ABM Power Moves: Aligning Teams for Max Impact

Shownotes

This episode discusses account-based marketing strategies with guest Amanda Dyson. She shares insights on personalizing ABM approaches based on customer understanding rather than focusing on features. Amanda emphasizes the importance of collaboration between sales and marketing in areas like account nomination and campaign planning. She also outlines how ABM can support customer retention, upsell, and cross-sell efforts by building long-term relationships.

Best Moments

• 03:06
  Amanda shares insights on focusing ABM approaches on understanding customers rather than pushing your agenda.
• 05:33
  Details on the account nomination process and collaborative campaign planning sessions between sales and marketing.
• 08:39
  Discussion of building alignment internally through consistent communication of ABM strategies and highlighting early successes.
• 11:41
  Amanda outlines how ABM can be used for customer retention, upsell, and cross-sell across the entire customer lifecycle.
• 14:01
  Chris agrees with Amanda's perspective on using customer insights to make ABM more relevant and personal.

About the guest

Amanda is a 20-year B2B SaaS marketing veteran. She has run regional and global teams. She has a passion for people and results and a proven track record of success. She has held leadership positions in sales and marketing, including ABM, partnerships, demand gen, field and corporate marketing for global Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) companies. When she’s not growing people or pipeline at leading tech companies, she enjoys spending time with her family in the mountains or at the beach, running daily, and practicing mindfulness.

Connect with Amanda Dyson

Key takeaways

• Lead with customer pain points rather than product features to build trust.
• Collaboration between sales and marketing is required through an account nomination process and campaign planning sessions.
• Focus ABM efforts to avoid trying to sell everything at once and “boil the ocean.”
• Leverage ABM for existing customers through custom landing pages and insider advocates to drive retention, upsell, and cross-sell.
• Overcommunicate ABM strategies internally through a living overview deck and consistent updates on calls and materials.

Quotes

“ABM is probably my favorite type of marketing because it can be disruptive and provocative. And, honestly, it’s just all about the customer and how to stand out to them.”

-Amanda Dyson

Highlights from this episode

How has your experience with Account-Based Marketing evolved? And what are some of the lessons you’ve learned about successful ABM?

Amanda responds that she’s learned not to overestimate how mature ABM is within organizations. She says the most important lessons are to truly understand customers by speaking their language, meeting them where they are, and building campaigns that look and sound like their brand – not your own. She emphasizes leading with customer pain points over product features to build trust. Successful ABM also requires focusing campaigns narrowly at first instead of trying to sell everything at once.

What are some of the common challenges you see that companies face with aligning marketing and sales to do Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?

Amanda notes that ABM requires direct alignment between sales and marketing to be successful, and won’t work if accounts are simply thrown over the wall from one team to the other. Some common challenges she sees include:

• Lack of a strict account nomination process where both sales and marketing leadership agree on target accounts upfront.
• Insufficient collaboration, such as not holding calls to deeply understand the business needs, account plan, and stakeholders, and build a united campaign approach.
• Poor communication of roles, responsibilities, and progress between teams through tools like shared documentation and status updates.

How can ABM help with cross-selling, upselling, retention, and improving some of those customer relationships?

Amanda notes that ABM is well-suited for customer retention, upsell, and cross-sell efforts since it’s easier to sell to existing customers than acquire new ones. Some ways she sees ABM helping in these areas include:

• Developing custom landing pages that can evolve and bring customers back with new offers.
• Leveraging existing customer relationships and “insider champions” to evangelize new opportunities internally.
• Building long-term customer advocates who can speak in webinars, and reference calls and further promote the brand.
• Viewing the entire customer lifecycle holistically rather than one-off campaigns, to strengthen relationships at all stages.

What’s your advice for building alignment and buy-in internally for ABM?

Amanda recommends the following to build alignment and buy-in for ABM internally:

• Create a living, breathing ABM overview deck that is constantly updated with current campaigns, visuals, metrics, etc., and refer to it consistently on calls.
• Host the deck and all materials on a shared platform like SharePoint so it’s easily accessible.
• Emphasize the overview deck at the start of all meetings to reinforce the messaging.
• Show early small wins and successes from the program to generate momentum and excitement.
• Celebrate pipeline wins that come from ABM to demonstrate its value.
• Be transparent, answer any questions from stakeholders, and schedule dedicated time to provide ABM overviews and education.

Resource recommendations

Books

-“How Women Rise” by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith

-“Radical Candor” by Kim Scott

-“Amp It Up” by Frank Slootman

-Fiction books by Kristin Hannah and Frederick Bachman

Shout-outs

–Caroline Quinn, Senior Manager of Demand Gen and ABM, Cloudflare

–Kelly Robb, Founder and CEO, purple cork

–Kevin Quinto, Chief Marketing Officer, Coupa