Last week we had a couple of in-depth conversations with the CMO of a very large technology company and discussed their challenges to generate inbound leads using ABM Marketing approach. After the evaluation of their current situation, we were not at all surprised when he asked: “Do you know of ANY organization where ABM Marketing REALLY delivers?”

• Now, first things first. The key challenge for any marketing organization should be about insight, not operations. Integrating an ABM marketing approach is not easy. Expect to align sales and marketing first, else it will not work.
• Therefore one of the biggest questions in sales driven organizations is: how much do you share a customer-centric approach across all teams? Once the fundamentals are agreed, the next question is about capabilities: should some of the digital outbound in ABM marketing be outsourced? Simply, should you keep it all in-house, or let someone else have a go?

Account-Based Marketing as a managed service

• We see many large companies not finding the expected ROI from ABM and asking for advice on alternative platforms that will deliver. Let’s be honest, that technology is freely available and is ‘plug and play’, but it is most definitely not ‘plug and exploit fully.’
• At The AccountInsight, we recommend account based marketing as a managed service. You can focus on the marketing strategy rather than the complex operational tactical work to get the campaigns built, tested, launched.

Here are the top 5 reasons to outsource some of your ABM function:

1. When it is not core to your business / do not have the expertise in-house.
2. When the speed of deployment is a critical issue.
3. You are used to working with vendors and hold them accountable for results.
4. When the key to success is not the technology you use but the results you deliver.
5. You want to benchmark your operations against best practices.

• Remember acronyms have a habit of quickly coming and going, but for any company that really wants to boost and develop its sales strategy in conjunction with an external agency, ABM is one that needs to be noted and understood.