Target Account Selection
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The document outlines the importance of target account selection as a critical first step in account-based marketing (ABM), emphasizing the transition from manual to predictive methods for identifying ideal target accounts. It describes a tiered approach for account selection to enhance sales and marketing alignment and details the process of using data and machine learning to optimize targeting. The final takeaway highlights that effective selection of target accounts is crucial for successful ABM implementation.
Target Account Selection
- 1. ©2015 EverString Target Account Selection J.J. Kardwell President & Co-founder, EverString
- 2. ©2015 EverString Agenda Target account selection as the critical first step of account-based marketing (ABM) Using predictive marketing to optimize target account selection Tiered approach to targeting accounts Creating sales and marketing alignment through target accounts 2
- 3. ©2015 EverString The seven steps of ABM 1. Identify Target Accounts 2. Identify Decisions Makers 3. Clean Account and Lead/Contact Data 4. Create Personalized Content 5. Select Channels or Combination of Channels 6. Program Execution 7. Review results and optimize 3 Who? What? How?
- 4. ©2015 EverString The seven steps of ABM 1. Identify Target Accounts 2. Identify Decisions Makers 3. Clean Account and Lead/Contact Data 4. Create Personalized Content 5. Select Channels or Combination of Channels 6. Program Execution 7. Review results and optimize 4 Who? What? How?
- 5. ©2015 EverString The role of target account selection in ABM Target account selection is the foundational step of ABM. Without target account selection you can not do anything with ABM. To optimize effectiveness, you need to first understand your total addressable market, and then identify the ideal target accounts to pursue. Target account selection has historically been a laborious task, but technology has made it much easier and more accurate. 5
- 6. ©2015 EverString The “old way” of target account selection Manually select accounts Sales reps pick companies they’ve sold to and those they are pursuing Selection based on basic firmographics (e.g., revenue, geography, employee count and industry) Prioritized based on gut feel and subjective judgment Blind spots in new geographies and segments 6
- 7. ©2015 EverString Predictive account selection – the new way 7 A A A A A B ABM starts with Audience Selection The process of using data to identify your target accounts Use data to compile an objective list of target accounts B B CD C CC D C C C CC D C CC DD C C DC D C C D C D C CC C D DC DC D C A A
- 8. ©2015 EverString How to build predictive target account lists Key questions: Which companies can use this approach? What makes for a good target account? What data does predictive use? What signals matter? 8 EverString collects & curates terabytes of information internet commercial sources crawl pixels ip traffic Data Science Machine Learning Natural Language Processing Artificial Intelligence 20KInsightsperAccount EverString Account Insights 11M Accounts
- 9. ©2015 EverString INTENT FIT ENGAGEMENT Out of Funnel browsing behavior, crawling Upper Funnel Pixels and cookies Mid Funnel Marketing Automation Lower Funnel CRM Accounts should be prioritized on three dimensions 9 Fit Determines how much an account or lead looks like your best customers (e.g., firmographics and tech stack) Engagement Quantifies the degree of interaction that an account or lead has had with you (e.g., website visits, webinars, downloads) Intent Engagement that is not with you (e.g., browsing activity, content consumption & behavior patterns by prospects)
- 10. ©2015 EverString Output is an objective target account list Your model is applied against full account database Provides you with a point-of-view on every account in your addressable market Result is objective target account list 10 Marketing Automation CRM Decision Platform Your Data, Your Model Audience Selection Scores Net New Prospects 20KInsightsperAccount EverString Account Insights 11M Accounts Integration Target Account List
- 11. ©2015 EverString Ideal account profiles are different for each business 11
- 12. ©2015 EverString Target account tiering Tier accounts by account persona to promote alignment with sales Involve sales team in tiering process. This is what they expect, and you will seed the discussion with an objective list of accounts. ABM plays can be expensive, so tiering is critical to optimize dollar spend and resource allocation 12 Tiers Accounts ACV Revenue Potential ABM Budget Tier 1 10 $500,000 $1,500,000 $150,000 Tier 2 100 $100,000 $3,000,000 $300,000 Tier 3 1,000 $50,000 $5,000,000 $500,000
- 13. ©2015 EverString Identifying your buying center Once you have a reliable target account list, you can use old fashioned buyer personas and insights into the “sphere of influence” 13 InfluencersBuyer Buyer personas remain mostly intact. You may need to refine language to speak of the buyer in the context of an account Determining the “influencers” to your economic buyer enables deeper penetration into the account With ABM, your SDRs can be directed to help map the entire sphere of influence
- 14. ©2015 EverString ABM plays can then be run against two layers 14 Buyer Play Influencer Play Physical Mailer Email Nurturing Invite to Micro Event SDR Call w/ ALL Targeted Display Postcard Email Nurturing SDR Call w/ ENGAGED InfluencersBuyer
- 15. ©2015 EverString 15 Account Based Selling Creates deeper sales and marketing alignment Marketing&
- 16. ©2015 EverString Predictive in the ABM process 1. Identify Target Accounts 2. Identify Decisions Makers 3. Clean Account and Lead/Contact Data 4. Create Personalized Content 5. Select Channels or Combination of Channels 6. Program Execution 7. Review results and optimize 16 Getting this right...
- 17. ©2015 EverString Predictive in the ABM process 1. Identify Target Accounts 2. Identify Decisions Makers 3. Clean Account and Lead/Contact Data 4. Create Personalized Content 5. Select Channels or Combination of Channels 6. Program Execution 7. Review results and optimize 17 Getting this right... …enables this to be effective
- 18. ©2015 EverString Final Thoughts Picking the right accounts is critically important for ABM, as ABM will not work unless it is focused on the correct targets Predictive marketing software enables you to rapidly build an objective target account list, and to prioritize every prospect in your market Optimizing target account selection creates alignment between marketing and sales 18
- 19. ©2015 EverString 19 J.J. Kardwell President & Co-founder EverString www.everstring.com jj.kardwell@everstring.com @jjkardwell
Editor's Notes
- #2: The title slide should be used as background for your opening conversation. During this beginning conversation you should establish a few things in order to gauge the conversation and determine focus throughout your presentation/discussion. Being effective here will open up the remainder of your meeting to be conversational. Intro EverString Use this time to let them know we are a start up in the emerging predictive marketing space. We are well funded with over 70 employees and dozens of customers. The point here is to validate that we are viable and reliable company. Perform some discovery There are two key characteristics that you need to identify in this initial conversation, the maturity of the marketing organization and the volumes they are dealing with. Some great questions to ask include: What are the typical volumes of incoming leads are you seeing every month? Can you also help me understand the nature of your opportunities? How big is your ASP and what is the average deal cycle length? The reason I ask these questions is they are typical indicators for success of Predictive Marketing. We often see a significant decrease in deal cycle and higher ASP after an implementation and would love to get a baseline so we can help you determine your success metric.
- #8: So what is Predictive Marketing? Ultimately, it can be boiled down to a fairly simple concept. Use your historical internal data combined with the universe of external data to predict who your next customer should be. The value of Predictive Marketing starts with Audience Selection, which is the process of not only understanding your model or best fit customer, but ultimately looking at every potential customer in your market to choose your audience. Predictive Marketing enables you to have a point of view one every single potential account in your market, and we then help you prioritize and select your optimal audience. This is a critical concept and is the baseline for Predictive Marketing. At EverString, our entire focus is driven by this single concept. We hire the best data scientists and collect and curate massive amounts of data in order to make sure that your models and ultimately, the accounts and leads we deliver to you are the best in the business. This is our singular focus.
- #10: Before we get into the ”how”, it’s important to grasp some key concepts that define how models are built and how audiences are selected. There are three characteristics of every account and lead that will help you gauge how well they fit your model, how much they are already engaged with you and whether or not they display intent to buy. Let’s start with fit. Fit determines how much an account or lead looks like your best customers (e.g., firmographics, industry, and tech stack are just a few examples). This is where your model is applied. Next is engagement. This score indicates how much an account or lead is interacting with you. Typically, this is information captured by your marketing automation tools, but with predictive this extends beyond this resource into additional resources such as your social audience. Finally, there is Intent. This is the most difficult to identify because it correlates anonymous and seemingly random behavior on the internet to your business. Intent is really the beginning of the buyers journey and is not something you capture in your current marketing systems. It is the digital footprint we leave behind as we casually browse the web and lives outside your four walls. It is basically any behavior that indicates intent to purchase. With intent, the customer lifecycle actually starts well before they are ever engaged with you. While all three signals are important for Predictive Marketing, the key to being successful is combining all three into a clear and clean approach to building an effective pipeline and a more efficient conversion process. For instance, the goal is to convert Intent into engagement. And then once engaged, intent can provide further detail about a prospect beyond engagement. Most of all, you need to consider using fit throughout the entire funnel. You don’t want to waste time and money marketing to a prospect who is just not the right fit