It’s hard to admit when a relationship isn’t going to work out. You think back to all of the excitement you felt in the beginning, how much you cared, and all of the effort you put into making things work. You can’t help but wonder: “What happened?”
👆To clarify, I’m talking about you and your account-based marketing (ABM) program.
When ABM first started trending, it was love at first sight for marketers. It was a promising new strategy and it gave sales teams a good reason to care about the work marketers were doing.
The problem? Doing ABM successfully is hard.
Although ABM has been around for a while now, only 17% of ABM programs today are mature and driving strategic growth, according to a study conducted by ABMLA and ITSMA. Beyond that, less than 25% of ABM marketers report having solidified key elements of their approach. Add on top of that the pandemic, budget cuts, and a volatile economy, and it’s easy to see how ABM might be wearing down on marketers.
If you feel like your relationship with your ABM program is on the rocks, it might just be time for you to break up with it.
Hi 👋 I’m Justin Keller, SVP of Marketing at Drift and a die-hard fan of ABM. Today, I’m going to share with you all the signs that you should break up with your ABM program and how you can rebuild it (with examples from Drift) so you can fall back in love with ABM.
I originally presented on this topic at 6sense’s Breakthrough Conference. If you want to watch the full recording, click here. Otherwise, keep reading for all the insights 💡
Is It Time to Have “The Talk” with Your ABM Program?
Every marketer’s trajectory with ABM is different. Maybe you recently got into ABM, but you’re starting to realize that it isn’t what you signed up for. Or, maybe you’ve been doing ABM for so long that you can hardly remember why you started in the first place.
Either way, one thing remains true — you can’t do ABM half-heartedly. Because if you’re not in love with your own ABM program, then I can guarantee that your target accounts won’t be feeling the love either.
So, how do you know if it’s time to break up with your ABM program? Well, according to today’s relationship experts on the internet, there are three major signs:
- You’re holding onto the good memories. It’s no secret that ABM can massively impact your pipeline and revenue. I mean, that’s why we’re all doing it, right? But, over time, you may have realized that an ABM program is a lot harder to maintain than it first seems. Without adequate data, resources, and alignment, your ABM program might simply be falling short of the results that you first set out to achieve.
- You’ve stopped putting in the effort. Personalization is the backbone of ABM. But sadly, according to Hubspot, it also happens to be 45% of marketers’ biggest challenge. If you’re not putting in the time to collect unique use cases, study people’s pain points, or “stalk” a LinkedIn profile, your ABM program won’t have a leg to stand on.
- There’s not a serious commitment. As I mentioned earlier, only 17% of ABM programs are considered mature — and that number hasn’t budged since 2020. As transformative as ABM promised to be, only a few companies committed to making it a driver behind their go-to-market (GTM) strategies. And ABM is a strategy that requires commitment.
If any of this sounds painfully familiar to you, then a breakup is probably long overdue. In which case, it’s time you cut ties with your past love and get together with an ABM program that will actually wow your target accounts and drive the results you want.
3 Things You Need to Build a 1:1 ABM Model You Can Love
When was the last time your ABM team created a meaningful, heartfelt, and unique experience for your most important accounts?
For us at Drift, as we shifted focus to our inbound leads, we found ourselves straying further and further away from our white glove accounts. And though we had a dedicated list of accounts that were the best fit for our company, we were generating almost zero pipeline from them because we were barely spending any time or effort on them.
When I talk about breaking up with your ABM program (as we eventually did), the goal is to get back to having thoughtful, one-to-one engagement with your target accounts. This comes down to doing three key things:
- Building personal relationships. At the end of the day, marketing and sales is not about creating a connection between businesses but creating a connection between humans. So, make sure to focus your ABM strategy on driving authentic conversations between you and your target accounts.
- Communicating better. The success of ABM hinges on having good relationships — not only with your accounts but also your sales team. This is where open communication is key. At Drift, we created new engagement signals and dashboards to help sales stay on top of their accounts. With all of this information in one place, we could talk strategically about these accounts and hold each other accountable.
- Locking. It. Down. It’s time to let your accounts know that you’re serious about them. Show your accounts that you’re listening and that you understand their pain points. That is how you can communicate the value that your solution has for them.
Need help getting started on these three points? Grab a copy of our Art of ABM ebook here.
ENT 51: How Drift Reconnected with ABM
Wondering what thoughtful, one-to-one interactions with your target accounts look like in practice?
For the team at Drift, all of this culminated in a brand new project that allowed us to regain our company’s trust in ABM: the ENT 51. Here’s how it worked 👇
Finding Bae
Essentially, the ENT 51 was a campaign to target our top 51 enterprise accounts — 17 account executives (AEs) with three accounts each. The small scale of the project helped us maintain focus on engaging and converting our white whale accounts.
As for how we chose the accounts, it was a team effort. We compiled data from across our tech stack to get the most vivid picture of our account universe possible. Then, we narrowed that down to a small list of accounts and handed it over to our AEs to make the final picks.
In other words, marketing got to build the list, but sales ultimately got to exert their preference — which means we both had skin in the game.
The Pickup Line
Once we chose which accounts to target, it was time to personalize.
The campaign was pretty simple, themed around having conversations (which is what Drift is all about). We built out a one-to-one ad campaign that greeted accounts by name and drew them in with a gift. The custom-branded podcast mics and AirPods spoke to our theme of having better conversations from the comfort of their home.
When the account clicked on the ad, that’s when the magic really happened. Because once the account landed on our website, instead of launching into a pitch of our solution, we introduced a human. The account was immediately greeted with a personalized video from their dedicated AE saying how excited they were to chat.
The Results
While the campaign was simple, it proved that personalization truly drives results. Our ads had 5x the average click-through rate of normal ads. 23% of those who visited our website engaged with our Drift chatbot, and half of those people actually converted — giving us their contact info.
All-in-all, within three weeks, we had created four opportunities and built $267K in pipeline — to the tune of a 33x return on investment (ROI). After the three-month mark, this one campaign had influenced $1.1M in pipeline.
Final Thought
What is the big takeaway from our ABM love story? Well, whether it’s building out your strategy, aligning your team on which accounts to pursue, or fostering relationships with target accounts, ABM only works if everyone cares.
So, show your accounts that you care. When you build an ABM program that does this, you will be able to rely less on your inbound plays, create a more predictable revenue stream, and reignite your passion for ABM. It’s as simple as that.