How ABM works to solve real business challenges.
True ABM aligns marketing with sales and delivers business outcomes, not just activity. We use proven ABM workflows, based on years of ABM experience and success.
So what challenges do we specifically tackle in our ABM programs? Here are six examples.
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How do I support a contract renewal cycle?
Renewals can’t be taken for granted. A lot changes between procurement cycles, and you've got different stakeholders to consider. You need to engage and mobilize end users to support your business case, overcoming any resistance. You must shift perceptions, and demonstrate value, from the C-suite to the technical and economic buyers.
Here’s how.
Understand your decision makers and their competition. Know exactly who you are dealing with, their challenges and motivations, and how to reach them.
Use the right tools, methods and messages so your clients really see that you understand them and their business better than anyone.
Map your use cases to your client’s strategy and demonstrate you’ve done it before. Back it with a ROI model that shows impact to both top and bottom lines.
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How do I cross-sell into a new BU or LOB?
Cross-selling requires advocacy from existing customers and insight into adjacent lines of business, so you can be situationally fluent about the account’s needs. You need to educate and convince new stakeholders of your value. And you need a compelling story--one that talks to the new business’s needs, aligns to key use cases and meets stakeholder objectives.
Here’s how.
Find and leverage your advocates. Arm these champions with the ammunition to make you more relevant (and get you closer) to your target stakeholders.
Be present in watering holes that key stakeholders frequent, virtually or in person. You need a seat at the table, be that at town hall meetings or customer events.
Understand the existing and future competitive landscape so you can ensure you have a finely honed proposition, and the content to bring it to life.
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How do I upsell a new use case into an existing customer?
Even when you know your customers well, you need to earn their support in order to extend your relationship. Maybe there are new faces with allegiances to other partners. You need to communicate the value of your upsell in the most relevant way to drive all stakeholders to action—requiring education, nurturing and pitching to bring all decision makers and influencers on the journey.
Here’s how.
Prepare razor-sharp positioning, specific to your use case, that makes your competitors less relevant.
Find the perfect mix of offline, online and sales enablement activity to engage and drive interest and change perceptions.
Demonstrate value to all stakeholders and target them with highly personalized use case messaging through the digital channels you know they use.
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How do I open a greenfield opportunity?
Landing an opportunity within a net new account is not easy. What killer insight do you need to make a connection with a net new logo? Which buyers and decision makers do you need to reach? When and how do you engage them? New logo development has to start with the right insight and strategic approach to open doors and start conversations.
Here’s how.
Identify and profile your target stakeholders as part of an actionable insight framework underneath your ABM strategy.
Get that all-important introduction by co-marketing, leveraging partners and extending networks, all based on account-centric insight.
Align to business needs and the common use cases, and develop a differentiated story that helps get you noticed.
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How do I shift from a transactional to a strategic relationship?
The ultimate goal: to be a strategic partner to your accounts. Have the understanding, experience, capabilities and scale to directly impact an organization. You need to move beyond transactional relationships within individual BU and LOBs and elevate conversations to the C level, supported by a multi disciplined solution sell.
Here’s how.
Know the high-value stakeholders that will ultimately expand your ability to sell within an account, their priorities, and their connections to your business.
Elevate your brand profile with a clear story that resonates with technical and economic buyers as well as the C and D suites.
Share your roadmap for the account, and enable your stakeholders to see the potential ROI through personalized online assets.
Use competitive profiling to identify ways to deposition incumbents and ensure your stakeholders see the value you bring.
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How do I drive post-sale advocacy and maximize revenue?
Winning a deal or a bid is not the time to ease up. In fact, it's prime time to make your sponsor famous, and reinforce the decision to select you. More than that, it can also be a time to “land and expand.” You have new status, and the attention that goes with it. So it’s time to make an impact and broadcast your story, while simultaneously driving adoption, usage and advocacy.
Here’s how.
Conduct a white-space analysis of who you now know and who you need to know.
Use a mix of online and offline activities to drive use case awareness among new, high-value stakeholders within your account.
Use micro-level retargeting with geofenced and IP advertising to deliver a series of key messages to educate decision makers around your wider propositions.
Use marketing automation to deliver highly personalized experiences to your stakeholders, while gathering behavioral insight for use in future ABM programs.