ABM has exploded in popularity among marketers in the age of personalization and consumer-driven marketplaces. It is expected by 2023 that the strategy is expected to be worth more than $1 billion globally. Like all other content and communications strategies, ABM is only as effective as the sales and marketing alignment behind it.
The Importance of Sales & Marketing Team Alignment
To get the most out of ABM, a team must be in sync with the company’s sales and marketing teams. The alignment is needed because ABM is different from the typical approach, which is done for sales.
Account-Based Marketing is not about increasing the number of leads. Still, using an ABM strategy will likely result in your sales force having fewer prospects than previously. But there’s a catch with ABM that these leads will be extremely relevant and far more likely to convert.
Personalization, lead nurturing, and remarketing are just a few ways ABM aids sales and marketing tactics. As a result, to get the optimum outcomes, a company’s sales and marketing teams must be coordinated. Unfortunately, most companies do not consider this a priority, leading to their ABM strategies failing.
Read More: Jabmo Expands Omnichannel ABM Platform With Sales Enablement Tools And Salesforce Integration
How To Align Sales & Marketing Team For ABM?
Motivation and understanding are the cornerstones of alignment for better ABM output. If neither the sales team nor the marketing team understands how ABM and alignment are linked, they will most likely lose sight of it as a top priority. ABM is typically more difficult for sales teams to implement since it contradicts their core belief in producing many leads. Both sales and marketing teams must collaborate. ABM follows a few fundamental phases, and each team plays an important role in each step. The following steps are needed to be taken to align sales & marketing teams –
- Best Account To Target – Sales and marketing teams should sit down and talk about their lists to qualify leads, looking for overlapping characteristics. Both sales and marketing teams should ensure that their lead qualifying and scoring methods are comparable. Their decisions are supported by data that demonstrates which sorts of accounts are more likely to convert.
- Buyer Profiles – Sales and marketing teams should look through the most minute information of their clients and generate classified lists that can be applied to a customer base in addition to discovering overlapping criteria for eligible leads. This comprises details such as a user’s job title, management goals, hobbies, industry concentration, etc. Sales teams can also aim to extract insights which can be detailed information about individuals from their operations, such as personal preferences.
- Strategic Content – Although the marketing team is usually in charge of content generation, it’s crucial to get some feedback from the sales team on frequent issues the consumers face. Sales teams should share their experiences with customers with the marketing team and identify the sorts of material that tend to have the most impact on customers in answering queries or generating a return on investment. For a typical ABM output, strategic content production is required.
- ABM Incorporation – ABM is not a strategy that can be implemented by itself; to be effective, it must be incorporated into every marketing channel. Sales and marketing teams should collaborate to determine where and when their efforts and content will generate the most leads and nurture them. Marketing teams, for example, might plan the strategy or channel, which can include search advertising to target a given account. Once a lead has been produced, it is up to the company’s sales staff to decide how they will nurture that lead with content. The follow-up to the lead can be in the form of emails, messages, etc.
- Monitoring & Adjusting – It’s vital to track the success of any marketing or sales strategy and make changes as needed. Marketing teams may find it simpler to evaluate and give data in this aspect. Still, all metrics should be shared by both the sales team and marketing team to discover the weakest parts and debate improvements for these parts of the strategy.
ABM is incredibly cost-effective because of its tailored nature. Investing time and effort in personalization and ongoing interaction will provide better returns. Rather than taking a wide strategy, you concentrate on the most likely accounts to convert or generate significant income if you do. ABM has multiple other benefits, but none of this can come into place if a company’s marketing and sales team are not aligned.
B2B marketing and sales teams need to work together to effectively use account-based marketing. Your ABM efforts will be more effective if sales input is included. As a consequence, marketing may assist sales in developing more compelling communication with their consumers by placing highly targeted solutions into the market.
Read More:Â How Can Sales And Marketing Teams Track The Success Of Their ABM Campaigns?
