Advanced ABM Strategies with Colby Wren and UnboundB2B

Account-based marketing has become the number one choice for most B2B marketers. Stats show that 97% of marketers who use ABM say it delivers a higher ROI than other marketing activities. So with the benefits and results ABM strategies bring, more marketers are incorporating it into their marketing strategy.

We present you the expert insights from Colby Wren, VP of growth and marketing at Ambient AI. He has been blessed with a fantastic marketing background with over a decade of experience. Colby had the privilege of working at Delphix for almost 4 and a half years. Now he is working at Ambient AI, and it’s been a pleasure for him to just start to build up from the ground a new marketing function over there.

Let us check these ABM strategies to drive growth and boost sales.

Colby Wren: It still all goes back to the customers and prospects that you’re trying to reach. Often in ABM, we make the selection of the council we want. And, we forget that roughly, 95% of the accounts out there are not in an open buying cycle. So you really have to be selective.

You have to be intentional, and you have really good data to prove why or why not. You should select some of those accounts, so it definitely does start with the customer, and then you have to find them where they are on their buyers’ journey. So, those are kind of the initial building blocks from there. It’s really about how many accounts you can actively manage.

Do you have an average sales price that’s worth the cost of admission of doing a very robust account-based marketing program? You see a lot of really strong velocity staff sales organizations that don’t touch ABM mainly because they can’t afford to. If you’re swiping with a credit card, ABM can be very challenging and can be very costly. Whereas if you’re a large enterprise that has a longer sales cycle, then ABM is perfect for you because not only you can accelerate the sales cycle, but you can increase the ASP (average selling price) too.

And at the end of the day, it’s really about that wall-to-wall entrenchment in any of your target accounts. So you know, you’re buying centers, and you know, who’s going to be your influencers and champions, and that integrated marketing approach really does a great job for that market.

Colby Wren: It really depends if you’re going primarily for a Greenfield new logo-focused program, or if you’re also trying to cross-sell upsell within your existing install base marketing. So if you’re within your existing install base, obviously, sales are going to be on both sides whether it’s a new logo or customer expansion.

But when you really need to add customer success and some of your internal engineering team that has the information is on that customer expansion. You really cannot get by without consulting them. Now on the new logo side and on the extension side, you’re gonna have a lot of the same cast of characters.

Colby Wren: You’re gonna have product marketing and product, giving you direction; and content and messaging that can help not only guide these potential prospects down the buyer’s journey but inform them and enable your sales teams to go after them, because, at the end of the day, ABM is not just a couple of shiny display ads and targeted Linkedin programs.

You should really have that full funnel experience from the top to the bottom. And on top of that once you’ve run all these successful programs, you should have something to show for it at the end of the day, and that’s really where the inside sales and sales development arms come in because without them you are increasing awareness, you are increasing engagement, but if there are no meetings and opportunities being generated from that. Then it’s very challenging to have something quantifiable to gain accounts or ROI.

Colby Wren: Sure. There’s this really old talk about account-based selling sales, right? Pretty straightforward. Everyone gets 25 to 50 accounts, and SDRs go hunt. A lot of people call that account-based marketing. It’s not just targeted prospecting, that’s great. Everyone should be doing that.

But you can’t just put a shiny title on something and try to rebrand it, which I think a lot of people have done. But at the same time, it’s just with display ads or targeted field marketing events you’re still sitting there without a completely integrated process.

Colby Wren: In my mind, the SDRs always come in right after that digital air cover runs its course. That top-level awareness is started and you’re starting to get those levels of engagement and awareness. Because if you don’t have any of those things, guess what you’re doing, you’re simply cold prospecting. and that’s great. Inside sales should be good at cold prospecting. But it’s our job to help open those doors and warm up to people that they should be targeting within each of those buying centers and influence areas.

ABM strategies have been a core solution for B2B marketers and proved to be an effective strategy time and time again. Enterprises that want lasting results, client retention, and advocacy with recurring ROI should opt for ABM strategies. Ensure that your marketing and sales teams are aligned while working with ABM to see the best results. If you liked the interaction and expert insights by Colby Wren, check out the complete podcast on our YouTube channel.