TLDR:
Engagio sits down with Brandon Redlinger, the Director of Growth at Engagio, to break some of the biggest myths about ABM.
t’s very hard for ABM to keep its promise of improved sales and ROI on steroids if marketers don’t know enough about it. Specifically, marketers should at least know better than to believe some of the biggest myths surrounding the game-changing marketing philosophy.
It is very commonplace for businesses to get immersed in the technology that helps ABM live up to its name. In fact, they become so immersed that they believe technology is what they need and what will ultimately save them when “doing ABM.” However, strategy is king here, not tech.
Also in keeping with the false notion that technology is what will save the day, ABM itself will not save the day for everybody. ABM is not a one-size-fits-all marketing methodology. Businesses have to be just the right fit for ABM, or it will actually hurt progression toward business goals instead of advancing objectives.
ABM isn’t for everybody, clearly, and while everybody was used to business models that relied on new business 24/7, ABM is all about maintaining existing customers. This is because it’s in ABM’s nature to increase the lifetime value of business relationships. If marketers do ABM, they’re in it for the long-haul.
Speaking of the long-haul, ABM takes time to play out—upwards from a minimum of a year to see actionable results. Therefore, many marketers think that ABM requires a lot of work. At first, maybe. But where’s the work in targeting only the accounts that matter to your business goals?
In tandem with honing your message to only best-fit companies, many marketers believe that they need a pilot program to make sure ABM works for them. And while that’s a good idea, what’s not a good idea is that many half-heartedly do it and drag their feet. They are self-sabotaging their results. It’s either whole turkey or no turkey with ABM—there is no in-between.
And some marketers understand there is no in-between, but they also believe that they have to make a choice between demand generation and ABM. While you need to be all-in on ABM, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done with other marketing philosophies. They play well off one another. It’s about balance.
Playing well off one another isn’t the same as doing one or the other. Just because marketers may carrying-out direct mail campaigns for everybody doesn’t mean they’re doing ABM. If they’re doing direct for a specific audience, that’s ABM.
But targeted ads don’t actually mean ABM’s being executed, either. It has to be part of your overall strategy, not all of it.
Lastly, ABM’s not just for marketers, everybody in the company needs to pull their weight for it to work.
Original article from Engagio on 12 April 2019.
