Last month at Bowery’s annual Marketing Summit, we were joined by Jess Vogol, VP of Growth Marketing at Movable Ink, and Caroline Buck, VP of Marketing & Partnerships at Wizeline, to talk about “How to Build Your ABM Strategy.” You can find the full video replay of their session below (or here).
Below we have summarized some of the key takeaways:
1. What is ABM? “Account-Based Marketing” is the process of flipping the funnel of traditional marketing. Rather than a marketing team waiting for leads to come in, the team spends time identifying best target accounts and then works to get introductions to those accounts. An ABM frameworks looks different for every organization. Wizeline broke the ABM process into four phases: research, account selection, a pilot phase, and go-to-market. Movable Ink developed a list of accounts then tiered and prioritized them to select target accounts, and eventually created a position dedicated full-time to ABM.
2. In order for ABM to be successful, the entire team has to buy in. The goal is to get every member of the marketing team in the “ABM mindset.” Often it helps to hire someone who is a champion of ABM and will evangelize the ABM approach across teams internally as they collaborate on deals throughout the sales process. Finding champions of ABM can be as simple as asking team members if they want to pilot a program. One tip for getting everyone on the same page: use a consistent format for ABM marketing plans so everyone becomes familiar and comfortable with the process.
3. ABM frameworks can help weather some of the challenges of COVID-19. ABM frameworks emphasize the importance of filtering and prioritizing marketing objectives and targets. This lends itself well in today’s current climate asmany companies need to make difficult decisions regarding resource allocation. Because ABM typically breaks down target accounts into tiers, it becomes easier to ensure that the most important target accounts continue to receive support and attention. Once the groundwork for the ABM framework has been laid, it’s easily malleable to adjust for shifts in the business or macro events (i.e. shifting focus away from travel and hospitality prospects during a pandemic).
Jess Vogol (left) is currently the VP of Growth Marketing at Movable Ink. Prior to Movable Ink, Jess was a marketing leader at Strevus, Unmetric, SecondMarket, and S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Caroline Buck (right) is currently the VP of Marketing & Partnerships at Wizeline. Prior to Wizeline, Caroline was a Product Marketing Manager and Platform Strategist at Yahoo, and a Client Development Manager at BrightRoll. Caroline also sits on the board of Social Justice Collaborative.
If you liked “How to Build Your ABM Strategy” and want to read more content from the Bowery Capital Team, check out other relevant posts from the Bowery Capital Blog.
