current resurgence in interest in Account Based Marketing and it makes sense that marketers are intrigued – after all, ABM is about zeroing in on your top prospects and giving them appropriate amounts of your time, energy and investment — i.e. working smarter, not harder, for maximum return.

Tailor your ABM Framework

Given that ABM is an approach rather than a universally-appropriate set of specific activities, it is up to each of us to craft an Account Based Marketing framework that best addresses our own sales and marketing environment – our own target market(s), buying cycles, etc.

Focus on Actionable Intelligence

As you craft your ABM framework keep an additional idea in mind – focus on those elements that are actionable, meaning those that lead you to modify (and improve) your outreach to the key accounts in question. There is much to be said for intelligence that helps you better understand each account designated as an ABM target, but these benefits can be theoretical. The greatest impact comes from intelligence that causes a change in the messaging, content, and/or form of outreach that your ABM account receives.

Intent Signals Data

One of the most powerful advances in marketing data and technology to become available to ABM marketers recently is Intent Signals™ data, which tells your ABM teams (both marketing and sales) that prospect individuals at one of your ABM accounts are more interested in your type of product or service than they typically are. This form of operational intelligence informs your ABM processes that the time might be right to engage this particular ABM account in a more direct and mid-funnel fashion than you otherwise would have done.

Intent signal data can even be used to trigger your designated ABM campaigns automatically using integrations with major marketing automation platforms, ensuring that each surging account immediately receives your most relevant and impactful messaging and assets.

Because intent signals data is received on an ongoing basis and alters the outreach that you conduct to each ABM account that is surging in interest, it is a practical, timely, and useful form of operational intelligence for ABM marketers and a very interesting arrow to consider adding to your marketing and sales quiver.