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- 🌮 ABM Target Account List = Intent Data?
🌮 ABM Target Account List = Intent Data?
The most dangerous way to choose your target accounts.
Davis Potter
March 19, 2024
What’s up everyone! Welcome to 🌮 Taco Tuesday, our weekly newsletter by ForgeX.
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How NOT To Choose Your ABM Target Account List ❌
The amount of ABM programs that are guilty of the following… 🤯
Here are the 2 broken processes that we constantly see:
Just Asking Sales = The ABM practitioner will schedule a meeting with the VP of Sales and ask them, “hey, what are 50 accounts that we should run ABM to?”
Only Using Intent Data = An organization will purchase a $125k ABM Platform and only use their intent data to select accounts. Swapping accounts on a weekly or monthly basis.
“Start by resisting the urge to let sales alone pick the accounts for an ABM program. We too often will see sales throw over their "problem children" or accounts they are not super focused on. This essentially sets ABM up for limited success. But, you should encourage sales to nominate accounts.”
Please don’t do this.
Here’s What To Do Instead ✅
Whether you’re running a Growth ABM or Enterprise ABM motion, these core principles apply.
There are 2 phases to PROPERLY building a target account list:
1️⃣ Do Your Homework
BEFORE having a conversation with your sales team, it’s imperative to make sure that you dive into the data. Using the various inputs that you have at your disposal, create a data-driven first pass at what accounts you believe should be included in the list.
A few data sources that we recommend reviewing:
1.) Revenue Assessment = Which industries are $$$ crushing it and where is the greatest opportunity for growth (net new customer acquisition, or cross sell/upsell). You'll want to pull the data for both revenue currently in the pipeline and also closed-won.
“Begin by analyzing the largest and most successful deals concluded over the past year. Document the defining characteristics of these accounts, including any factors that contributed to the successful closure of a deal.”
2.) GTM Account Segmentation = Does your GTM team currently segment their target accounts (Strategic, Enterprise, Mid-market, Self-serve)?
3.) Engagement Analysis = What does engagement currently look like within the accounts (# of warm leads, MQLs, SQLs… assuming we’re not able to track true ABM contact engagement yet)? What content is resonating with the accounts? Are they attending events?
4.) Intent Indicators = Leveraging first party intent from visitors on the product pages of your website (Propensity, Clearbit), third party intent from external providers (Bombora, TechTarget, G2).
5.) Account Insights = Reviewing firmographic data (ex: employee count) and technographic data (ex: tech stack).
6.) Account Owner Fit = Does your potential sales partner have the right mindset, are engaged and will actually execute their part of the campaign?
“You can put in so much work curating an incredible ABM campaign, tailor it to the target stakeholders and make it highly relevant and personal, but if you’re account team doesn’t execute effectively, you’ve wasted your time.”
7.) External Relationship Strength = Across your execs, advisors, and board members into your strategic accounts?
Now the caveat… you don’t need to pull ALL of this information, and might not even have it available. But use as much as you can.
You’ll now be able to look at the patterns and data, score the accounts correctly, and create a first pass at which accounts you would recommend are part of the initial program.
2️⃣ Align & Finalize With Sales
After doing your homework, you’re now able to host a meeting with a data-driven first pass at what the target ABM accounts might be.
Review this with the sales leader(s) and team, and allow them to provide their strategic input and nominate / remove accounts.
When you blend your data-driven first pass with the sales team’s insights, you’ll arrive at the best possible target account list.
“Align your accounts to support a company objective/goal. If an objective/goal is to grow within a certain vertical product line, target accounts should support achieving that company objective/goal.”
What’s New at ForgeX?
🌮 Research & Insights
Link to access below.
NEW GUIDE: Starting ABM from the Trenches
We partnered with Propensity to cover some of the most controversial topics, including:
👉 Should you purchase an ABM Platform to start?
👉 Free tools that can help fill in the gaps on a budget
👉 Tactics and activation plays to get started → fast
🌮 Events
Small Budget, Big Ambitions: Starting ABM from the Trenches
📣 Join us for an exclusive workshop session with Sumner Vanderhoof, CEO of Propensity, as we discuss how to launch your ABM program without a massive $$$$ budget.
👉️ Should you purchase a $125K ABM Platform to start?
👉️ What are some of the most effective tactics and activation plays?
👉️ How should you not only measure success, but articulate the impact of the programs to leadership & cross-functional teams?
🌮 Podcasts
Join +340 ABM leaders and become a ForgeX member to access our full research library, step-by-step frameworks, benchmark data and community.
Have an awesome rest of the week y’all!
LFG,
Davis