Best of LinkedIn: Account-based Marketing CW 42/ 43

00:00:00: provided by Thomas Algeier and Frennis, based on the most relevant posts on LinkedIn about account-based marketing in CW-Forty-Two and Forty-Three.

00:00:07: Frennis is a B to B market research company working with enterprises to optimize their campaigns with account and executive insights far beyond AI.

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00:00:40: Welcome back to The Deep Dive.

00:00:42: Today we're going to really dig into the latest thinking in VDB marketing.

00:00:45: We're focusing specifically on the most important trends, the key insights around account-based marketing.

00:00:50: We've synthesized quite a lot of content from the last couple of weeks on LinkedIn, and honestly, the biggest takeaway seems pretty clear.

00:00:55: ABM isn't just a campaign anymore.

00:00:57: That's absolutely right.

00:00:58: I mean, what we've seen across these sources really confirms that ABM has Well, it's finished evolving in a way.

00:01:04: It's moving very decisively from being just this dedicated function, maybe sitting in marketing, to becoming a unified, revenue-focused, go-to-market operating model.

00:01:15: You'll hear people call it ABE, account-based everything, or sometimes XBM.

00:01:19: And the point is, it's not really optional now.

00:01:21: It's becoming a strategic imperative if you want modern B to B growth.

00:01:25: Okay, let's unpack that transformation that we should probably start at the foundation, right?

00:01:28: Theme one, which is all about strategy, that crucial organizational alignment and really surgically defining your ideal customer profile.

00:01:37: Because I guess if you don't get the who, when, and why right up front, the execution downstream, well, it doesn't matter much.

00:01:41: Precisely.

00:01:42: Yeah.

00:01:43: Prashant Sharma was really championing this shift talking about how this idea of account-based everything, or ABE, it demands that marketing, sales, and customer success truly unite.

00:01:55: They have to come together.

00:01:56: The focus shifts.

00:01:58: You know, it's not about just handing off a lead anymore.

00:02:00: It's about joint accountability for those really high value accounts, orchestrating the entire journey end to end.

00:02:07: It basically forces those silos to dissolve.

00:02:09: Right, that unification inside the organization sounds key.

00:02:12: But I have to ask, what do clients actually want?

00:02:15: I saw Declan Mulkey made a great point.

00:02:17: He said, clients never walk in asking for like a one point one ABM program.

00:02:22: They show up with real business problems they're trying to solve.

00:02:24: churn maybe

00:02:25: or they

00:02:26: desperately need to hit growth goals.

00:02:27: Exactly.

00:02:28: Maybe their current GTM strategy just isn't working.

00:02:30: Right.

00:02:31: ABM

00:02:31: only really succeeds when it's framed as the solution to those core GTM business problems.

00:02:36: It can't just be positioned as some kind of specialized marketing deliverable.

00:02:39: And the sources we looked at are pretty clear on why so many programs still fail.

00:02:45: Karina Owens highlighted the fundamental lack of that operational alignment.

00:02:49: She said the number one failure point is simply not having a shared agreed upon target account list and clear sales and marketing collaboration.

00:02:57: Things like, you know, shared SLAs for how quickly you respond to a signal.

00:03:01: Okay,

00:03:01: so it sounds like that target list.

00:03:02: Yeah.

00:03:03: It can't just be a sales wish list anymore.

00:03:05: It has to be really curated, jointly selected.

00:03:08: It absolutely does.

00:03:09: And speaking of curation, how we define the ICP, the ideal customer profile, that's gotten way more sophisticated too.

00:03:16: Anthony Peary suggested we really need to move beyond just static thermographics like basic company size or industry.

00:03:22: You know, companies don't really buy based on headcount.

00:03:24: They buy based on specific problems.

00:03:26: So he argues we should be defining segments based on the workflows that your product actually supports.

00:03:31: Thinking more in terms of use cases.

00:03:32: or category-based segmentation.

00:03:34: Yeah, that makes sense.

00:03:35: It feels like a shift from just intuition to actual data science, doesn't it?

00:03:39: I'm thinking of Warren Greenberg's analysis here.

00:03:41: He mentioned using statistical models that could predict high value accounts with, what was it, up to eighty-two percent accuracy.

00:03:48: That's pretty high.

00:03:49: Wow,

00:03:49: yeah.

00:03:49: And the data actually proved that their assumed ICP, in this case agencies, was actually a staggering thirty-five percent worse fit.

00:03:57: than, say, manufacturing companies.

00:03:59: See,

00:04:00: that kind of stat just completely validates letting the data win over opinion, right?

00:04:04: Absolutely.

00:04:04: And then, okay, once you've really nailed those target accounts, you need to understand the people inside them.

00:04:09: We all know the buying committee has just exploded in size, which means multi-threading is everything now.

00:04:14: Right.

00:04:14: And that brings us to Wooter Deleman's analysis.

00:04:17: How are teams actually coping with mapping all those different needs and roles within the account?

00:04:22: While he showed how ABM teams are using frameworks like SpicyD, that situation, pain, impact, critical event, decision to develop these really detailed spot-on personas, as he called them.

00:04:35: And crucially, you don't just stop at defining the VP of IT.

00:04:39: You map that person to their specific buying role.

00:04:42: Are they the champion?

00:04:43: Maybe they're a blocker.

00:04:45: Or are they the final decision maker?

00:04:47: That level of clarity is vital for effective execution.

00:04:51: Okay, that teases us up perfectly for our second theme.

00:04:54: Channels, personalization, and timing.

00:04:56: So we're getting surgical with the who, but the sources also gave us a pretty crucial reminder about prioritizing the right inputs for the how and when.

00:05:04: Yeah, if theme one was the foundation, this is more like the precision strike.

00:05:08: And this is where we get into what really drives conversion.

00:05:10: Alex Pappas shared a really critical insight and it jumped out at me.

00:05:13: Timing beats personalization.

00:05:15: Basically surface level personalization.

00:05:17: You know, knowing someone's college or their hobbies, it's far less valuable than using intent data to meet the buyer exactly when they're actually in the market for a solution like yours.

00:05:25: That's a big statement because personalization has been like the holy grail for so long.

00:05:30: So are you saying we should just stop personalizing all together?

00:05:33: No, not at all.

00:05:34: But the emphasis is definitely shifting.

00:05:36: It's about relevant personalization delivered right at the point of active intent.

00:05:41: And maybe nothing highlights that focus on scaled relevance better than the new LinkedIn sponsored content update.

00:05:47: We saw Daria Kalina detailing how true one point one personalization is now possible right there in the ad copy using dynamic macros like company name, job title, first name.

00:05:59: Okay, that sounds potentially revolutionary for doing ABM at scale.

00:06:04: But is there a risk there, you know, overusing it, making it feel creepy or maybe even generic if everyone starts doing it?

00:06:09: Absolutely, that's a real risk.

00:06:11: Kirill Vydov offered a really vital caution here.

00:06:13: He warned that using first name is already pretty overused, and frankly, LinkedIn's industry tags can often be inaccurate.

00:06:19: So the high impact macros, the ones that really give you those strong ABM vibes and actually cut through the noise, those are job title and probably most importantly, company name.

00:06:27: And we actually have proof of that working, right?

00:06:29: Nihil Ahmed M tested those company name tokens.

00:06:33: He reported a pretty significant CTR jump, going from about point five zero percent up to point nine zero percent.

00:06:39: Wow.

00:06:40: That small change, using the company name, proves that relevant personalization right in the ad copy aimed at the right account.

00:06:47: Well, it's highly scalable and seems really effective, especially lower in the funnel.

00:06:52: And to really maximize that impact, you can't just rely on digital ads alone.

00:06:56: Demintro Kaliznik stressed the need for multi-channel sequences, you know, using email, LinkedIn, maybe even calls, and having them adapt dynamically based on how the buyer actually engages.

00:07:06: By meeting the prospects sort of where they are, you can boost reply rates by two, three times.

00:07:11: That

00:07:11: kind of orchestrated approach, it's really well illustrated by that snowflake playbook Mir Levin shared.

00:07:15: It's like a classic one to punch.

00:07:17: The ABM team spends two weeks actively warming up target accounts with personalized campaigns before the SDRs even make their first outbound call.

00:07:26: and the results are just undeniable.

00:07:27: They saw a thirty-six percent meeting rate on those pre-warmed, intent-validated accounts.

00:07:31: Compare that to just ten percent on totally cold outbound.

00:07:34: That huge uplift comes almost entirely from getting the timing right and orchestrating the touches.

00:07:39: Okay, sticking with execution, let's talk messaging for a second.

00:07:44: Given this massive wave of generic content, you know, a lot of it AI generated now, flooding everyone's inboxes.

00:07:51: How do you actually cut through that noise?

00:07:53: That's a great question.

00:07:54: Brian Caulfield actually predicted a kind of return, a renaissance of the Challenger sale approach.

00:08:00: His point is that the modern buyer is just fatigued, generic, safe content.

00:08:04: It doesn't land anymore.

00:08:06: Success now really requires using tailored, sometimes challenging insights.

00:08:11: Something that creates urgency, maybe builds consensus within that buying group by showing them a problem or an opportunity they hadn't even realized they had.

00:08:18: Right, that requires some serious research and creativity though.

00:08:22: But sometimes maybe to truly cut through all the digital noise and really establish authority.

00:08:28: You need something completely physical, right?

00:08:30: Something unexpected.

00:08:31: Oh, absolutely.

00:08:32: That's the beauty of creativity in ABM.

00:08:34: It doesn't always have to be digital.

00:08:35: Neil Ratcliffe shared this fantastic, totally non-digital example.

00:08:39: His team got the attention of a massive like two billion dollar company by creating and then hand delivering this huge seven foot personalized marketing report right to their front desk.

00:08:49: Wow.

00:08:50: A seven foot report.

00:08:51: Yeah.

00:08:52: I mean, talk about making an impression.

00:08:53: It just showed.

00:08:54: genuine value, real creativity, and it completely transcended the usual digital channels we all focus on.

00:09:01: It proves that, you know, the human element and just having a big, bold idea, that's still a massive multiplier, even in our tech-driven world.

00:09:08: That's

00:09:08: definitely a memorable story.

00:09:10: Yeah.

00:09:10: Okay, let's move to our final theme, which is, let's be honest, critical for every single B to B professional listening.

00:09:15: Intent, measurement, and optimization.

00:09:18: How are ABM teams actually proving ROI and stopping the guessing game?

00:09:23: Well, it really begins with better signal interpretation.

00:09:26: Vladimir Blagojevich laid out a pretty clear framework for understanding different types of intent.

00:09:31: He talked about learning intent, which is low buying intent, solution intent, sort of medium, and then vendor intent, which is high.

00:09:39: Teams have to understand these signals and weight them differently.

00:09:42: Otherwise, you just waste a ton of time and resources chasing, you know, anonymous website traffic that is nowhere near ready to actually buy anything.

00:09:50: That distinction sounds crucial, especially because we're operating in this era that John Miller describes as having three layers of invisibility.

00:09:57: You know what, something like seventy percent of the buyer journey is happening in the dark now through anonymous research or dark social channels like private Slack groups or just because the buying group itself is so fragmented.

00:10:09: Yeah, it's a huge structural challenge for marketers.

00:10:11: I mean, if seventy percent of that journey is invisible, you can't really track it or directly influence it in the traditional ways.

00:10:17: Therefore, things like brand resonance, having really high quality messaging out there and building genuine emotional connection.

00:10:24: Those become the only scalable ways to make sure you're even in the consideration set when those buyers finally decide to surface.

00:10:30: Okay, but that invisibility factor.

00:10:32: It must force a huge shift in how we measure success too.

00:10:36: Steve Armenti noted that, A, frankly, shocking, seventy-one percent of marketers are not extremely confident in their attribution accuracy.

00:10:45: How are finance departments accepting that level of ambiguity?

00:10:48: Well,

00:10:48: the short answer is they aren't.

00:10:50: That lack of confidence is precisely why the successful teams, the ones getting budget, are moving towards measuring account level stage progression.

00:10:57: You know, pipeline velocity, deal size, win rates within target accounts.

00:11:00: It's just much easier to defend that kind of metric to the CFO than trying to justify, you know, the last click from some ad viewed weeks ago in a journey you can't fully see.

00:11:09: Right.

00:11:10: And the ROI from that kind of precision when you get it right seems traumatic.

00:11:15: Let's talk about Arun Patra's math for a second.

00:11:17: He compared a standard, say, fifty dollar K budget, which might yield about one million dollars in pipeline using traditional methods.

00:11:25: He compared that to the same budget used in a signal-backed journey-modeled ABM approach and that signal-backed precision.

00:11:32: It yielded four point two five million dollars in pipeline.

00:11:34: Yeah, that four point two X multiplier.

00:11:36: That's the headline right there.

00:11:37: It proves that the real leverage comes from better orchestration and precision, focusing your efforts on the right accounts at exactly the right time.

00:11:44: It's not just about getting bigger budgets for generic activities.

00:11:47: And Joel Harrison backs this up too.

00:11:49: His analysis showed that high performing ABM programs that consciously engineer trust achieve forty two percent higher ROI trust.

00:11:56: It's so easy to focus just on the tech stacks, isn't it?

00:11:59: But maybe the most successful ABM is really just excellent relationship building, done at scale, but enabled by technology.

00:12:07: Lanny M. Heiss's finding seems to support this too.

00:12:10: He found many companies only use something like, sophisticated tools like clay, for example, because they haven't mapped the tech to a solid operating model first.

00:12:19: Exactly.

00:12:20: The value of the tech only really shows up when the underlying workflow, the operating model is optimized.

00:12:25: Which brings us right back to where we started, this idea of ABE or XBM.

00:12:30: The operating model has to drive the tech stack, not the other way around.

00:12:33: And actually, as we wrap up, we're seeing this strategic shift driving ABM even further, rapidly moving towards the individual contact level, fueled by real time signals.

00:12:42: like Nick Masters and Katya Terrapovskaya are championing this.

00:12:47: But hang on, if we're moving towards hyper-relevant, contact-level targeting, doesn't that raise some huge compliance risks?

00:12:54: Marcus Stahlberg brought up a really critical governance challenge here.

00:12:58: He pointed out that using non-consent-based person-level ABM data, even in the

00:13:02: U.S.,

00:13:03: might already be breaching various state privacy laws.

00:13:07: It's pushing U.S.

00:13:07: compliance standards much closer to the stricter European rules like GDPR.

00:13:12: And that, right there, is the provocative final thought for you to really mull over.

00:13:17: How do practitioners navigate that increasing risk?

00:13:19: The desire, the goal of achieving hyper-personalized one point one scale seems to be directly clashing with a regulatory environment that's demanding higher and higher standards of consent and transparency.

00:13:29: That tension between precision and privacy, that's likely going to define the next generation of AVM strategy.

00:13:35: Alignment,

00:13:36: orchestration, precision,

00:13:38: and now compliance.

00:13:40: That seems to be the key focus for B to B marketers moving forward.

00:13:43: Well, that wraps up our deep dive into the latest ABM trends from LinkedIn.

00:13:48: If you enjoyed this deep dive, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:13:51: Also, check out our other editions on Field Marketing, Channel and Partner Marketing, AI and BDB, Mark Tech, Go To Market and Social Selling.

00:13:57: Thank you for joining us and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future insights.