The Account Based Marketing Journey

Today at T-REX conference in downtown Durham the show featured keynote speaker, Sangram Vajre, Founder & CMO, Terminus. He presented on The Account Based Marketing Journey. It’s no longer rare for B2B companies to be actively engaged in an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy, but there are still different shades of ABM success. There are several common stages marketers might find themselves along the continuum from the status quo to ABM 2.0. In his session, Sangram Vajre walked through the three distinct phases of status quo marketing, ABM 1.0 and ABM 2.0. Here is a recap of top wisdom points shared:

• Think of yourself always in process of "Good To Great". You must always be evolving from status quo, to v1.0, and shooting for v2.0 of your best self. Make choices on your best you. Immutable Law. If you focus on what matters to you, it gets better.
• Remember the TEAM FRAMEWORK. Target, Engage, Activate, and Measure. Target the right account list. Engage with best account-based advertising and channel program management. Activate your engagement of your target account list with the best. And remember, what gets measured gets done.
• Remember the big word "Choice". How you choose to treat yourself, your customer, your friends. Be mindful of the power of your choice to do the right thing.
• ABM is B2B. Account Based Marketing is Business to Business sales. You need both sales and marketing working together and understand you represent both in your account based marketing!
• Target correctly. Bad decision made with good intentions are still bad decisions. Targeting the wrong people and companies is bad. Be mindful of wasting time on bad leads.
• Customer to marketer, I kind of have attention of a goldfish like 9 seconds. Your content can not be poor. Engage me with the right content that matters to me. Educate and entertain. Don't just advertise to me!
• Don't just get traffic to your door, get the right traffic of quality people coming to your business. Better to have less visitors of the right people wanting your product or service versus high traffic of tire kickers. Remember quality vs quantity.
• Activate: Great vision without great people is irrelevant.Have the right activity done by the right people skilled in that discipline. Don't be reactive by sending mail to random people. Be proactive to reach people you really care about and have care for what you offer. Increase your win rate by laser focus on getting in front of the select right people and companies that really need your offering.
• Measure.What gets measured gets done so good to measure. But don't just measure everything. Measure what matters like time on site, velocity of response, and penetration.
• Good is the enemy of great.What matters to you? What matters to you is what you should focus on. Keep your eye on the prize. Don't get distracted by shiny objects!

Thank you Sangram Vajre for educating and entertaining powerful speech! A special thanks to Vince Beese and Eric Boggs from T-REX for the great event and sponsors like Pendo and Barfield Revenue Consulting for supporting!