“ABM is a lever to drive pipeline and align sales and marketing toward a common goal. And whether it’s through advertising, chat, email, and web experiences or harnessing the associated data in one platform, Terminus allows you to do both. It also enables strategic ABM motions and opens the door to advanced channels, like connected TV,” said Colin Netal. Colin Netal is the Director of Demand Generation at Gainsight, the leading Customer Success platform provider that helps businesses build deep and lasting relationships with their customers. He is also a Terminus Rock Star customer.
Colin Netal is the Director of Demand Generation at Gainsight, the leading Customer Success platform provider that helps businesses build deep and lasting relationships with their customers.
ABM for Pipeline and Sales & Marketing Alignment
Put simply, account-based marketing (ABM) is a focused approach to generate sales opportunities with specific accounts instead of marketing to the entire market. It’s a good fit for B2B companies selling high-ticket products to mid-level and enterprise customers. This type of sales is usually characterized by long and complex sales cycles involving multiple buyers in target accounts.
In addition to driving pipeline, ABM is also a way to establish common goals, objectives, and KPIs that marketing and sales teams – and their executive leadership – can agree upon. This ensures everyone is chasing the same targets and stays aligned as you proceed through programs.
A Three-Time User of Terminus for ABM
ABM is complex. Terminus makes it simple. Colin should know, he is a three-time user of Terminus for ABM programs. He’s used it at two other organizations in the past and has had a lot of success with it and is now using at Gainsight.
“Our motivation for choosing it each time is the value that the products and services add. Terminus functionality has better mechanics and drives the right output. No one comes close to their capabilities,” said Colin.
5 Reasons we chose Terminus, again and again:
- Terminus provides a framework to go after our best fit accounts.
- Terminus enables us to leverage multiple channels like advertising, chat, email, and web experiences to target those accounts. Terminus also unlocked connected TV, a new digital channel that we’ve been wanting to leverage. And, while all channels do well on their own, with everything under one roof, we can execute more effective, integrated ABM campaigns.
- With Terminus, we can harness data from all channels via one platform for deeper insights to build more comprehensive and strategic ABM marketing motions.
- Terminus’ product roadmap for the years ahead is super enticing.
- The Terminus Team. My relationship with Terminus is great. Every interaction I’ve had with the team at Terminus, whether it was with our CSM or with the implementation team, they are super engaged, easy to speak to, and committed to our success.
How We Developed Our ABM Program With Terminus
Terminus was instrumental in getting our ABM program up and running and continues to shape our program as it evolves.
First, we established a framework that segmented our Salesforce database based on our Ideal Customer Profile. In addition, we identified smaller, micro-segments deemed our best fit accounts.
Next, we executed ABM motions targeting our micro-segments or our best fit accounts. We’re primarily leaning on Ad Experiences to drive engagement at the top of the funnel with our target accounts and personas within them. We used Data Studio and Measurement Studio to a significant extent to pull the right account lists into Ad Experiences and query them appropriately, so that we get impressions in front of the right accounts and prospects.
Then we used, and continue to use, Measurement Studio to measure return on investment. Are ABM accounts converting to opportunity at a higher conversion rate? Do they have a higher rate to close won? What is their average opportunity size or average ACV? We’re able to track all that within Measurement Studio and then report on it to our executive team.
Finally, we work with a CSM on a bi-weekly basis to collaborate on our evolving campaign strategy and discuss what it would take to execute new campaigns on a day-to-day basis. We also work with a Digital Media Manager who helps refine Ad Experiences bid strategy and optimizations.
Colin’s Marketing Hot Take:
“Don’t forget non-traditional methods for sourcing accounts, contacts, or key information to shape segments. Google your target companies for data points. Scour LinkedIn for contacts changing roles within a company or joining new companies. There’s a lot of information to help drive pipeline if you just look for it.”
Opening the Door to Connected TV
We’ve had traction with inbound marketing and many of the traditional channels, but targeted advertising using connected TV was a tactic that we hadn’t tried. Connected TV allows you to display ads through the connected TV applications that you run into daily. So, through the ESPN app, Roku, or Hulu, you could serve ads to the same contacts you’re targeting through standard display advertising.
For us, the main driver to start using connected TV was to test a new, additional channel to get in front of our target contacts, provide messaging that is contextually relevant to them, and drive value. We created videos and snippets and then used them as advertisements to the same contacts we target with Terminus Ad Experiences.
We primarily used connected TV to get our brand and upcoming conference in front of our target contacts. And it worked. We tracked impressions, click through rates, and website visits and saw value in about three weeks with results above what we’d seen from display ads.
Terminus Drives Significant Results for ABM
Speaking of results, the success metrics that we saw after implementing Terminus were significant.
- 2x increase in the probability of an account moving to Opportunity
- 30% increase in Opportunity size for the Enterprise segment
- 20% increase in Opportunity size for the Corporate segment
- 15% quarterly conversion rate – “we’ve never seen outbound convert like that!”
In addition to strong pipeline-generating results, we also saw greater collaboration and a stronger partnership between sales and marketing. That’s invaluable.
Advice to First-Time ABMers
“The best advice that I could give to someone if they want to get started with their account-based marketing journey is to start small. You don’t have to tackle everything at once to drive instrumental change across the organization,” said Colin.
Start by working with your sales team to identify a set of high priority ICP accounts and personas to target. Define specific KPIs that you want to work towards. Identify a set of channels, tactics, and offers that you want to get in front of these accounts and personas. Then, just let the system work. Build off incremental wins, and you’ll see a lot of groundswell and support within your organization. Account based marketing is a long-term play and it’s a long-term journey.
You can follow Colin on LinkedIn for more learnings and tips from a real ABM rock star HERE!
