Five Outbound Best Practices to Secure ROI for ABM

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) can put incredible momentum behind B2B sales. However, when people talk about ABM, the conversation tends to only focus on marketing’s role (i.e., lead gen, content marketing, email campaigns, etc.). It makes sense. “Marketing” is in the title. But we’re going to flip that: let’s talk about ABM as a sales strategy. 

The ROI is almost guaranteed for businesses that implement an ABM strategy backed by a sales strategy, sales and marketing alignment, and content optimization. From increased conversions for Marketing and increased win rates for Sales to a 10% increase in revenue in the first year alone.

To understand how Sales and Marketing together make the best ABM strategy, it’s imperative to understand the role of Sales in ABM and how they can leverage the right outbound tactics to ensure Marketing’s hard-earned leads become hard-earned clients.

Related Content: 8 ABM Best Practices You Know and 2 You Don't

The Role of a Sales Strategy in ABM

As a quick recap, there are four ways that sales and marketing work together to make sure ABM lands them the right leads. 

1. 1. Determining Target Accounts & Stakeholders: Determining who the high-value targets are (and the ones most likely to convert) is step one in initiating an ABM strategy. Sales teams are responsible for pinpointing those target accounts and identifying who the decision-makers are for those accounts. Marketing uses that information to build out the campaigns to start hitting those accounts with the right content.
   2. Account Segmentation: Account segmentation allows Sales and Marketing to expand the content across similar types of leads, prospects, or current customers. Once defined, they can also dial in on the funnel stage, revenue, intent, and more to ensure the right content gets to the right account at the right time.
   3. Content Personalization/Review: Although content is typically on Marketing’s agenda, Sales can help optimize the messaging and type of content needed for specific accounts. 
   4. Metric Tracking: Both Sales and Marketing have to be on the top of their game in tracking and analyzing the efficacy of their ABM efforts. Are customers reporting a more informed buying experience? Is the Sales team able to work accounts in a more intimate way to maximize the opportunity? Tracking those types of metrics helps each team continuously optimize their part of the process.

Alignment on these practices is critical, and the company’s that see increased revenue from ABM YoY are the ones that have it all mapped out before they begin. You can read more here if you want to learn more about ABM best practices for sales and marketing alignment.

Now to the most critical part of securing ROI with ABM: outbound sales.

Outbound – The Most Important Part of Sales’ Role in ABM

Once marketing has handed off leads to sales, it’s time to start hitting the outbound channels. You have the accounts, you have the content, and you know whom you’re targeting. 

With an individualized approach to outbound, your sales team will be able to close more deals while providing unrivaled value to their customers.

Five Tips for Improving Outbound After Marketing Hands-Off Leads

ABM offers the sales team a unique opportunity to personalize outbound with resources that both engage and educate your clients. Having clear insights into who your customers, leads, and prospects are, allows you to be a resource to the individuals you sell to. And the best way to do that is to improve your outbound to match the needs of your customers, prospects, and leads.

1. Be the Most Interesting Thing in a Stakeholder’s Inbox

Decision-makers get an average of 126 emails a day, and many of those are poorly designed, generic sales pitches. There is so much competition to capture a stakeholder’s eye, so you have to be different. The top-performing sellers don’t stick to the automated messaging they wrote last month. They optimize. They look at the content they’re using, the messaging, levels of resonance, and continuously adjust their outbound to ensure the accounts they target are having an experience like none other.

2. Get Off Email and Start Creating Multiple Touchpoints

Email is great, but again, 126 emails a day. The sales teams that connect with their target accounts regularly aren’t just sending emails. They’re making calls, connecting on LinkedIn, sending videos to prospects, sending personalized gifts (not gift cards for coffee), and multip-threading. Email alone doesn’t work anymore: omnichannel is what ignites interest and produces connections.

3. Never Send a Message Without Personalization

Outbound sales is most effective when every aspect of the engagement is personalized. The effort and research that goes into ABM gives sellers more ammo to personalize their messages, videos, and gifts. The best personalization starts with knowing:

• • • How the company makes money
    • How the person you’re talking to affects the company
    • What their day-to-day looks like
    • How your solution can make an impact

4. Stop Automating Outreach (Automate Tasks Instead)

Stale messages are contributing to buyer burnout. There’s no argument that sales engagement platforms aren’t helpful, but they’ve caused a dip in creativity. Sellers are automating outreach instead of automating tasks. Triggers are done manually, while direct correspondence falls on automation. Effective sales teams are building better, more valuable points of contact with their target accounts by flipping automation on its head and consciously constructing emails, rethinking the messaging, and leaving ops tasks to the machine.

5. Always Be Optimizing

Can we retire the “Always Be Closing” ideology and adopt “Always Be Optimizing” instead? The B2B buyer experience no longer aligns with the former. Outbound works best when it’s grounded in a fluid-structure of planning, execution, measuring, improving, and relaunching. For ABM, work with the Marketing team to continue sending out new content. See how customers respond, take notes, and do the same across all targeted accounts.

ABM isn’t the only scenario to deploy these best practices. They apply to all sales opportunities. However, ABM offers a unique perspective for sales to provide real value to their accounts, from lead to loyal customer. In conjunction with Marketing’s resources, Sales teams can see a 171% boost in average annual contract value. 

Related Content: Cold Email Alone Doesn’t Work: Try a Multi-Channel Approach

Cash in on Your ABM With Outbound Best Practices

ABM is undoubtedly effective when applied to a sales strategy, which is why it’s gained such a die-hard fanbase over the last six years. Forrester reported in 2015 that 20% of B2B companies indicated they had an ABM program in place for at least a year. In 2020, Terminus’ State of ABM Report found that more than 94% of respondents had an active ABM program in place.

During our own interviews with Marketing leaders, there was no sign that ABM’s popularity had stagnated. B2B companies need precise targeting to attract new clients, and ABM hones in on targeted campaigns. The priority is making sure that your sales team can convert them with the right outbound strategy. 

To learn more about the top priorities in Sales and Marketing, check out our Buyer Trends and start making a more significant impact in every sale.