In-house Account Based Marketing programs usually fade away around the fourth month of implementation.
It does not happen in an explicit way; no meetings are held to cancel it. It just slips away unnoticed. The target accounts list stops getting updated, and the landing pages turn old. The sales department resumes going back to what CRM was offering before. Later, someone makes a remark during the company’s review about not being successful with ABM.
It is hard for me to believe that I witnessed this phenomenon happen three times in two years. The reason was the same each time. Not because the chosen strategy was wrong. All these companies understood what ABM was all about; their inability to provide necessary operational capabilities became the reason their programs fell apart just before the end of the honeymoon phase.
ABM Isn’t a Campaign Type. It’s an Operating Model.
Most organizations mess up from the start by treating ABM as the task of the marketing team.
The truth is that ABM is a team effort that involves marketing, sales, and customer success, as it targets a specific group of organizations the business believes will be worth acquiring as clients. In the modern business world, it’s impossible for a single department to handle such processes.
That’s how in-house efforts tend to fail. It’s not that marketers lack skills, but rather that their work involves coordinating people from various departments, collecting information from all windows in the organization, and completing tasks among four other projects running at the same time.
The ABM marketing agency first provides the solution to a managerial issue and then does the marketing work. This agency allows for dedicated resources that will not compete with the organization’s trade shows, product launches, and website renewals.
This includes Lead generation services.
What an Agency Brings That an In-House Team Usually Can’t
Let’s be specific, because “expertise and experience” is the most vague claims in this field.
Discipline in choosing accounts
You ask a sales manager about their target account list, and you probably will receive an Excel file with each logo they want to deal with. This is not a strategy, it is a list of wishes.
An efficient agency leads to more sophisticated discussions. Which of the accounts currently have an issue that you solve? What kind of accounts have the relevant budget cycles? What kind of accounts have the decision-making committee which is available for you? As a result, the list is reduced by approximately half, and the campaign becomes twice more efficient.
This is the most important decision in account based marketing and it is the one almost all teams are in a hurry to make.
Data that stays clean
Account intelligence underpins ABM. The importance of firmographics, technographics, org charts, intent signals and engagement data would diminish over time, because of constantly changing workplaces and companies.
It is hard and boring to keep this layer intact. Most teams that do this in-house start well but lose interest after the second quarter.
Orchestration across channels
One particular client may require a LinkedIn sequence for the Chief Financial Officer, a technical webinar hosted by the engineering director, a microsite for the procurement group, and a direct email campaign for the influencer, all carried out simultaneously so as to support each other’s efforts.
Scaling this to 150 clients is a logistical challenge that also highlights what distinguishes ABM lead generation from other forms of marketing: the objective is not just to generate leads but rather to engage an account on a multi-person basis.
A neutral party in the sales-marketing room
The one topic that does not get featured in pitch decks of agencies is probably the most important one.
While sales and marketing might have issues with regards to follow-up effectiveness, the response might differ if the same data were to be presented by an external partner to both teams. A good B2B marketing agency is often engaged in diplomacy, rather than strict campaign management.
The Benefits That Actually Show Up in Pipeline
What are the transformations that take place once the machine is functioning properly?
Transaction dimensions become larger. Since you are now deliberately seeking for bigger accounts that match your requirements as opposed to choosing any random account from the incoming leads, the average amount of a contract is larger. It seems simple but it results from well-planned strategies mostly.
Cycle times shorten. Not because buyers have speeded up their actions but rather because of earlier involvement of the whole commission. Deals often stall when stakeholders appear with questions after the week ten of the deal implementation. This problem can be fixed with the help of ABM.
The waste is minimal. Traditional B2B demand generation means spending money on reaching out to the audience that would never buy from you. This is okay when your potential clients’ database is enormous. It is considered a waste when there are only 300 companies in your realistic database.
Retention rates increase. The logic of ABM survives beyond the first deal. The information used to win the deal will allow upselling the company later on. Most companies forget about this.
Marketing’s impact on revenue has finally been evaluated. Once your reports focus on engagement and pipeline impact, you realize your quarrels with the definition of a qualified lead cease to bear any relevance.
None of these can be taken for granted, though. These present themselves in instances when the marketing strategy has been properly applied, but fails to appear otherwise, which makes the choice of the B2B agency highly consequential in comparison with other engagement types.
When You Should Not Hire an ABM Agency
A word of caution – it’s best to let you know before you find out after committing to it.
Don’t bother with ABM if your average deal is insignificant and the market is huge – it’s not worth the money spent on broad demand generation instead, particularly because the cost of generating leads using the correct demand generation techniques will be much lower.
Don’t do it if your CRM data is old and useless. You need to fix the system first – even the most advanced B2B marketing services wouldn’t help if the program is faulty. It will only become an example of personalization taken too far.
And do not proceed if your sales department won’t take part in it. If your sales team isn’t involved, the whole activity becomes mere advertising.
How Oxper Runs Account-Based Marketing
Manufacturers and firms in the chemical and industrial sectors, life sciences and B2B tech brands are our main targets as they have huge contracts, significant committees and long sales cycles. Account based marketing was practically designed for them.
Our services start from selection of accounts and mapping of decision makers rather than from creative activities. We need to find out who has the final say, who influences the decision making process, who could kill the contract and what they care about.
We also understand that account based marketing cannot function separately from other channels of lead generation. In most cases account based marketing works together with other lead generation forms and demand generation via search engines.
Then, with the help of their B2B marketing services, areas that traditionally work separately get connected in terms of intent-based targeting, role-specific content, converting landing pages, and an efficient marketing automation keeping the sales transfer seamless. After that, we meet every two weeks with their sales team in order to review how the program is performing and check the number of leads in the sales pipeline.
Ion Exchange, one of the largest water treatment companies in India, perfectly illustrates what this practice can yield — a 200% increase of leads received via the website, 90% extra organic traffic, and 300% better keyword ranking on page one.
Worth Doing Properly, or Not at All
Account-based marketing requires full dedication and punishes half-hearted attempts. Any program conducted over two quarters with real involvement from the sales team is more effective than anything conducted over two years as a side project.
If you already have a predetermined list of target accounts and a sales team on board, the simplest way to go about your business is to work with an agency. In case you do not have this list yet, it is advisable to deal with that issue first.
Schedule a discovery call with Oxper so that we can help you validate your list of target accounts.
