How thinking about account centricity in a different way can supercharge your ABM strategy.
In a world of uncertainty, ABM strategy takes on new significance. As the economy, the markets, and the world itself evolve and change, fortune favours the enterprises who themselves scale and flex to weather the storm.
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
Peter Drucker, Management Consultant and author
At the moment that’s not easy for any large, complex organisation. Over the last eighteen months, we’ve seen enterprises contract, stop hiring, and actively shrink their workforces. In response to these unpredictable times, at JPC we’re leveraging the power of ABM (Account–Based Marketing) and DBM (Deal–Based Marketing) differently – with an end-to-end customer journey framework we call ABX (Account Based Experience) – and we’re seeing impressive results, with £410m of renewed revenue for clients in FY 23/24 alone.
So, what’s actually happening?
Unlike most SaaS businesses (cloud delivery models offering access to fully supported software applications) with a relatively low spend on ABM per account, most large organisations harnessing technology and automation to deliver at scale find commitment to a 1-2-1 ABM strategy a significant investment. What we’re also seeing after 12 years of working in bids with enterprise tech is that the average contract term has gone from 8-10 years to 3-5 years or less, and is continuing to fall…
Suddenly, money is expensive. Budgets are tight. And we’re helping our savvy enterprise clients look to their significant accounts to optimise return. Rather than focusing on greenfield accounts, we’re supporting a migration of resources in both financial and human terms – to protect, grow, upsell and cross-sell across existing strategic accounts that are critically important to business.
The cost of winning new accounts and investing in RFPs to generate wholly new business is significant. More than that, in today’s climate it’s actually a risk. Astute enterprises are choosing to retain and build their existing accounts, applying our ABX methodologies to reduce the churn rate instead. Understandably, they consider investment in annual retained revenue infinitely preferable. As do their investors.
Our five–step strategy for optimising enterprise ABM
If this resonates for you, here’s five key steps that can help you optimise your own ABM strategy by taking a more holistic ABX approach:
1. Account selection: Choose the accounts with the greatest potential for return
- With a move away from seeking large new accounts with deep pockets, look for low-hanging, low investment accounts that bring opportunity to lock in existing and additional revenue.
- Find existing accounts where you have a good reputation but a smaller share of wallet than you might potentially realise – there’s still gold to be mined.
- Optimise strong relationships. Do you have an evangelist with a deep network within your account? Give them a compelling narrative – one which also supports them personally – that enables them to tell it across the wider business, outwards and upwards. Arm them with a compelling story, with a clear and visionary destination and let it unfold across their business – supply chain, procurement, finance and HR.
2. Sales empowerment: Create account-centric campaigns where sales and the account teams are a unified channel to market
- With a move away from seeking large new accounts with deep pockets, look for low-hanging, low investment accounts that bring opportunity to lock in existing and additional revenue.
- Find existing accounts where you have a good reputation but a smaller share of wallet than you might potentially realise – there’s still gold to be mined.
- Identify your key stakeholders as they align to your account strategy:
- Tier 1 – highly influential stakeholders with whom your team already have a clear communication channel
- Tier 2 – priority stakeholders with whom you have no existing relationship
- Tier 3 – target stakeholders who should know what’s going on but don’t need to be directly engaged.
For tiers 1 and 2, we’re seeking to build direct, meaningful dialogue about your CVP. We can deliver this through personal communication from members of your team, leveraging good existing tier 1 relationships to enhance connections with people in tier 2. Our goal is to develop connections based on hard-won trust in your expertise and authority.
For tier 3 – where there’s likely a higher number of people to reach – marketing can implement ‘1-2-few’comms to raise awareness of, and familiarity with your CVP, and build the right perception of your brand and business.
3. Progression: Identify key stages across your strategic ABM programme and drive engagement with disciplined cadence and strategic execution
- Keep your strategic programme tight and leverage tactical opportunities along the way – such as customer experiences, co-creation sessions or executive summits – which will bring sales some quick wins and keep everyone engaged.
- Hold bi-weekly sales sprints reviewing action, results and learnings that inform future planning and action.
- A clearly defined progressive strategy will be motivational and will create momentum by ensuring your team work towards a set of common goals for which everyone gets recognition.
4. Customer success: Active rather than reactive customer engagement
- Learn from SaaS organisations who understand how to optimise the value of the customer’s investment – both now and for the future.
- In straight-talking terms, this means moving away from the fallback position of taking your foot off the pedal once the contract’s been won and re-engaging five months before it’s up for grabs again.
- If you understand the potential for your product, and you proactively ensure your customers get value from their investment beyond a simply tactical purchase, you’ll continue to drive value even in long-term contracts.
5. Knowledge is power: Build the clearest picture of your customer
- Leverage the power of the legacy data and insights you’ve acquired along the way to interrogate and drive your preferred customer behaviour.
- Face the challenge of bringing together all the structured and unstructured data you’ve acquired to create a single point of view. AI can help you make your ABM strategy as sharp and effective as possible by offering a scalable view – to optimise your budget and increase the numbers of accounts you can focus on, possibly tenfold.
- Invest in a mid-contract term, independent customer audit. We guarantee the results will differ from the view in your account development plan and better inform your ABM strategy. Re-run the same audit three months before renewal to identify what change has been achieved and where gaps remain that must be addressed as part of your bid strategy.
- Watch this space for more on how to leverage the power of AI to optimise your ABM strategy and budget.
