ABM: Internal Alignment and Personalization

Within the world of demand generation, account-based marketing (ABM) has secured a place for itself among the traditional strategies with its core strength to personalize, align internal teams, emphasize collaboration, and use data to influence outreach. Research shows that marketers struggle with aligning marketing and sales, nurturing target account personas, and predicting which accounts are likely to make conversion despite the proven success of ABM. Isn’t it time to change that?

Marketing teams often rely on ABM to solidify their lead qualification process and eliminate the guesswork with the help of intent data. ABM opens the possibilities of uniting both the sales and marketing team funnels into one accessible and flexible funnel that determines where the accounts are in their buying journey and what’s the next action- whether it’s on the Marketing or the Sales side.

Internal Alignment Between Sales and Marketing

The heavy emphasis is not just on sales and marketing team alliance but also on the funnel alliance, depending on internal communication. Demand Gen Report’s 2021 State of ABM Report indicates the lack of alignment between sales and marketing as the major pain point for aspiring ABM practitioners. 

All this points back to the need to obtain accurate and authentic data that specifies an account’s intent of action and conversion. At Anteriad, we call this Intent Data- check out some of our other blogs highlighting its value and importance. 

Internal alignment helps organizations to develop an understanding of each account (and prospects’) specific requirements. Once marketers paint a clear picture of what prospects are looking for, this data can be handed to sales to start a conversation with the right person at the right time within a target account.

B2B prospects don’t want to hear a sales pitch; they need a solution to their business challenges. With internal alignment and team coordination, organizations can offer a presentation that addresses their pain points and offers approachable and actionable solutions. ABM can help with this approach, helping to generate the content and outreach based on position in the buyer journey.

What’s next? Deliver relevant content to your ABM accounts

With uncertainty in the world due to the pandemic, it’s no surprise that businesses are looking for quality outreach from organizations through personalized content. However, content personalization efforts sometimes fall short — The Demand Gen Report we mentioned earlier states that companies are struggling to personalize content and campaigns due to various issues, such as the lack of data or a misunderstanding about specific account pain points. 

This can negatively affect companies trying to generate compelling, personalized content. Marketers should focus on how they want to build their brand reputation, what sort of relationship they’d like to build with their clients and how many leads they need to generate when focusing on creating and distributing personalized content. These considerations can help set content creation strategy for your organization. 

Without compelling content, ABM will fail – David Jones, President of Yesler, states that “Personalized content is more crucial to an ABM program than any other marketing effort.” The content requirements of a prospect can change based on the stages of buyer engagement and throughout the buyer journey. So… what are you going to do about it? Why don’t you start with internal alignment and realistic expectations before you get going?

The Benefits of Alignment and Personalization in ABM

The number of issues an organization might face around generating quality content requires sales and marketing teams to be on the same page; internal alignment and collaboration are a must. These B2B integrated marketing hurdles can’t be resolved by technology alone- though each vendor will try and sell a new solution to solve your issues. Truly, alignment between Sales and Marketing within your organization can help pave the way for best next steps in your ABM strategy. 

The heart of ABM is personalization and internal alignment. This helps the marketers in the long run with the ability to address what the accounts are interested in, and how to tackle their pain points and offer them the right engagement opportunity.

To learn more about ABM, check out these articles:

• Truth Matters: 4 ABM Truths for B2B Marketers
• Account-Based Engagement: Look at Relationships Over Time