Are you looking for ways to increase your sales? If so, you're in luck. In this blog post, we'll discuss eight sales techniques that are guaranteed to boost your revenue. So whether you're a rookie or a pro, read on for helpful tips that will help you sell more products and services. Happy selling!
To put it simply, Account mapping is marketing to a specific account or a group of accounts with a single strategy and a universal message. Account-based marketing is simply taking your general scope of activities and narrowing it down to one target audience at a time.
Branding campaigns can be an excellent way to kick off your first ABM campaign because you have the luxury of showcasing your brand as opposed to selling.
However, focusing just on branding will not help you increase revenue unless you continue developing those contacts after the initial relationship has been established. After that first meeting with an account executive from one of your key accounts, it's important to maintain those relationships by providing continued value.
Account mapping is built on the idea that you need to know your customers inside and out. You want them to feel like they can't get away from your brand even if they tried. The whole point of account-based marketing is developing an individualized experience for each customer, which presents a challenge for B2B companies because every customer is unique.
If you're working with 10 targeted accounts, you might be wondering how you can create 10 customized experiences when there are only so many hours in the day. This is where mapping the account comes into play.
According to Sam Bosnic, Director at Demand Gen Report, "In order to make ABM work for businesses, you need a detailed understanding of the target accounts, their industries and how to reach them. it is a process of documenting this information."
Account-based marketing involves going after a select number of key accounts that fall into one or multiple verticals. Theoretically, if you're working with companies that are all in the same industry, then you should develop similar strategic leads for each account.
However, even if your accounts are in different industries, you still need to find commonalities among them because they will share interests and challenges. The idea behind ABM is creating a customer experience based on who your customers really are and formulating separate strategies for each account individually.
Anybody can brainstorm an idea for what content strategy might work best for an account. But, planning how to execute the strategy is where the real work begins.
You need to identify your targeted accounts, map their current digital marketing activities, and analyze their social media activity so you can develop appropriate content responses. The more you know about each account's interests and challenges, the easier it will be to create highly personalized lead nurturing strategies that hopefully generate revenue for your business.
Account-based marketing strategies involve mapping out each targeted key account individually in order to gain a better understanding of how they prefer to consume information. After you're able to do this successfully, it will make it much simpler for you to target them again with specific types of content suited towards their unique preferences.
Mapping an account involves creating a master plan that exclusively follows your ABM strategy. This means taking the different types of content you're going to provide and how it will be distributed in order to reach each account where they are most likely to consume it.
1. It shows prospects that you genuinely care. Mapping can help eliminate the "salesperson" label by demonstrating a real interest in not only your target accounts but also their teams. Mapping your account is essentially an extension of sales development, because it's primarily focused on developing relationships that will hopefully result in sales later down the road.
However, unlike cold calling or email outreach, it demonstrates how you're getting to know your customers and what they're trying to accomplish through various levels of personalization.
If you already have a well-rounded understanding of your key accounts' goals before contacting them, then there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to provide enough value so they want to continue to work with you.
2. You can identify the decision-makers at your prospect company Before you're able to start mapping an account, you need to figure out who actually makes the final purchase decisions for each targeted account. If you already have a lead list, then you should be able to do this by looking at their title or position in their respective organizations.
However, if this information isn't easily available in your CRM platform, there are other ways where you can find out more about your leads including social media sites like LinkedIn, through web research or even asking them directly over the phone.
Once you have the names of the people that matter in your accounts, then it's time to map them so they understand that effort is being made on their behalf.
3. You're at risk with a single company contact You're not going to get anywhere with a single person within an account. If you're constantly working with just one company contact, then it can be very hard for you to achieve your sales goals.
In fact, working solely on any given account is the biggest mistake that sales representatives make because they forget about the other decision-makers involved in their buying process.
The whole point of ABM strategy is figuring out how to break down these barriers and work through different people on different teams before eventually meeting this one key person that holds all of the power in terms of purchase decision making.
4. You can personalize your pitch (even when upselling...) When you know exactly who's involved within each account and what they're looking for, you can build out a personalized pitch that will be much more effective than the alternative.
If you know who to contact and how they want to consume information, then your message becomes streamlined and tailored towards their preferences.
5. It aids internal account delivery and the overall sales success After you've mapped each account successfully, there's no reason why it shouldn't aid with your internal account delivery or even help with the overall success of your organization in general.
When your teams are better versed on who to work and how they prefer to receive certain types of content, then it only makes sense that this knowledge should at least pay off within just one or two quarters when it comes time for them to purchase new technology or services.
At the very least, it should be an asset that is shared with your teams moving forward to help them understand why Account Based Marketing is such a great strategy for long-term growth and organizational success.
Though it may look intimidating at first glance, as you can probably tell from the list above, it's actually quite simple when you break down each step so we've outlined five easy steps to get started:
1. Ensure you're going after the right accounts - First and foremost, before you start mapping out your key accounts, make sure they're worth investing in and will assist with helping your organization achieve its goals. This could mean finding new customers through different channels like social or web marketing.
It could also mean a move towards more cross-selling and upselling opportunities within your existing customer base. No matter what it is, make sure that this targeted account strategy is geared towards helping you to achieve better growth through different ways of reaching out. If not, then the effort may be all for nothing when it comes to helping your team reach their objectives.
2. Build an organizational chart of your target company - The next step involves going to the website of the companies you're targeting so you can get a good idea of who each person works directly with or reports to so they can share knowledge about various projects and initiatives moving forward.
This doesn't have to be a comprehensive organizational map from top to bottom but it will give enough insight so your team knows who the key contacts are and how to properly navigate through different levels of management within each ccompany.
3. Gather information from your CRM and other sources, and label the key contacts - The next step is just as easy as performing these three simple tasks: - Gather contact information of each person associated with each account - Label each individual with their role (e.g., decision maker, influencer, gatekeeper) - Extend out to more senior-level executives if it makes sense or aligns with your objectives
4. Identify the best path to sale - After you've mapped out all of your accounts, you need to make sure that there's a clear path for success within this targeted ABM strategy so you can identify who your target is, how they prefer to consume information and what's the best way for them to purchase from your organization.
Once you have this figured out, then it should be a simple matter of dissecting all potential obstacles so you have a clear path to follow moving forward.
To do this, just ask yourself if any others departments/individuals need to be involved in the buying process or if there is some other type of roadblock that could delay your progress.
This is actually quite important because it will determine whether or not you're going after the right accounts and also increase the chances of success as well since you'll know exactly who and what needs to happen at each stage of the sales cycle (or beyond).
This is also another important point to remember: your team should be able to do this without any knowledge of the target account or their business. In other words, they shouldn't need to see a presentation from the sales rep in order to complete this step because it'll help them fully understand why they're going after these particular accounts and what's at stake if they fail.
That way, no one will be surprised by decisions that are made moving forward, illustrating that there's a clear path with defined goals and project timelines involved. At least you're showing up with something tangible for decision makers rather than just making assumptions about how things will play out – information that may not end up being so accurate as time progresses on.
5. Maintain the Account Map - The last step in the process involves keeping your account map updated with any changes that may happen over time. This could be any number of things like contact information, organizational chart updates, etc.
As long as you're always moving forward and staying on top of potential obstacles then it should be smooth sailing for everyone involved which is exactly what you want to see happen.
Stagnation would only inhibit opportunities that might come up within this target account strategy so remember to stay active and not get too comfortable with where things stand today because tomorrow will always bring something new along the way.
To recap, an account map is a way for your team to understand exactly who they're going after so there are no doubts along the road about what needs to happen.
It's also important to remember that whoever completes this task doesn't have any knowledge of the target companies involved so it forces them to think critically about every aspect of the sales cycle even if they don't know anything about these accounts beforehand.
Finally, always make sure this map is updated with any changes that may happen over time to ensure you're always moving forward and staying one step ahead of the competition. Account mapping is a pretty simple task that you can do on your own or as part of a larger initiative.
If you haven't already, then figure out the best approach for your organization and make it happen whatever works best. The more information you have going into this process, the better off your target account strategy will be at the end of the day ensuring more success within all departments involved.
And remember: don't stop here – keep moving forward and improving upon what works in order to increase the chances for success along the road!
