Probably. But let’s dig in!
Terminus launched the “Account-Based Strategy: Fundamentals” course with two primary goals: education and execution. We live and breathe account-based marketing. But we also know that for many, ABM’s definition can feel slippery. Worse, even those who can tell you confidently WHAT it is may have no actionable plan for putting ABM to work inside their marketing department. This certification course will move you toward the place where you can know what ABM is and begin to execute it now.
Another Day, Another Cert? Not Exactly.
Maybe you didn’t know it, but we’re all living in the age of account-based marketing, and ABM is quickly becoming a required strategy in the B2B landscape. If you’re a marketer, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ve heard of ABM, but there’s a much slimmer chance that you can concisely define it. It’s rare for a modern marketer to be able to point to a campaign or a strategy and say, “this is how I’m doing ABM.”
These two foundational questions (What is account based marketing? And how do I do it?) are answered in our new certification course called “The Account-Based Strategy: Fundamentals.”
If you’re fearful that you’re signing up for a 3-hour commercial for the Terminus ABM platform, you can rest easy. This course isn’t a guide on executing a strategy within our solution (though we’d love to talk if that’s your desire). Rather, it’s an introduction to the what? and the why? of account-based marketing.
So, what is ABM?
At its simplest, ABM is a go-to-market strategy based on targeting the types of customers you want and going after them directly. This course builds on that too-simple definition, and goes far beyond.
ABM is: An end-to-end revenue strategy where marketing, sales, and customer success work as one team, and focus on the highest propensity accounts across the entire customer lifecycle. This happens through data-driven account targeting and prioritization, running personalized, multi-channel marketing tactics at scale, measuring success with revenue-focused metrics, and continuously optimizing.
If you’ve considered employing an ABM strategy but felt like you didn’t know where to start, this course is a great next step.
ABM Readiness Checklist
If you’re already attempting to execute an ABM-strategy (or, better yet, if you’ve been TOLD to execute an ABM-strategy), there are some benchmarks you’ll want to follow.
- Do you have a CRM? If so, you’ve been collecting data on customers and prospects since the second they were entered into your database. And if you’ve ever wondered how to more fully-harness the power of that data, you’re in the right place. A true ABM strategy will run off of smart segmentations from a database.
- Are you running messaging through multiple channels? With the right segmentation, your messaging will hit prospects who are highly-probable to be your customers. A true ABM strategy will deliver that consistent messaging through multiple channels, meeting your buyers where they are, rather than waiting for them to find you and fill out a form.
- Are you internally aligned? Most orgs report a lack of alignment between sales and marketing. It’s one of those ingrained truths that we laugh at to keep from crying. But it’s a problem that a sound ABM strategy fights against. More than just aligning sales and marketing, a true ABM strategy also brings your customer success teams into alignment – the insights gained from understanding what makes your happy customers happy and your frustrated customers frustrated helps to create more of the former and less of the latter.
- Are you able to measure success? ROI and attribution (cringing yet?) have always been elusive. If you’re not able to measure results, your execution might have been inspired by ABM principles, but it’s probably not ABM.
Education and Execution
If you answered no to any of these questions, great! That means you have some learning to do, and this course is 100% for you. But if you answered yes to all of them but STILL don’t feel like you’ve got your arms around account-based marketing, then you are for sure in the right spot. Along with telling you what ABM is, this course will show you how to build out your ABM plays.
No, we won’t give you copy-and-paste, set-and-forget playbooks. But, we will give you an outline for five programs that should be suns in your ABM universe:
- Brand Awareness – ensuring that your prospects get to know who you are
- Opportunity Creation – when “I know them” turns into “we should talk”
- Pipeline Acceleration – adding urgency to move your prospect to a decision point
- Customer Retention – yes, it’s still more expensive to get a new customer than to delight an existing one
- Customer Expansion – growing and deepening customer relationships but only when it benefits your customer
Whether you’re dipping your toe into the AMB pool for the first time, or you’re trying to hone and refine your nearing-maturity AMB strategies, this course will be helpful. We can’t wait to see badges showing up on LinkedIn profiles. Better yet, we’re eager to see how this knowledge helps you drive more pipeline and bring in more happy customers.
