Recently, I was asked about how ABM can be part of #customerledgrowth . Note that most of what I learned is from Jon Miller. We worked together at Adobe Marketo, but I have bookmarked his writings, webinars, etc.
1. ABM focuses on alignment with marketing and sales. A good customer-led growth play will include other members of your organization whether they are in customer facing roles or not. Everyone needs to know the customer is the center of gravity and there’s a need to be consistent in messaging, offers and other communications.
2. ABM focuses on doing extensive persona development: This requires each member of your team (yes, each member) to talk to customers to really understand the people they are marketing to. The people they are trying to build relationships with.
3. ABM focuses on LTV: In addition to this being the year of Customer-Led Growth, more and more companies will focus on expansion -upsell and cross-sell – and from transactional tasks to transformational relationships. To drive LTV, relationships with your customers are key. Note: 60% ABM practitioners focus on customers vs. 32% on prospects and 8% on partners. Ecosystem driven engagement is key too, so it would be nice to see that 8% higher.
4. ABM focuses on the Account (and the individuals in account). Most customer-led programs focus on the individual customer, but if we take a page from the ABM playbook, it’s important for acquisition and retention marketers to focus on all the key players in each account. There are the end users, there’s the decision maker, there’ the content person, etc. We often talk about customer marketing being a team sport, but when we say that we usually focus on our own organization vs. our accounts.
5. ABM focuses on connecting platforms: Basically, your ABM related data (campaign data, etc.) should flow through your various technology stacks. Not just your CRM, but also your Customer Success platform, your Customer Marketing platform, etc. How can you be customer focused if you don’t have all the customer data at your fingertips.
6. ABM focuses on personalization: It still surprises me how few websites and mobile apps personalize content for their customers. I think we do a decent job with emails and chat, but there’s still a lot of work to be done in other areas.
This is just the tip of the ABM iceberg. I will be adding more ABM information to the The CLG Campus (www.clgcampus.base.ai).