In this podcast, Julija Noskova (a GTM and Growth Marketing Consultant) shares the ABM lessons she learned from working as a VP of Marketing for Medallia, SoftChoice and other companies. These lessons include:
1. ABM requires change management across the organization, otherwise, you're just doing marketing as usual just more targeted. This includes changes in mindset, measurement/KPIs, how we go to market, the content we create, the interactions teams are having, and the experiences that are delivered.
2. Alignment is not enough - ABM requires greater integration across the marketing organization and across GTM teams. We need to work together to win, protect and expand accounts as 1 team as ABM should start and end with revenue. Demand gen fixes pipeline issues - ABM fixes issues across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle to impact ARR, GRR and NRR.
3. Most content does not support ABM or sales as it's not driven by account intelligence, it's not aligned with where customers are, it doesn't reframe prospect's thoughts or ideas, it doesn't make an emotional connection, it doesn't build a business case, it doesn't teach for differentiation and it doesn't help with sales conversations including taking risk off the table to overcome indecisiveness.
4. Most ICPs are not effective. ICP is supposed to be for your most ideal customers where you can get the greatest revenue growth, the strongest margins, and have the greatest impact. It's the ones where you have the best differentiation and the best stories so you do not have to worry about others winning on price. But most ICPs are too broad, they do not start with revenue and there isn't organization-wide alignment on what the ICP is.
5. Too many organizations are treating all ICP accounts the same - they lack processes for selecting, segmenting and prioritizing key accounts. This is why 2/3 of ABM organizations only do 1: few and 1: many programs vs. having a balanced ABM program.
6. Field marketing roles need to evolve. As field marketing and ABM should closely align since both should be focused on accelerating high-value accounts to revenue, Julija transitioned her field marketing team to strategic account marketers.
7. ABM requires a middle enablement layer between sales, marketing and customer success teams. Sales enablement is not enough as teams need it at the account-level.
8. While ABM supports a small portion of the accounts that sales and marketing target, the impact is far-reaching. As ABM requires change management and a stronger focus on interactions and experiences vs. campaigns, teams should be gaining lessons that can be applied across all sales, marketing, customer success and GTM motions.