Why Analytics is a Must in Account-Based Marketing

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice!

How do you formulate an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy? How do you decide which accounts to target? And what is the role of analytics in ABM planning?

That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest, Chris Rack, President at PureB2B.

PureB2B leverages a database of B2B decision-makers in combination with their predictive analytics technology, to provide a full suite of solutions that help their clients meet their specific B2B demand generation sales and marketing revenue goals.

Listen to this episode to learn how to plan a successful ABM strategy.

Building Your ABM List

Who is responsible for creating the ABM list? Marketing or sales?

Chris says it should be a very collaborative approach, “taking a data approach and combining thought and feedback from both leaders, frontline sellers, sales leaders, and front line marketers to come up with a real collaborative list.”

Marketing must go through a process of digital marketing transformation to rely on data and analytics to build a list of target accounts.

Instead of just going for the larger enterprise clients out there, marketers should start by looking at their CRM data to see:

• Who is buying with the highest frequency
• Who are the prospects answering sales calls
• Who is engaging with your website
• Who is engaging with your emails
• Which gates have the highest conversions on your website

Once you have that list, start filtering them by:

• Job title
• Company size
• Geo
• Industry
• Buyer personas
• Roles
• Level
• Influencers
• Buying history
• Public/private

All of the above are analytics that marketers can use to determine which accounts to target using internal data.

Using Analytics Data

Now, there are also external analytics or predictive indicators marketers can use, with some tech tools available. However, Chris says, the intent signals from these tools are not designed to identify when people are ready to buy.

“Only Google knows that,” Chris says.

External analytics can identify when a buyer has a problem they need to solve, based on their content consumption triggers as well as public data such as job board postings.

For example, certain tools can identify companies who are consuming content across topics that are related to the solutions you offer, either content on your own website or other websites.

If you want to know when a customer is “in market,” your first task is to know the ICP and then partner with analytics providers to acquire intent data.

According to Chris, organizations, regardless of their size, can utilize these analytics tools. However, larger companies, due to their extensive CRM data integration and a more extensive product range, face the challenge of processing a higher volume of data. This results in a greater need for analytics to unveil intent signals compared to their smaller counterparts.

There are also many analytics companies as a service that can help smaller companies analyze data to identify buyer intent and do better prospecting.

Chris says that in a startup scenario his first hire would be a Rev Ops person to understand their buyers and to select the tools needed to create a successful ABM target list.

Listen to the whole episode to learn more about using analytics and sales tools in your account-based marketing plan.

Podcast Resources:

• Text Expander: 1 Billion Reasons & The Benefits of Using It In 2024
• Boost Your Productivity with Essential Keyboard Shortcuts
• Maximize Your Productivity with Canned Responses in Gmail
• Automate Data Entry Tasks for Maximum Efficiency
• Text Expansion Tool Mastery: A Guide to Efficiency
• Efficiency 101: Mastering How to Use a Text Expander
• Supercharge Your Browsing with These Top 8 Browser Automation Tools
• Optimize Success with Meeting Request Email Templates
• Are You Really Maximizing Efficiency with Text Replacement on a Mac?
• Auto Reply Message Examples for Effective Communication