Account-based selling is not a new sales model. It has been a proven selling concept for sales leaders across industries. According to tenfold, account-based selling was actually considered a hot sales trend in 2016.
Today, with better sales technologies and improved capabilities in CRM systems and Customer Data Platforms, sales and marketing leaders can effectively work in a more collaborative manner to unify prospect and customer data and plan more targeted sales and marketing campaigns in tandem with core business goals.
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A Few Quick Facts on Account-based Selling
Account-based selling, like the term suggests, helps sales people adopt a more account-based approach to their outreach and prospecting efforts rather than the commonly used lead data or contact based approach. Like in an account-based marketing campaign, the core focus lies in shortlisting and targeting high value accounts so that multiple departments within the company (especially sales and marketing) can work closely together to identify the best sales and marketing strategies to pitch to and nurture these accounts with the aim of converting them.
- Larger enterprise sales teams are known to adopt account-based selling techniques to prospect with their enterprise target accounts
- The typical account-based selling process starts with sales leaders and marketing leaders in a company identifying the most relevant and high-worth accounts to go after
- This step is crucial to ensuring joint campaigns, common messaging and deeply aligned sales and marketing campaigns are run with reduced friction and fewer overlaps
Key Benefits of Account-based Selling
Account-based selling can successfully generate better win rates, this sales model can help sales teams focus on relevant, high-value accounts and have a deeply integrated approach that can help shorten their sales cycle and close more deals in a shorter duration.
But why should more sales teams start relying on an account-based selling model to drive business sales and overall revenue?
Account-based Selling Helps you Identify the Most Relevant Sales Opportunities
Sales leaders who are tuned to running effective account-based selling campaigns know that the main criteria required in identifying high value accounts to run an account-based selling campaign include also building out data on these account’s tech purchase history, employee, revenue (past growth and projected) as well as their current technology stack in-use.
This step itself helps sales teams identify the most valuable accounts to go after, based on technology buying intent, sales leaders can further divide their target account list to breakdown different sales approaches for accounts who ‘’could be’’ interested in their technology or service, accounts who ‘’currently use’’ a competitor’s service, accounts who have shown buying intent in a similar product or service. These are just some of the ways sales leaders effectively plan and manage which accounts they should focus their efforts on, at the end of the duration and campaign, results are usually measured based on ROI from these lists and close-win rates.
Improves Sales Prospecting Efforts
When sales teams know that are particular top target account is not only valuable for potential high worth revenue opportunities but that the account has also either used or plans to use a similar product, it makes it easier to derive more result-oriented sales messaging and sales triggers in sales prospecting emails. This places sales teams and even marketing teams in a better position to plan more effective sales messaging that can boost email open rates and responses.
Successfully Boosts Company Bottomline
When the sales focus is already on running well thought out account-based selling models on a set list of accounts, the rest of the sales approach becomes more targeted, personalized and streamlined. Furthermore, since the first step involves identifying the most relevant sales opportunities from a list of target accounts based on different criteria, sales effort become more measured and allows sales teams to use the right techniques (a multichannel approach with the right buying triggers) to shorten the customer buying journey and create more revenue in a shorter duration.
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Can Positively Impact Deal Size
With a focused approached on selling to accounts that not only have the budget to invest in your product but also show keen interest, the groundwork is already laid out for sales teams to hop in and capitalize on these opportunities. The fact that account-based selling is primarily used as a sales model to reach out to high worth companies can mean that there is more chance of tapping larger deal sizes per account or project.
Should you Plan your Next Account-based Selling Campaign Today?
In a largely digital selling environment, global companies can expand faster with this approach and enter new markets. A well planned account-based selling model not only leads to larger revenues, it can create better alignment among departments like sales and marketing and set the base for a stronger sales process on the whole. Once the basic elements like implementation of the best-fit sales technologies and marketing technologies as well as firmographics, technographics and purchase behavior and buying intent are broken down, sales leaders can use all this information for their account-based selling success and long-term growth.