Research Services

Account-Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) identifies the insights, integrated marketing initiatives and sales alignment requirements to deliver and measure impact with target groups of customers and prospects. Beyond demand creation, ABM looks at the role of marketing throughout the customer lifecycle including the development of insights and advocacy to support better execution and revenue outcomes.

Senior marketing management from Fortune 500 companies and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) use ABM to define the best strategies to win, develop and retain business with a specific set of accounts. ABM combines best practices, innovative models, thought leadership and benchmark data to help companies make better decisions faster about account-based investment.

Through continuous research and deliverables that allow easy access to operational intelligence, ABM stimulates ideas, provides a platform for discussion within your organization, allows you to network with peers at SiriusDecisions events, and gives you on-demand intelligence for effective decisionmaking.

OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Compare strategies and tactics used to create demand and drive retention and advocacy
Analyze your account-based marketing investment against your peers
Learn how best-practice organizations are approaching account-based marketing
Use proven models and frameworks to avoid reactive, hard-to-scale execution in ABM efforts
Gain insight on how to build a customer focus that takes advantage of marketing’s strengths

REPRESENTATIVE COVERAGE AREAS

ABM Strategy – Understand the different options for ABM efforts and when to apply them
ABM Analytics – Learn what historical and predictive data is needed to understand available opportunity and the likelihood and timeframes for winning it, as well as potential retention challenges
Organizational Structure – Understand the roles and responsibilities needed to support account-based execution
Customer Experience – Understand the roles and responsibilities needed to support customer experience from a marketing and sales perspective
Vendor Analysis – Learn the strengths and weaknesses of emerging suppliers in order to narrow your choices during the vendor selection process
Measurement – Understand best practice key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your ABM efforts
Planning Model – Understand the logical model for balancing investment in programs and tactics against market themes and business objectives

REPRESENTATIVE MODELS

ABM Strategy Model – Representation of account-based models and the best context in which to use them to help companies identify their options
Account-Based Scoring Model – Tool that defines the dimensions of account and buying-center knowledge required to accurately estimate opportunity and the likelihood of realizing it within a target group of accounts
Campaign Framework – Best-in-class framework for marketing to link strategy to quantitative goals and program and tactic execution that can be used to support budgeting and return-on-investment
Deployment Options Framework – Model that identifies the four modes of delivery for account-based marketing tactics to help marketing and sales align around how to bring tactics to prospects and customers
Customer Marketing Function Framework – Description of the optimized customer marketing function to define the evolution and staffing of these capabilities based on goals
Sirius Analytics Overview – Tool that helps you define the analysis options appropriate to various reporting and insights objectives, and the technology and data requirements that go with them
Account-Based Marketing Measurement Model – Tool that helps you better define your target market based on four specific variables (market segmentation, market requirements, business function analysis, and buyer/user dynamics), plus the ability of your organization to turn these variables into action

DELIVERABLES

SiriusDecisions offers research in a variety of formats to deliver a comprehensive view of today’s most pressing sales and marketing issues, available for search and download on our research portal.

Research:

Research Briefs: Monthly research notes that frame executive-level sales and marketing issues. Three to four briefs are delivered to you each month, and are archived on the research portal.
SiriusPerspectives: A monthly newsletter that provides a high-level overview of a sales and marketing topic dealing with demand creation, sales optimization or reputation development.
Vendor Profiles: Reviews of emerging suppliers who may be beneficial to your account-based marketing efforts. SiriusDecisions also plots suppliers on our vendor matrices, allowing you to analyze and narrow your choices.
Core Strategy Reports: Provides key observations and commentary on SiriusDecisions presentations introducing critical models, frameworks and strategies. Tackles more complex sales and marketing issues, and introduces new areas of research in a white paper format.
SiriusTools: Frameworks, models and issues spectrums that allow you to more easily visualize and communicate your challenges, and to determine the most appropriate courses of action.
Rich Media: Webcast archives in rich media format that can be replayed at your convenience, shared with team members or used for training purposes.

Analyst Inquiry: Unlimited analyst inquiry privileges are offered as part of ABM membership; you can schedule analyst time via phone or email. Discussions often focus on best practices, data, analytic tools or vendor reviews.

Account-Based Marketing Benchmark: Each year, SiriusDecisions analysts will benchmark your account-based marketing strategy, resources and performance against our SiriusIndex™ of business-to-business companies, and provide an independent perspective of your development and performance compared with similar companies.

Events: Peer interaction is a valuable way to understand how others are solving similar issues and to build your network. ABM membership includes monthly Webcasts, quarterly half-day research forums, as well as discounted pricing on all SiriusDecisions conferences.

Below, please find a partial list of recently published ABM research.

Brief
Account-Based Marketing: Deliverables and Accountability

In this brief, we explain how marketing and sales can establish agreements on which account-based marketing deliverables will delivered by marketing, and how sales will respond.

Brief
The Sirius Indicator: Customer Reference Management

In this brief, using the six dimensions of the Sirius Indicator, we discuss the major categories to consider when evaluating and scoring customer reference management software providers.

Brief
Operational Considerations for Account-Based Marketing

Operations leaders called upon to support account-based marketing (ABM) must make creative modifications to the processes and technology that were previously implemented to support traditional demand creation models. In this brief, we describe four operational areas impacted by a shift to ABM.

Core Strategy Report
Perpetual Demand Creation

This SiriusDecisions Core Strategy Report presents best practices and key observations that will help make perpetual demand creation (PDC) a reality for more organizations.

Brief
Communication in the Account-Based Marketing Process

In this brief, we examine best practices for effective communication between sales and marketing to support account-based marketing success.

Brief
The Benefits of Hosting an Online Customer Community

In this brief, we outline the benefits to an organization of hosting a customer community through its own Web property vs. the challenges of relying solely on public social media outlets.

Brief
Relationships Across the Co-Marketing Spectrum

In this brief, we examine four levels of co-marketing relationships, and the marketing support necessary to support them.

Brief
Best Practices for Contact Data Acquisition and Development

Although data is generally considered a shared responsibility, the division of labor required for execution is not always clear, so resources become misaligned and unable to achieve objectives. In this brief, we outline considerations for prioritizing and executing contact record development, including the necessary organizational factors.

Brief
B-to-B Personas: Customer Role Attributes

Marketers must understand the shift in perspective that happens once a buyer becomes a customer. In this brief, we explain how to extend the b-to-b persona model to incorporate customer roles.

Brief
Planning for Scalability in Account-Based Marketing

In this brief, we explain a four-step process for making account-based marketing scalable by identifying accounts that share key characteristics and requirements, and providing marketing activities and support to address these common elements without losing sight of the context of each individual account.

Brief
Customer Advocacy Programs: Customer Lifecycle Assets

In this brief, we review options for customer reference assets and interactions for each stage of the customer lifecycle.

Brief
Large Account Marketing: The Planning Process

In this brief, we describe a four-stage process for building a large-account marketing plan.

Brief
Events and Intra-Pipeline Acceleration

In this brief, we examine the use of events for a form of pipeline acceleration that we refer to as intra-pipeline.

Brief
Account-Based Marketing in the Channel

In this brief, we explain how suppliers should coordinate account-based marketing efforts across indirect channels for both named and large accounts.

Brief
Small-Net Fishing: Planning and Preparation

Small-net fishing programs are typically designed for, and executed by, a teleprospecting team to accelerate new leads into the demand waterfall. In this brief, we explain how to plan and prepare for these programs.

Core Strategy Report
Community Best Practices

In this Core Strategy Report, we outline the components of a successful online customer community strategy.

Brief
Structuring a Large-Account Marketing Plan

In this brief, we describe the structure and process for creating a comprehensive large-account marketing plan.

Brief
Customer Advocacy Programs: Buying Cycle Assets

In this brief, we review options for customer reference assets and interactions for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Brief
The Line-of-Business Head Persona: Content and Tactic Preferences

In this brief, we present findings from our 2012 C-level buyer persona study, focusing specifically on the content and tactic preferences of the line-of-business or division head.

Brief
What Makes a Complete Account-Based Marketer?

Marketers who support a defined universe of accounts need to quickly learn the lesson of narrowing options to focus on those with the best potential. In this brief, we describe the competencies required of marketers executing within an account-based model.