Lead management is a fairly codified process. To be efficient, companies rely on the steps involved to be the same every time: attract customer interest, contact the interested party, collect and distribute information from the response and pass the lead on to the sales department.
However, this cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work for every case. Specifically, account-based marketing (ABM) requires a different methodology for success because its needs are different. You don’t need to completely reinvent the wheel for lead management for ABM, but you should pay attention to its unique requirements.
The Difference
The biggest difference between standard lead management and ABM lead management is in the target. As mentioned above, the typical process is aimed at attracting new customers, and at this stage, these customers are a generalized group. It’s only after the customer has expressed interest that they begin to differentiate themselves from the common group, at which time your marketing becomes more specialized to cater to this group’s desires.
ABM lead management is different from the outset, in that you will already have a relationship with your target. The goal, in this case, isn’t merely to generate interest, as your target will presumably already have some kind of vested interest in your offerings. Instead, the goal here is to identify the needs of your target based on your previous dealings with them, and to offer more or continuing services or products. This requires intimate knowledge of your history with this client, including details like what attracted them to you in the first place, what has worked in your past marketing to them and what hasn’t, and their changing needs over their time with you. Your mission is to keep this business and grow it beyond your initial transaction.
A Unified Team Effort
The marketing and sales teams must work together to best determine the specific targets for this effort, and which approach to use to land them.
“Unlike traditional lead management, in which there are definite and frequently isolated instances where marketing and sales employees ply their trade, the ABM lead management process relies entirely on the combined efforts of these two departments for success.”
The first step is to identify the proper accounts. That is, you’re looking for the accounts that show the greatest potential for reception to your advances. The prior and ongoing relationship with your client is the center of this process. Rather than determining the best way to get into your account’s good graces, instead you’re searching for opportunities to deepen the connection. Ideally, you’ll have already noticed the further needs and desires of this account based on what has come before, so the research time should be minimal.
The next step is to score, process and route the lead. In the traditional process, as mentioned above, there is a specific funnel through which each lead flows and there are strictly defined roles within marketing and sales to which each lead travels. In ABM lead management, this funnel must be redefined, as again, the needs are different. The scoring of leads may change. For example, a specific score number might define a strong lead in traditional lead management, but that same number might not be enough for ABM lead management, or vice versa. At this step, it’s vitally important to redefine parameters to give yourself the best chance for success.
The Measurement of Success
Another important change to the traditional lead management process is the redefinition of service-level agreements (SLAs). Typically, an SLA works to define how departments operate in relation to the overall campaign; specifically, marketing and sales will have different SLAs that dictate their separate behaviors as an overall strategy. In ABM lead management, however, these two departments must operate as a single organism, so the common SLA silo model must be set aside in favor of a series of agreements that define the behavior of the entity as a whole.
Finally, as with conventional lead management, documentation and measurement is an extremely important part of the ABM lead management process. Where it differs, however, is how the common metrics apply to the account as an entity, as opposed to how they apply to individual leads. Factors such as the number of leads and the percentage of those leads that undergo conversion are still important key metrics, but their relation to the account is the most important consideration.
“Ongoing engagement is the critical element as it is the primary component that defines the effort to grow an account.”
Every action taken toward this goal depends entirely on data gathered during your history with the targeted account, and it’s not an overstatement to assert that the longer your relationship, the more important data gathering becomes.
While it’s always true that your company should employ a nimble and flexible methodology toward all aspects of business, never is this more important than in your approach to ABM lead management. Your goal should always be to strengthen and deepen your existing relationships with your clients, as this will be the key to your ongoing success.
