Blog / Breaking down barriers in ABM

As an agency, we’ve come to realise too many people assume that ABM is a go-to-market strategy. But really, it’s a mindset shift that needs to happen inside the business, driven usually by the CMO, to change the way you target and attract customers.

In our experience, the trouble with changing mindsets is it often faces pushback, which means if you want your ABM to succeed, you must get the buy-in from your internal stakeholders. Ask yourself, are you struggling to get the rest of the team to shift to the ABM mind-shift?

Work together towards the goal

You may be intimidated by the gargantuan task of breaking down silos in any business, but if you want organisational change and ABM success, take it from us, it’s a challenge you’ll have to face.

Here are some ways we’ve managed to get business buy-in:

• • Step one, try to work backwards in defining your marketing goals (which feed into your ABM objectives).
  • Executive committee buy-in is the most essential, and the best place to start when getting everyone on board with your ABM mind shift. Have you asked the C-Suite what their revenue and business goals are? This then ties in with getting your sales team excited about ABM.
  • We can all agree that the ultimate goal of every B2B company is profit. We’ve seen from experience that even marketing, sales, and finance align on this because everyone needs to show how they are positively impacting the bottom line.

This is critical because sales need to obtain a certain quota each month. Ask your sales team what their magic monthly sales number is, and work together to decide how many target accounts you need to reach each month to achieve that goal.

Using ABM, we’ve optimised the allocation of resources and enhanced the sales pipeline through targeting specific accounts and leveraging data-driven insights, and you can too. This strategic approach will empower your team to maximise budget efficiency and drive tangible results.

Communication can help ABM succeed

We know that patience is a virtue, but when it comes to ABM, it can take anywhere between six months to a year to see returns. At the same time, we know that your executive committee wants to see yields almost immediately.

So we suggest you navigate this disconnect by communicating realistic goals. Set up measurable micro-targets within the first six months that, with time, will impact the bottom line of the business as they are achieved.

These metrics include but are not limited to how many accounts have been reached, where they are in the sales journey, or how many contacts have been engaged per account. These accounts are likely on their way to becoming Market Qualified Accounts (MQA), and with time will impact profits positively.

Change happens, take your team with you

Change is inevitable, and shifting to an ABM mindset inside your business is good change, if you can get it right. Breaking down these organisational silos is the first step in correcting your ABM efforts if you have yet to see any dividends.

Like us, you’re a marketer at heart, so getting your business on board means marketing this change to various stakeholders by showing how ABM can improve their pain points and help them achieve their own operational goals, ultimately positively improving both pipeline and profit.

Be wary of these potential shortfalls we’ve discussed and be sure not to set yourself up for failure by overselling the capability in the short term.