Tamara Marx, Senior Account-Based Marketing Manager at ServiceNow, has a lot of experience across the board working with companies as a digital marketer. From a startup with a team of 10 to much larger companies, she’s found that account based marketing is the ‘sexy story’ going around in the marketing world.
But how can your company build a successful program? Tamara Marx has heard throughout her account based marketing research three points of must-dos. You have to build using intent data, to have personalization and to build a successful tech stack.
The expert doesn’t disagree with the importance of these three factors. But Tamara Marx prefers to think about successful account-based marketing programs through these three models.
Model 1: The Digital Goliath
The Digital Goliath strategy goes super heavy with the tech stack. This mode also leans on intent data, to then extend to as many companies as possible. It’s truly a “one to many” tactic. However, it uses digital tools to build a one-to-one account-based marketing strategy across over 1000 companies.
By reaching into a large amount of accounts using a stacked set of digital tools, the company’s own software then collects these data sources to learn what people are doing online. With this information, they can then create an intent model.
Imagine that you have a few accounts that you really want to put the extra effort into. How do you elevate? Let’s take a look at Model 2.
Model 2: The Line Dancer
This model also uses a “one to many” model with a heavy digital stack. The Line Dancer allows you to get in front of a large number of companies. Once you receive the hand-raising signals from companies, then you decide who to go to first. So out of a thousand companies you find ten that are of interest and are actively engaging with you.
From there, you can sit down with your sales team to do imperative mapping. This means very collaborative in-depth strategy sessions with the sales team to ask: what do these accounts care about? Then, individually, what does this account care about the most? And how do we fit into this story? In this model, you have your digital strategy on in the background. But your top 10 accounts have a higher focus with your sales team in the loop.
Finally, you can ditch the tech stack and simply take a deep dive instead with Model 3.
Model 3: The Deep Diver
Model 3 is a really strategic method of account-based marketing that targets only 10–20 truly relevant companies. For this model, you start right out working with your sales team to learn the accounts’ imperatives. Examples: what do they care about and what they’re interested?
Their interests can even be completely unrelated to business. In one example Marx presented, they approached a lead through his passion in the environment. Then, you use this intel to highly target those key accounts.
And those are Marx’s three models of account-based marketing! She believes any of the three can lead you to success, as long as it’s truly tailored to your needs. And, of course, those that you’re targeting. If you want to know more about ScaleUp Valley initiatives, calendar and purpose, join our community by subscribing to the ScaleUp Valley newsletter.