Why Your ABM Strategy is Failing and How to Fix It

When most people think about account-based marketing (ABM) they picture a hand-picked list of accounts that they’re going to “strategically” target (a.k.a. email them, stalk them, or spam them). Sometimes this list is spot-on accurate and your ABM campaign is a huge success, more often than not, however, it’s a bit of a challenge. 

Let’s talk about why your ABM strategy is failing and how to fix it.

The Problem

We all know the stages of the marketing funnel, but many marketers fail to define the stages as they relate to their business objectives. Rather than create their own, we follow predefined stages that may not necessarily fit business goals.

To create an ABM list most marketers usually go through a process where they picture their ideal customer all while failing to understand the power of mapping a full account journey that’s designed specifically for their business.

Regardless of the size or industry of your company, there is always a better way to engage potential customers, foster relationships, close deals, and grow your accounts. 

A Solution

What we do and what we are interested in are much better indicators of who we are. Our hobbies, the books we read, the shows we watch, paint a much more vivid picture than any firmographic data that could be extracted from a CRM. While these activities and hobbies may seem unrelated to your customer’s buying needs, they can actually be a goldmine of information, if you know how to use them in a way that is best for YOUR organization.

Honing in your sales & marketing efforts to a few targeted accounts can be incredibly successful as long as you take the time to map account journeys that work best for YOUR organization based on how you define your ideal customers.  

One of the key strategies we use to set up a successful account-based marketing program is our DIY account journey mapping templateWith this DIY template, you're able to get a full picture of each specific stage and map out the entire customer journey - from unaware to post-sale - to gain general metrics on how your accounts are faring overall. 

This means rather than measure leads through traditional stages defined by someone else, it’s time to measure accounts as they move through buying stages defined by you. From there, you can visualize all of your accounts progressing from unaware to post-sale

Here is a DIY account journey mapping template to help you define your stages and criteria with the data and engagement definitions that matter most to YOU.

Most marketers agree that account-based marketing is more effective than traditional marketing, but a lot of them find it hard to make it work correctly. Using our DIY account journey mapping template can help focus your efforts and gain actionable insights much quicker than simply brainstorming without any guidance.

Next Steps

We recommend filling out the DIY account journey mapping so that your team can fill it in collaboratively. Using Post-its or cards to map your ideas and aiming for quantity over quality at the first stage can help generate a vivid picture of how to structure your ABM campaigns.

This, combined with other account based marketing software and tools like an ABM Goal Calculator, can help bring your account-based marketing strategies to life and drive results forward in a much more focused way. If you’re serious about doing ABM right, but you’re not sure where to start, you can schedule a free demo with an ABM specialist who can answer your questions.

Found our template useful? Download the complete guide - part advice, part template on Measuring ABM through Account Journeys. Move to a full account journey map not just to measure ABM, but to take action on insights. 

About the Author

Caroline Van Dyke, Head of Content

Caroline is a B2B marketer with a knack for building start-up content strategies from scratch. With a passion for crafting the right message at the right time (and a good pun), she leads content for real marketers by telling their real stories. In the rare case she's not busy writing, you can find her consuming true crime podcasts, stand-up specials, and copious amounts of cheese.

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