Hunter & Bard’s

Account-Based
Marketing
Playbook
For Enterprise Marketers
What we’ll cover

What is ABM & who is it for 1-2

Defining success 3

Who should care about ABM 4

Land and expand bow tie 5

Who owns what in an ABM campaign 7

How to measure for impact 8

Making the target list 10

Design your customer journey 11

ABM program prep 13

Tracking progress with sales 14

Working together 16

Conclusion 18
What is ABM
& who is it for?
ABM
According to  SiriusDecisions, the definition of Account-Based Marketing, “ABM  is
a strategic approach that aligns demand creation programs and messaging
against a set of defined accounts and goals, in a way that is relevant and valuable
to those accounts and to sales.”

At its core, Account-Based Marketing is when sales and marketing work together
to target the most significant most valuable accounts. It’s perfect for companies
where an account executive and sales engineer sell large contracts to enterprises
with multiple stakeholders.

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 2

Defining success
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a methodology that aligns Marketing and Sales
throughout the sales process: from awareness to post-sale expansion marketing.
It’s a full process that narrows the number of leads while raising the conversion.

The recipe for successful ABM:

3
Who should care about ABM
C-Suite Strategic Account
A well-chosen Managers
customer has longer The better-chosen
Customer Lifetime prospect should
Value (CLV) lead to a faster
close

Inside sales Customer Success

It’s easier to sell more Onboarding is
to a current customer smoother

Product Finance
Active customers give ROI is more transparent
better feedback

4
Land and expand bow tie
Sales to enterprise often start with a Proof of Concept at a lower contract amount.
As the Customer Success Team works with the enterprise to implement and validate
the value of the software or service, the account is expanded over time. This funnel
reflects the reality of selling to enterprise more accurately than the traditional funnel
does, as there is more sales and marketing that happens post initial Closed Won.

s
s

elationship
tomer Succes
wareness

dback Loop
O n bo a r d

Expand
Negotiate
At t r a c t

Closed
Convert
Nurture

Won
Build R
Bui ld A

Fee

Cus

Op
ize tim
p tim ize
O

Look at Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) holistically

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 5

One of the best things about ABM is that it helps companies create
reach and engagement around a consistent story orchestrated across
the buying process from marketing to sales. Because you’re working
together on the story, content, and outreach, everything works together,
reducing conflict for buyers. It’s like marketing and sales alignment by
design.

—Ardath Albee, Author of Digital Relevance and frequent industry speaker

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 6

Who owns what in an ABM
campaign
Marketing
1. CMO/VP/Head
> Goal of campaign
> Negotiates KPIs with Sales
> Manages expectations with
Sales/CEO
2. Corporate
> High-level messaging
> Maintains brand
3. Division Marketing
> Chooses verticals/niche
> Designs Customer Journey
4. Product Marketing
> Designs and decides on tactics
> Works with SMEs on creation
Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 7
Sales
1. CRO/VP Sales/Head
> Goal of campaign
> Negotiates KPIs with Marketing
> Helps Marketing manage
expectations with CEO
2. Account Executive
> Gives detailed parameters
for the list
> Works with Marketing on the ideal
Customer Journey
> Defines parameters for SAAs
(Sales Accepted Accounts),
accepts MQAs , and closes deals
3. SDR
> Fine-tunes each touchpoint so
that it’s personalized
> Orchestrates the beginning of
program
> Engages leads
4. Customer Success
> Helps set up the account and
assures that the client is using
optimally
> Builds the relationship and
upsells
How to measure for impact
1. What are your stretch 3. Additional considerations:
goals?
• Competitor Map
• Number • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Timeline • Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
• SMART goals
4. What are your key
2. What are your key metrics: performance indicators
(KPIs)?
• Sales Accepted Accounts (SAA)
• Deal Velocity • Engagement with web content
• Cost Per Lead (CPL) • Individual interaction with brand
• Win/Loss Ratio and content
• Engagement from target accounts

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 8

Three things that marketers need to watch:

1. Work with Sales to identify the accounts: this may sound easy... When you
have thousands of accounts, it’s important to understand your selection
criteria to source the accounts. Once the accounts are identified, marketers
also need to spend time to clean the account data. For example: Is this
person still with the company? Is this email address still current?

2. Build a Martech stack to scale: The only way to scale your ABM effort is
to have a proper martech stack to facilitate your ABM outreach. Build your
workflow and identify technology platforms that you’ll use for your ABM
efforts. Again, it takes time to test and implement

3. Define KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) with Sales blessings: Clearly

identify how ABM will impact sales. Make sure that you can track ABM’s
success and contribution and review your KPIs with Sales management on a
regular basis.

—Pam Didner, B2B and Tech Marketing Consultant | Author | Speaker

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 9

Making the target list
1. Decide relevant data points: 3. Find the targets contact info

• Job Titles • Email

• Company links • Social
• Revenue • Phone number
• Company size • Address

2. Research the company 4. Work with Sales on number

of accounts
• Vertical/industry
• Geography 5. Make list trackable and
automated

6. Incorporate intent through

the tactics where possible
(e.g., engagement with
content)

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 10

Design your customer journey
1. How many touchpoints? 4. How to segment?

2. What are the touchpoints? • Vertical

• Title
• Email • Company size
• Webinar • Geography
• Direct mail • Issues
• Phone call • Challenges
• Social (paid + organic)
• Content 5. What content per segment?
• Ads to landing pages

3. How often to meet, review,

apply learnings, and
iterate?

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 11

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is all about a customer-centric
perspective. Where are your customers? What are their needs? What is
their intent? That’s the core of every successful ABM program.

We call the ABM customer journey an Account-Based Experience (ABX).

Our customers have found that focusing on ABX has multiplied their
customer engagement, in comparison to other marketing strategies. In
fact, our customers have increased their target customer engagement
by up to 50%. Higher engagement leads to more pipeline, larger closed-
wins, and better customer retention. Companies who execute ABX
systematically achieve $100Ms more pipeline a year. Experience matters.

—Etai Beck, CEO, Folloze

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 12

 ABM program prep

List Blog Landing Direct

Webinars
posts page mail

Work with Sales These will be • Messaging At what phase do Who will be
to only have mentioned and • Form — the more you want to reach speaking? On
companies they will linked to in emails. you ask, the less out? Early gets what? This should
accept on the list: At the bottom of likely they are to their attention, but be offered in a later
• Name the page, have the fill out — HOWEVER could be expensive email, sponsored
• Email link to the landing — those who do depending on what posts, and social.
• Phone page. fill out are serious you’re sending Record webinar to
• Address to the whole list. send out again for
Sending later for a later touchpoint
some who do Edit snippets for
actions means you social & add to
can make it more YouTube for SEO.
Key Sales Sponsored personal.
messaging enablement post

What’s the benefit What are we giving Write & design

this campaign is away - ebook? posts. Set
expressing? List out Infographic? White parameters for ad
the 5 unique selling paper? Case study? platform. Phone
Events
points that sales & Video? calls
marketing agree on.

Write the script with E.g., personal

several options. dinners can be in
Call people who person or online
have opened the (have a local
emails several restaurant deliver
Email times. food) and have a
Social Set up speaker.
cadence media tracking

5 - 8 emails that Takes people Use Bit.ly for email

will be customized over to either the links, UTMs for
later. Make sure landing pages or landing pages, and
you list subjects to blog posts. make sure email
A/B test. opens are tracked.

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 13

Tracking progress with sales
Working with the sales team to provide them with the information they need to
succeed

1. Clear brief on 2. Introduction 3. FOLLOW UP

the account

• Name, title, company • Should include an • What happened

• Conversation details explanation and next in the initial sales
(notes on their steps meeting?
interests) • What were the
debate points that
need addressing?
• What materials
need to be used or
produced to address
any issues?
• What does the AE
need to move to the
next stage of the
sale?

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 14

We surveyed nearly 900 B2B sales and marketing professionals to
determine the current state of ABM, and the data is clear – those
companies seeing strong ROI from ABM have dedicated the time and
resources to execute. They’re not “testing the waters” or running pilot
programs – they’re investing in ABM.

They were 3x as likely to have a dedicated head of ABM.

They involve over half (61%) of their marketing team in ABM.
They increased their spend on ABM programs from last year, bringing
their ABM budget to 52% of their overall marketing budget.

In short, if you want to be successful with ABM, you must focus your time
and resources on executing ABM, and executing it well.

—Brandon Redlinger, Director of Marketing, DemandBase

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 15

Working together
1. When Sales and Marketing 2. Determine best practices
work together on sourcing, based on campaign results.
managing, and converting
prospects, the business • Note what works and what doesn’t.
grows.
• Continue testing assumptions to see
• The sales team listens and speaks if anything has changed.
to the customer every day.
• Have quarterly meetings on
> Understands the customer’s assumptions, practices, and results.
needs
> What the customer is looking for
> How to make a sale happen

• Marketing creates the material,

content, and campaigns necessary
to drive qualified leads through the
funnel.

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 16

While we were first to market with an offering, our messaging was
stale and we were losing share to competitive programs. In addition
to refreshing our messaging and interactive content, the Hunter &
Bard team developed an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaign
and worked with our marketing and sales team to research the ideal
customer profile and design, create and implement an ABM campaign
to target this profile and test the messaging before going after bigger
targets. We have had early success and confirmed several assumptions,
updated our customer journey, and are continuing to refine our
messaging and selling approaches. I am excited about our early results
and we’re now working to turn the campaign into a program. H&B has
been a flexible and adaptable partner for us.

—Sarah Partridge, Senior Manager - Product Marketing, UL

Hunter & Bard’s Account-Based Marketing Playbook | 17

 Email to schedule
a consultation
Hunter & Bard’s expertise is in sales enablement for complex sales of over $100k
annually. If your sales team has account executives, a land and expand approach,
and a bow-tie sales funnel – you want to talk to us. We focus on the things that will
bring you long-term success mixed with short-term results.

Our team can help you with account-based marketing campaigns, well-written
content marketing, social media, SEO, and award-winning design and branding.

Shira@hunterandbard.com

www.hunterandbard.com

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