Jon Miller | Account-Based Experience: A look at the future of ABM and B2B go-to-market

Overview

Jon outlines the how and Account-based experience is a go-to-market strategy that uses data and insights to orchestrate relevant, trusted marketing and sales actions throughout the B2B customer lifecycle.

Speaker

Jon is a marketing entrepreneur and thought leader. He is currently the Chief Marketing and Product Officer at Demandbase, the leading account-based marketing platform. Previously, Jon was the CEO and founder of Engagio (acquired by Demandbase) and was co-founder at Marketo (Nasdaq:MKTO), a leader in marketing automation. 

Quotes

“70% of buyers fully define their needs on their own before engaging with a sales representative, and 44% identify specific solutions before reaching out to a seller.” 

“The MQL had its day in the sun and now it’s time to move on to something else. It had a nice run, but it has long outlived its usefulness.” Todd Berkowitz, Gartner 

“Instead of a lead-based waterfall, we should be moving to an account-based waterfall, and instead of the MQL, we should be using MQA.” 

“Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs) are the subset of your qualified customer targets that are showing the signs of being in-market and ready for Sales outreach.” 

“Account-based experience is a go-to-market strategy that uses data and insights to orchestrate relevant, trusted marketing and sales actions throughout the B2B customer lifecycle.” 

Key Points

Gartner’s Six Buying Jobs: 

• Problem identification: “We need to do something.” 
• Solution exploration: “What’s out there to solve our problem?”  
• Requirements building: “What exactly do we need the purchase to do?” 
• Supplier selection: “Does this do what we want it to do? Is it the best option available?” 
• Validation: “We think we know the right answer, but we need to be sure.” 
• Consensus creation: “We need to get everyone on board.” 

How to identify MQAs (FIRE): 

• Fit: accounts in your ICP 
• Intent: interest in your products and/or competitors 
• Relationship: context and history with the account 
• Engagement: time spent with your company 
• Leads to Pipeline predict, or qualified accounts showing behaviors that predict buying activity 

How to align interactions to the buyer’s journey: 

• Qualified: early in the journey, focus on building your brand on a foundation of trust. 
• Awareness: more from emotion to logic with a thought leadership and education. 
• MQA: find when accounts are in-market and actually interested in hearing from you- but before they raise their hand on your website. 
• Opportunity: focus on validation and engaging the entire buying committee. 
• Post-sale: enhance the post-sale experience with adoption best practices and finding expansion opportunities. 

How to build your core ABX Processes: 

• Build your account data foundation 
• Find the accounts that drive your business 
• Engage with relevant, personalized interactions across channels 
• Close deals and expand relationships by aligning marketing and sales 
• Measure account progress