Account-Based Engagement – Don’t Let Your Data Hold You Back

Looking to increase your sales and marketing ROI? These days it’s all about turning your critical data into actionable intelligence.

Every company has a wealth of tools at their disposal for collating, segmenting, qualifying and distilling data. To a large degree, that data has become a commodity. Now more than ever, teams are running with limited bandwidth and limited budget and need to do what they can to maximize resources to drive better campaigns and Account-Based Engagement (ABE).

Where companies can separate themselves is with what they do with the data they have, the ways they invest in data enrichment, and how they turn it into actionable intelligence.

Most companies focus on activating intent but utilizing that intent effectively by implementing best practices around its integration with your database and use of its insights is the best way to build better targeting methods and stronger ABE lists. The key to success and driving more significant ROI for your organization is to find the needle by creating a smaller haystack. To do this, you need to organize and enrich your data.

Here’s how we see it at Demand Science:

Data collection and confirmation of healthy data has become commoditized.

Quality of data is important, yes. It should be recent and validated. Yet, email addresses, company phone and other similar data points are simply table stakes these days.

It’s not the data, but the intelligence FROM the data. It helps drive smart ABE strategies and contribute to success in an organization by helping teams do a number of things:

• Segment and target markets/customers effectively
• Communicate with precision, impact and effectiveness (personalization and more)
• Better understand customers POV
• Develop new ABE strategies and communication channels
• Reassess Total Addressable Market, Ideal Customer Profiles and Personae

Companies can stand apart from the crowd based on what they do with their data: Turning it into actionable insight and intelligence.

Enriching and validating your data is a critical first step toward actionable intelligence. Consider the many ways to make your data work for you:

• First party recency data, such as website visits, marketing outreach engagement metrics, social listening and sales intelligence, when combined, help ensure your working with the latest information available and identifies active interest in a product or solution.

• Confirmed connects from validation tools or vendor guarantees are invaluable and help enhance the quality of the data based on real-world interactions.

• Then, add 3^rd party intent to help round out the data and increase the score for your organization’s sales and marketing operations tracking and follow up.

Most companies are fully aware of the sources of data mentioned above. The most successful companies combine the data effectively and utilize it to hone sales and marketing initiatives.

Pull the needle from a smaller haystack by narrowing the focus on signals that will have a greater impact, or ones that are more like other successful signals you’re already tracking and driving to revenue.

Here’s an example: Say you work for a cyber security company and your existing ABE list was developed based on an Ideal Customer Profile and “gut feel.” Your ABE list has served you well in the past but you’re beginning to notice a drop-off in ROI regardless of investing more in targeting the accounts on your list.

With holistic and healthy data, enriched with validated contact information, demographic, firmagraphic, technographic installs, and multi-source intent at your disposal, you are now armed with the ability to reassess the accuracy of your “gut feel” list.

Reasses my list? Absolutely!

• TAM Expansion or Refocus: There may be an opportunity to revisit your Total Addressable Market and have an impact on your Ideal Customer Profile. With a clear view of technographic installs alone, you may find that you can expand your TAM from a handful of industry segments to new ones. While your original focus was on segments clearly a fit for your product or solution, you may find technographic compatibility nested in a broader market.
• Personae: With the global digital transformation we have experienced over the last few months, companies have had to technologically stretch to meet the needs of a remote workforce. You may now discover new job functions/new personas that are showing interest in your types of solutions via keyword and content consumption intent.
• Account-Based List Building: The combination of technographic installs and multi-source intent data will help you move away from “gut feeling” list building altogether. Now, you can focus on accounts that are not only a good fit for your solutions but are also actively showing the highest propensity to buy.

Call it ABE, call it ABM. We also like to call it Account-Based Intelligence (ABI)

It’s never been more important for sales and marketing professionals to fight the implications of unhealthy data and what it can mean to an organization pursuing ABI as a means of scalable revenue generation.

Start with a reputable provider of quality, healthy data and work closely with them to develop an implementation plan that meets your strategic and tactical ABI objectives.

Make sure you review the quality of your data on a regular cadence with special attention given to the facets of the data that have the greatest impact on your revenue operations

We’re excited to talk about Account-Based Engagement and are doing so, in real-time, at the upcoming Account-Based Engagement Summit, a complimentary online summit for marketing and sales leaders. Demand Science, and over 30 industry thought leaders from some amazing companies are going to be talking about the most effective implementations of ABE and we hope you’ll join us.

Registration is free. You can find out more and sign-up here.