Louise Jefferson has helped multiple global organisations identify and prioritise opportunities to accelerate growth using Account-Based Marketing (ABM). In this article, she explains why it is important to keep your ABM programme refreshed.
There are many reasons you might need to refresh your ABM programme. Perhaps your business priorities have changed, your budgets are under pressure, your team is restructuring, or your current plan isn’t having the impact you hoped for. Alternatively, you might be ready to scale your successful pilot across your organisation and are wondering how best to do that.
Imaginative new types of ABM combined with evolving technology and AI mean that ABM is undergoing a metamorphosis. While full Strategic ABM remains important and extremely effective in your top accounts, less intensive types of ABM have emerged (The continuing evolution of ABM – Inflexion Group), including ‘Scenario ABM,’ a lighter approach to 1-1, focused on driving pre-defined, specific outcomes through the customer lifecycle, such as breaking into a new buying centre or building advocacy.
And while ABM is recognised as essential to driving long term, sustainable growth, deciding which accounts to focus on, and which type of ABM to apply in a new blended model, remains a challenge for many programme leaders. Working with independent ABM specialists can bring external thought-leadership to your organisation and empower your internal team to make changes, even to a well-established programme.
At Inflexion Group, our consultants are practitioners with first-hand experience of delivering in-house ABM programmes, so we take a pragmatic approach to helping companies transform. It starts with a short review of your existing programme using an ABM diagnostic (Is it time to bring in the experts? The case for an ABM diagnostic – Inflexion Group), leading to recommendations on how to evolve your programme to achieve the greatest impact. We work with your ABM team to build on the things that are working well and introduce the new capabilities you need, grounded in your systems, your processes and your go-to-market approach.
Sometimes a small shift in thinking can make a big impact. For example, your ABM team may be focused on helping customers realise the value of what they have already bought, rather than driving conversations with new potential buyers, which is what the account teams now need most. For one client, transformation involved remodelling their global programme to provide the tools, templates and skills the ABM team needed to drive outcomes that were better aligned to account teams’ goals.
Different companies need different approaches. Some prefer a short, sharp intervention to refresh their programme while others opt for more collaborative, long term support in identifying change workstreams, setting objectives, and managing deliverables over time. In all cases, our approach is bespoke.
As the need to scale ABM effectively continues to grow, and the technology enabling ABM evolves, leaders are getting creative. Is it time to refresh your ABM programme?
If you would like us to help refresh your existing ABM programme, please contact info@inflexiongroup.com
