Account selection is the most critical component to ABM success. That’s why 66% of marketers surveyed by Demand Gen Report indicated that they are using or plan to use technology intelligence to select the right accounts for their ABM programs. But in order to select the right accounts, it’s crucial that you first have an accurate and updated Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Tech Intelligence Helps You Target the Right Accounts from The Start
1. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Development
Technology intelligence enables you to more accurately define your ICP and identify exactly which accounts and markets in your whitespace are the best-fit for your solution.
For example, without tech intelligence your ICP will lack detail and look something like:
“Multinational companies in the financial services industry with 1000+ employees and over $100MM in annual revenue”
While an ICP utilizing tech intelligence will look something more like:
“Multinational companies in the financial services industry with 1000+ employees and over $100MM in annual revenue that are using SAP, but not S/4HANA, have a multi-cloud strategy, and are spending at least $5M per year on Cloud ERP”
2. Account Scoring
With an ICP serving as your foundation, you can then use technology intelligence to build account scoring and prioritization models much more accurately and with more detail.
For example, a basic scoring model may look something like:
- Manufacturing companies: +20
- North America: +5
- Over 500+ employees: +10
- $500M+ in annual revenue: +15
While a scoring model leveraging technology intelligence will look something like:
- Manufacturing companies: +4
- North America: +4
- Over 500+ employees: +7
- $500M+ in annual revenue: +10
- Multi-Cloud Strategy: +10
- Use SAP HANA: +10
- Tend to purchase bleeding edge technologies: +10
- Spend $10M+ on Cloud ERP: +10
3. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Now that you know exactly which accounts have the highest propensity to buy your solution, you can better address them with hyper-targeted sales and marketing activities. Technology intelligence can tell you who you should be targeting and provide valuable clues to what messaging will resonate most. By customizing your outreach based on the technologies and initiatives that are currently in place, you are much more likely to grab, and hold, their attention. Here are the top three ways our customers use technology intelligence to drive their ABM results:
- Competitive or Complementary Campaigns: target accounts that are using a weaker competitor, or even a product that end-of-life. Reach out with messaging specific to their likely pain points and describe how your solution can help. Alternatively, identify accounts that are using solutions that integrate or are complementary to yours and focus your messaging on how you can help them get more out of their current technology investments.
- Prioritize Revenue Potential: Utilize over 130 granular IT Spend categories to ensure your ABM efforts are focused on the accounts with the greatest revenue potential for your business. Quickly identify customers with the greatest whitespace to focus up or cross sell campaigns.
- Strategic Intent Campaigns: identify the strategic initiatives of a company based on the types of technologies they use. Find companies that have a multi-cloud strategy, or those that have a fragmented security posture.
How Alfresco Used Tech Intelligence to Drive ABM Results
Alfresco had a rudimentary way of selecting accounts for its sales and marketing teams. In summary, they selected accounts using general firmographic criteria and revenue data. This meant marketing targeted their outbound toward accounts with large revenue sizes, while sales used time-intensive phone or desk research to qualify them. Alfresco needed a way to prioritize accounts more efficiently to align the efforts of sales and marketing, and achieve results for their demand gen and ABM programs.
- Read Alfresco Case Study to see how they increased engagement rates by 75%
Technology Intelligence from HG Insights
By utilizing HG Insights’ technology intelligence such as IT Install and IT spend we are able to help companies define their ICP much more accurately and with more granularity. With that in hand, they can identify and prioritize their best opportunities and targets for their ABM programs and craft highly relevant messaging based on the technologies those companies are using.
To learn how technology intelligence from HG Insights can help your business grow, book a demo now:
