Sangram Vajre

Account-based marketing flips the marketing funnel on its head. You start with your best-fit prospects and turn them into resources for both long-term business and new prospects.Building your account-based marketing technology stack Account-based marketing is possible thanks to innovations in marketing technology (MarTech).

Account-based marketing (ABM) is the culmination of many facets of business-to-business (B2B) marketing, sales, and technology. Across the industry, marketers and salespeople look to social media for guidance on initiating ABM and implementing it successfully at their own companies. The best and brightest B2B thought leaders are active on Twitter, LinkedIn, and their own websites.

The blogosphere for account-based marketing is growing exponentially. The business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales blogs that have been around for years recognize the power of the keyword account-based marketing, and feature even more posts dedicated to the idea and best practices of ABM. These blogs typically are easy to digest and offer email subscriptions for free.

Despite all the industry buzz about account-based marketing, you'll most likely face roadblocks for implementing ABM strategies and goals. Change is hard, even when it means doing what's best to drive new revenue and find new ways to surprise and delight your internal and external customers.Here are the ten biggest hurdles for your team running as fast as it can with account-based marketing.

The essential definition of account-based marketing is focused business-to-business (B2B) marketing. The term account-based marketing isn't new. Identifying and targeting key accounts has always been a best practice for B2B marketing and sales teams. What's different today about account-based marketing is that improved technology gives marketing teams the tools for account-based marketing at scale.

The forecasting model that is used by B2B marketing and sales professionals to monitor potential new revenue is the sales pipeline. The pipeline is commonly referred to as the funnel.The traditional B2B marketing and sales funnel tracks the various stages of a revenue opportunity as it moves through the sales process.

In 2006, renowned author Seth Godin wrote about flipping the marketing funnel to give your fans a "megaphone." Through the rise of the Internet, your customers can voice their opinions more loudly than ever before, and they will get louder. Your marketing and sales team also can flip the funnel with account-based marketing.

Proving how account-based marketing is transformational to your organization can be done using data. Good data enhances your credibility for making the case for account-based marketing; numbers support your words. Bad data can be detrimental to your marketing efforts. The right data to support your company's revenue goals is essential for account-based marketing.

When you compare how much it costs for a lead to become closed revenue for your organization, you can make a compelling case for why your company should switch from traditional lead generation to account-based marketing: Only 0.75 percent of leads generated become closed revenue (Forrester). Generating high-quality leads is the number-one challenge for B2B marketers (IDG Enterprises).