In simple terms, account-based marketing (ABM) is about targeting the prospects that really matter.
It's about a laser-focused approach to marketing and sales.
Behind the scenes, however, a lot needs to happen. It includes ensuring that marketing and sales work together to attract, engage, and nurture prospects.
On this episode of Marketing Spark, Andrei Zinkevich also points out that ABM also involves determining the customers that you don't want as much as the customers you do want.
Andrei goes into depth about how his company, Full Funnel, helps B2B SaaS companies leverage ABM to drive leads and revenue growth.
Auto-generated transcript. Speaker names, spelling, and punctuation may be slightly off.
Mark Evans: Hey. It's Mark Evans, and you're listening to Marketing Spark. In the b to b world, you hear a lot about ABM or account based marketing. In simple terms, it involves focusing on a small number of companies to drive marketing and sales engagement and efficiencies. In practice, there are many moving parts. To get insight into ABN and how it has been evolving, I'm excited to be talking with Andrei Zinkovich, cofounder of fullfunnel.io. Welcome to the podcast, Andrei.
Andrei Zinkovich: Thanks a lot for having me, Mark. Super excited to chat with you about ABM and all things related to complex b b marketing.
Mark Evans: We've got a lot to cover. There's so much insight that you offer on LinkedIn, and I'm excited to get into it. But let's start with ABM. You hear a lot about it as companies, b to b, b to b SaaS companies look to leverage it from a marketing and sales perspective to really hone in on the prospects who matter. What's going on? What is the state of ABM? How has it changed over the last eighteen months?
Andrei Zinkovich: I believe that ABM is, a topic that gets lots of hype. And it's just because as anything in marketing, ABM, demand generation, print marketing, etcetera, these are work marketing terms that are not really clear to the companies. Lots of companies don't have marketing background, and they rely on the content of martech vendors. And their knowledge of ABM is limited to the blog posts, ebooks, webinars produced by the martech vendors. And that's the huge problem because in a majority of cases, whenever I talk to non marketing executive, I mean, executive who doesn't have a background in marketing, and I ask, what's your take on ABM? What does it mean to you? In most cases, people describe it I'm a little bit generalized on, of course, right now. But in most cases, people describe it as display ads, as a warm up play, and outbound. So nothing new is here. So it's just display ads that are pretended to warm up strategic accounts, and then it's a kind of outreach sequence, and that's it. But the truth is that account based marketing is just as specific or what we used to call it larger targeted approach when you do an appropriate account list building. We can cover this. And your and the accounts that are included in your list are not just on the accounts that fit your, let's demographic criteria, pharmacographic criteria, but the accounts that have an existing need in your services. Somehow, they showed the interest in in the product like this. You have some sort of engagement and, you know, that your product might help to achieve their goals or fulfill their existing needs. So that's that's the key. And your approach, in most cases, you know, there are lots of talks that ABM is has a different place, like one to one, one to few, one to many. But the truth is that account based marketing originates from one to one approach. It means that you deliver a specific warm up program and specific solution to a specific company like Andre Zinkovich is offering Samsung to Mark Evans to help him to achieve his goals. And that's the difference from mass marketing. The biggest problem is that lots of companies don't realize this. They don't have let's say, they don't have enough skill set, and that's why they rely heavily on the content that is available. And they tend to think that it's just enough to purchase expensive ABM software because this way, you'll be more advanced or whatever they, you know, they they think that they will be. It's enough to pour more money into display ads and then just do the outreach. That's that's the biggest problem I am seeing right on. That is the huge gap. The companies that understand how to do the ABM the right way are crawling really fast.
Mark Evans: That's a lot of information to digest, in a short period of time. And you mentioned list building, and it does sort of strike me that how does a company who's interested in ABM start the process? What should they do first to make sure that they they do it in the right way from the beginning?
Andrei Zinkovich: Yeah. Absolutely. First of all, before launching any program, not only ABM, you should do the fundamentals the right way, which means that you should know what verticals are the most profitable and the most lucrative to your business. The next step is understanding the needs, the goals of this, of the prospects of the accounts from this specific vertical and the way how do they purchase your products. That's crucial. So in this case, and this is how you build your ideal customer profile. It's not just about saying, hey. I want to prospect startups from North America with this team size, you know, and this revenue level. Now the goal is to identify the common criteria or, let's say, the common patterns or features of your best customers, then run customer interviews to understand what triggers them to start looking for products like yours. How do they use these products? How do they run their research with whom they advise? What influences their decision making process, and now what let's say, what questions are being discussed at in house meetings when they are considering products like yours. And this is crucial because this is the only way how you can develop your marketing and sales process. It should be your marketing and sales process should be built should be based on how your customers are buying, not how you tend to think they're buying. So this is crucial before launching any program, not only ABM. So when it's done, then the next step is discuss an account qualification and disqualification criteria. I have heard a lot about qualification, and, usually, it's all about team size revenue, let's say, area, etcetera. But the truth is that there are so many nonstandard or unique criteria for every vertical. Let let's make a precise example. So with one software development company, we narrowed their focus and position, and then we were looking one of the account qualification criteria was that, let's say, the product team of this specific target accounts should have mobile SDK in that LinkedIn profile description. Because when you if they had this, let's say, that title, this mobile SDK was a key priority so they could fit with their service, you know, this specific accounts. And if they didn't have it, then it means that mobile SDK is the lowest priority. And for us, that was a huge qualification criteria, so we didn't waste time on the wrong accounts. And next step is disqualification. No. I have rarely seen that anybody talks about disqualification, but the truth is that not all accounts are good fit for you even if they fit your, let's say, revenue team size, geographical criteria. The truth is, let's say let's take this specific example I just shared. So in this case, the disqualification criteria was if CTO or VP of IT had a baccalaureate degree in Post Soviet countries or India. And the only reason for this why we disqualify this account because usually, they have had strong network or connections in these countries, and they could find a cheaper vendor for these specific services. So that was another disqualification criteria, which is not obvious. Or in one example, so with one enterprise fintech company, as a disqualification criteria, we had two points. If we were prospecting chief financial officers or CFOs, and if they were the first year on their position or if they spent more than five five years at the same position at the same company, we disqualified these people because the truth is again, the truth was that if they if it was their first year, they didn't want to change anything. And if they spent more than five years, it means that they have already established some specific process and they had a software, and, again, they were not willing to change. The way how we knew it, again, by running in-depth customer interviews, asking the questions that I have already mentioned, and understanding. So that's that's crucial. And then, again so the these are the key points. And then you need to understand two more things. Before reaching out, you should warm up accounts. And, again, they just touched this. Warming up is not just pouring more money in into IP based display ads. Because the truth is I know Chris Walker actually articulated this issue really good. So, look, where where people spend most of their day, they use CRM systems, they use Slack, email, they use Asana, whatever, Notion for project management, and they spend 90% of their time in this software. And you won't be able to target them with display ads. Not everybody is hanging out on LinkedIn as lots of vendors. And FormUp, we can obviously touch up. You should do completely different things when it comes to warm up. And then activation. When it comes to activation, you should set up a, let's say, specific account engagements threshold. You should set up account engagement triggers when you should be reaching out. So, you know, these accounts are warm up enough, and they are ready to talk to you. And, definitely, they showed some interest in in the product or in solution you are selling. So these are the key points. And the last one is that marketing and sales should be aligned on these programs, which means that everybody knows how the campaign is running, what everybody should be doing at what time, etcetera. So it's not about marketing is doing a part of campaign and sales doing is completely different part of this campaign, and nobody knows how the entire program works.
Mark Evans: That's a lot of ground to cover and some great advice. But the one thing that I wanted to hone in on was customer insight and the importance of truly knowing who your customers are so that when you're doing ABM or content marketing or social media or advertising, you're targeted on the right people in the right places. I'm interested in your advice on how b to b companies can get that customer insight. What do they need to do to really understand their customers, their motivations, pains, aspirations, all the things that you need to know so that you can connect and engage with them?
Andrei Zinkovich: The most important part is running these interviews with customers. If I'll ask 10 companies, I mean, 10 random b to b companies right now, I believe nine of 10 will tell they have never talked to their customers, which means they're just guess working on how their customers are purchasing solutions like this, what's the value they are getting from this product. And then it means that your marketing message in general is is just a guesswork. You don't know if it's validated. So you are playing, I would say, not predictable game. You are not sure if your message will resonate with new strategic accounts or won't resonate. So that's the key point. You need to have this in-depth interview. So we have a specific process again. We can touch the details, but the key point is that during this interview, you should ask five groups of questions. And the first one is all about the research process, which where you ask who's in charge of the research. If when it comes, you know, when it comes to looking for solutions to these specific challenges, where do you go? Who do you ask? You know? So you can understand if they are if they are, let's say, joining a specific community and ask a question, let's say, marketing community, and they ask there, what's the best CRM for, I don't know, fintech company? Just random example. This is the way how they buy. Next one is all about the value. So this is how you can refine your marketing message. So what's the value you are getting from our product? What specific outcomes do you have? Not in this case, you avoid situation when they just answer. I love your product, which means nothing to the prospects. What does I love your product testimonial mean to anybody? Nothing. But if they say, this product helped me to improve my operations, generate more money, cut the costs, whatever, then it's actionable. That's the key point. So next one is who are the end users? And this is how you how you can identify the part of the buying committee. And the next group of question is questions is all about the buying committee structure and the decision making process. So you can ask when you just when you have discussed our product, who was evaluating or considering it, and then you can identify the roles that are influencing the decision making process. What questions did they ask? Did you compare us to any other vendor? This is how you can identify the real competition. Why did you choose us? That's this is how you can understand what resonated in your message with them. And the most important question, why didn't you choose our competitors? Now you can understand what's what you stands for, what's what's the differentiation for your prospects, not what you are thinking about what differentiates your product, but you just hear it from your customers. And finally, you can ask the questions about the channels. Instead of guessing, that's because my company is in b to b space, I should go for LinkedIn. You know, you can ask questions like, what channels, what platforms do you use regularly? Where do you you know, what people do you follow? If you if you want to ask a question, where do you go, etcetera? This is how you can identify this. What what is being called right now, dark funnel, this is how you can identify these channels, these places where they hand out, and this is why you should be marketing your product, your service. So the only way to learn and understand this is just by talking to to to your best customers. I don't know how you can identify this another way.
Mark Evans: I wanna talk to you about the state of b two b marketing in 2022. But before we move on, I wanted to circle back on the statement that nine out of 10 marketers don't talk to their customers. And that strikes me I'm not surprised, to be honest with you, but that strikes me as incredibly naive or ignorant of the people that matter. As marketers, yes, it's important to focus on running campaigns and creating content, but why don't marketers truly know their customers? Why aren't they interacting with them on a regular basis? Not just Net Promoter Scores or an occasional lunch or a survey, but spending the time to understand who their customers are and what makes them tick. What's the blocker or thing that is stopping them?
Andrei Zinkovich: I will share my honest opinion. The first one is that b to b marketing is not taught in schools. So in in the majority of cases, marketers are joining a company. And if this culture of talking to customers, interviewing customers wasn't evolved in this organization, they simply don't do it. Nobody says that they should be doing this. And they're moving from company to company, and nobody talks about this. So that's that's the problem. And the next the next issue, let's say, the more they spend in a marketing space, the more they're ignoring the fact that they should be talking to their customers, the more uncomfortable it becomes when they the real when they realize the importance. So it means, you know, I need to call somebody. And then let's say, I have heard multiple time times the objection that why should our customers talk to us? We don't want to bother them.
Mark Evans: Right. Right.
Andrei Zinkovich: But but the question is for me, it's just a red flag. So if your customers are not willing to dedicate ten, fifteen minutes of their time to you, it means that you have a huge problem. It means that at one point, you can just receive an email. Sorry, guys. We are not going we want to cancel our account, or we are not going to resign our contract. So you'll be dealing with churn. You can just lose your best customers. And when you are regularly talking to customers, not only you can generate this this specific insights because we also didn't talk about the account expansion, which is part of ABM. Because usually, ABM is all about lead generation, correct, generating more opportunities, but it's also about deal expansion. So you can ask if you have a case study, a successful use case. You can talk about the strategic goals, initiatives, and if you are prospecting, let's say, multinational companies, you can generate a new opportunity in a new branch. So lots of ideas. And the only way to do it is just by talking to our customers. The next one is also tracking the satisfaction because lots of companies operate with the mindset that that their customers are happy by default. If they are not complaining, it means they are happy, which is absolutely not true. So, you you know, they might be dealing with small issues. And the more the more these issues are compounding, the higher the the higher the chances that they will start and new research to find an alternative, to find a new vendor. And you'll just get at one point an email saying, sorry. We are just canceling our account or I'm not going to to work with you. That's the problem. So to answer to private app, the the the first one is that most marketers didn't learn it from school. So the fundamentals of marketing are broken, so they don't know they should be doing this. And the more time they spend in marketing, the more time they focus on different aspects of marketing but not talking to their customers, the more uncomfortable it becomes to them.
Mark Evans: The b to b marketing landscape has evolved a lot over the last eighteen minutes months. One of the biggest challenges is that conferences disappeared. I'm curious about your take on what you see as the most interesting marketing trends as we head into 2022, and are there platforms that you believe that b two b marketers need to embrace?
Andrei Zinkovich: I would say one of the most interesting trends, and I love it, more and more companies again, it's still a miserable amount of these companies, but more and more companies are starting doing demand generation and involving executives teams, sales teams. So the goal of this is changing the perspective of their company. The goal of demand generation is definitely connecting with strategic accounts, and it's also a part it's a part of account based market. And it also helps to establish this purest relationship and deliver purest related content because executives can share the content that is related to or dedicated to executives. So their strategic accounts, marketers can talk the content that is related to marketers, etcetera. So you got the idea. Pierce related content or diversified content strategy. Next one, it also helps to reposition their sales team. Instead of being yet another sales rep, their sales team becomes trusted advisers. That's a huge differentiation. So their strategic accounts tend to think about salespeople, not as just SDRs, BDMs, or whatever of company x, but people who are sort leaders in this specific narrow market, they shouldn't have it's not about having, you know, 10 k followers on LinkedIn on Twitter. Absolutely not. It's been treated or considered as a sort leader on this specific small market. That's a nice trend, and I'm seeing of course of course, if we'll talk about if we'll consider the entire world, this trend is mostly I'm seeing this trend mostly in North America and United States and Canada. But in Europe also, we have some nice examples, and this is what I love. This is this is how companies this is the easiest way to connect with strategic account because when they you know, you are connecting and then they are opening a profile of SDR of an executive. They see that this process is sharing a valuable content trust immediately. They build this trust. So that's that's one of the most interesting trends I'm seeing.
Mark Evans: Well, thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review, subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and share via social media. To learn more about how I help b to b SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, strategic adviser, and coach, send an email to Mark@MarketingSpark.co, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll talk to you next time.