Avoid ABM Blind Spots: Use Quality Data to See Marketing Results — Part 2

In Part 1 of Avoiding ABM Blind Spots, we covered the critical role clean, complete, current, consistent and centralized data plays in ensuring that marketing and sales teams target the right people. This week, we’ll explore the role that high-quality data plays in sending the right message to those right people, as well as how to use data to foster an amicable spirit of sales enablement. Account-based marketing (ABM) is rooted in the art of making every customer feel like they are your one and only. Of course, the only way to do that is to use data-driven personalization, be it for an original marketing campaign or a sales-enabled one.

Let’s Get Personal

Personalized communications are so essential to a successful ABM strategy that it’s not possible to do ABM without them. When you make it your department’s mission to understand an account’s business needs, pain points, and decision-making hierarchy, you are able to tailor your communications to meet those specific needs. And when people get a personalized message, it makes them like you and whatever you are selling a whole lot more because by all accounts it appears that you are an intuitive listener. To show you just how essential personalized data is to your ABM strategy, we’ve rounded up a few of the latest statistics so you can see the results you should be experiencing.

• Companies that get personalization right have the potential to generate 40% more revenue
• 89% of marketers see a positive ROI when they use personalization in their campaigns
• 9% of marketers say that for every dollar spent on personalization they see a $20+ ROI
• 61% of high-growth companies use first-party data for their personalization strategies

ABM Is All About Automating Data to Personalize Messages

What makes ABM so powerful and effective is the ability to send personalized messages to individual customers. What makes sending personalized content to thousands of customers possible is message automation. A good campaign messaging tool should not only automate personalized messages, but integrate seamlessly with your marketing automation platform and other tools, so that you can use data from all storehouses to send highly personalized marketing campaigns on every channel you use. When integrated correctly, these tools work together to pull customer-facing marketing content from sources within your organization. Once the content has been pulled and put in a queue, it can be sent as part of marketing’s automated omni-channel campaigns. It can also be used by your sales team, who can instantly select and send pre-screened messages via their favorite sales software.

Leveraging Data for Next Level Personalization

Marketing to every customer in a way that resonates deeply, requires you to be selective in how personal you are with them. There are a variety of levels of personalization, from broad approaches that leverage basic contact data (industry, job-title, geo, etc.) to highly customized content derived from enhanced customer behavior data (order history, habits, social leanings, etc.). Whether you are creating content for a specific segment of accounts or a single account, the trick is to use your data well as you populate campaigns. It may take some messaging trials and errors to find your sweet spot, but strive to achieve a level of personalization that feels organic and friendly to customers, not invasive and big-brotherish. A few simple ways to leverage data to personalize content include:

• Addressing the recipient by name and noting their title and role
• Using images that reflect the customer’s industry and experience
• Sending case studies specific to the customer’s industry or market
• Adding a personal note to pieces through a sales enablement tool

Benefits of Integrating Martech to Share Data

When you integrate a campaign messaging tool with the other martech tools in your ecosystem, it benefits your ABM strategy in several ways. Integrated tools make it easy to share data and:

• Generate and segment ABM lists
• Coordinate and automate personalized omni-channel campaigns
• Reduce content development costs
• Repurpose content for a variety of channels (SMS, RSS, chat, email, direct mail, voice, etc.)
• Establish a searchable library of content that marketing and sales can use on-demand 

When Marketing and Sales Share Data, ABM Magic Happens

When marketing and sales live in world of siloed data, mixed messages and customer confusion happens and ABM becomes completely impossible. However, when these two pillars of modern businesses integrate tools, share data that upholds the 5 C’s (clean, complete, current, consistent and centralized), and work together to present a unified brand, sales records are set and broken with delightful regularity. According to CSO Insights, companies with a solid sales enablement strategy enjoy a win rate of 47.7%. Imagine if your company won nearly half of all the deals it pursued. Better yet, stop imagining it and start making it rain by fostering sales enablement.

Aligning Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are on the same organizational team, so finding common ground should not be too difficult—even if the people standing in the way of a united front are. If you are faced with the challenge of bringing sales and marketing into alignment, there are several “data-driven” steps you can take to speed up the process:

1. Get Leaders to Buy-In. Talk to sales execs and influencers and let them know you are on a mission to better align sales and marketing so everyone can be more successful. Build trust by openly sharing your vision, goals and challenges. Pro Tip: Cultivate desire by sharing data from research giants that underscores the benefits to sales.
2. Form an Action Team Comprised of Members From Both Sides. Work together to identify, target, and nurture high-value accounts. Pro Tip: Use data from both sides (preferably via integrated tools) to mine for insights. Experiment with different segments and levels of personalization.
3. Meet Regularly to Track Progress on Joint Initiatives. Keeps teams in perpetual alignment by assigning action items and holding both sides accountable. Pro Tip: Print reports that share the latest data on leads generated, campaign performance, templates used, etc.
4. Make ABM-Style Personalization Easy for Sales. Use an automated messaging tool to develop a variety of campaigns for different channels that sales can personalize and send to clients and prospects. Make sure the sales enablement tool you use integrates seamlessly with sales software, so that using branded and customizable templates is convenient and easy. Pro Tip: Track data on the success of various templates and honor the sales people who are using them and achieving the best results at every meeting. Consider providing tangible rewards in various categories, i.e. Most Callbacks From a SMS Marketing Campaign, Best Open Rate for a Customized Email, etc.

In short, think of your sales team as customers of your sales enablement efforts. The easier you make it for them to meet you halfway, the greater your alignment, and ultimately your ABM success will be.

Data + ABM = Together Forever
While the advantages of ABM are numerous, the success of this approach is wholly dependent on the quality of your data. Poor data, (characterized by the absence of the 5C’s) greatly hinders ABM success. Sureshot has a long history of helping organizations get and maintain high-quality data that is ideal for enriching ABM strategies. If you are ready to harness the power of accurate data to unlock the full potential of your ABM strategy, start by taking our FREE Martech Assessment.