B2B marketers promoting specialized solutions to a specific, concentrated group of typically larger, enterprise prospects should consider implementing account-based marketing ( ABM)—if they're not already using it.
ABM is a targeted approach: Marketers communicate with prospect accounts as individual markets in their own right—or as "markets of one." This approach can lead to more relatable messaging, engaging earlier in the sales process and squeezing more value from ever-scarce marketing budgets.
At the same time, customer advisory boards (CABs) can (and should) be a cornerstone of any successful ABM initiative. In fact, starting a strong CAB program can (and should) be the first step in implementing a robust ABM process.
Here are five reasons why.
1. A Focus on Ideal Accounts
Whenever you are tasked with acquiring new customers (and who isn't?), the first step should be to examine your own existing customer base:
- Who are your top 25 (or 100) accounts by size (revenue to your company)?
- What industries are they in?
- Where are they located?
- How are they using your products and services and for what purpose? How long have they been customers?
- Have they renewed, perhaps several times?
- How successful have they been with your solutions?
CABs create an ideal environment to gather your best customers to better understand their businesses and their shared challenges, and to learn how to address unmet or future needs.
CAB members are eager to share their experiences, pain points, and desires with their colleagues from other companies and industries so that they may learn from each other and bring best-practices to implement within their own organizations.
Understanding and ranking your own customers can be a first step in recruiting for your CAB.
2. Understanding Buying Processes
Larger accounts often utilize a more complicated buying process for acquiring products and services, involving not only product users but also purchase influencers and financial or executive approvers. Vendors may be required to provide specific, detailed product demos, third-party validation or reviews, ROI analysis, and/or multiple customer references.
Accordingly, marketers may have several audiences they need to reach or appease if they are to capture mindshare, and numerous materials they need to provide in order to help sales make the deal.
Here, too, CABs are an excellent resource to learn the inner workings of enterprise customers and understand how to replicate successful sales and purchasing processes in other desired, named accounts. Your CAB membership may be made up of one of these influential buying groups: ideally, the executives who generate the purchase requirements themselves.
In addition, understanding the influential players within your existing accounts can lead to understanding how to expand your product footprint within their companies—and cross-selling and upselling your solutions and services to them.
3. Learning Market Influences
Marketers understand that there are usually numerous mediums and touchpoints where prospects learn about your company, solutions, and services.
Although that may include prospects' seeing your offerings in articles or other third-party publications, tradeshows, online reviews, message boards, or search results, often the simplest, most direct medium is "word-of-mouth" or personal recommendations.
CABs can help B2B marketers understand how companies receive information, how they heard about your company and what were the biggest influences in their buying journeys. In addition, they can convey the methods and materials that they found the most compelling that you provided along the way—your website content, customer list, testimonial quotes or videos, online webinars, published reports, helpful articles or blog posts, etc.
Again, CABs are ideal mediums for understanding your existing customers so that you're able to go out and acquire new ones just like them.
4. Alignment of Sales and Marketing
Too often, marketers and sales teams work independently—without sharing data, feedback, campaign results, and successes.
Marketers often spend much and work hard to collect qualified leads, only to throw them over to Sales without gathering feedback or learning the results of further outreach efforts. In turn, Sales is often unaware of current marketing campaign activities or lead generation efforts, and so may be surprised when leads do come in and may not be sure how to follow up with them.
CABs create a "forcing function" for Sales and Marketing to understand their customers and buying processes, learn the methods that are best to reach them, and work together to create similar messages and materials to get new clients.
Furthermore, CAB meetings themselves often uncover buying opportunities with CAB accounts directly, creating an impetus for immediate follow-up after the meeting to learn more or see a demo of a new or upcoming solution that they perhaps were previously unaware of.
5. CAB Member Advocacy
Enterprise customers are often risk averse and therefore late adopters; they often desire to purchase established, proven technologies. The old phrase, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM," comes to mind and illustrates the mindset here.
Therefore, third-party validation, detailed reviews, ROI-focused case studies, marquee customer lists, and laudatory client references will be even more influential and crucial to the sales process and part of successful ABM initiatives.
CAB members are ideal candidates to be references to your prospects. After all, they know your company and products, they are typically long-time users who have been successful with them, they know your product development road map, and they have been invested in and helped influence your company's direction.
CAB members can and are often very willing to help promote your company in many ways, including participating in case studies, videos, webinars, speaking engagements, social media, and, most important, sales references.
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Account-based marketing is an approach that should yield great results for B2B marketers who implement and execute it successfully. But the first place to lay the groundwork for a successful ABM program should be a robust, well-managed customer advisory board.
After all, CABs will greatly help with knowing and understanding your enterprise accounts, learning how to reach and influence them, and getting them on your side to help gather and market—and sell—to new ones.
More Resources on Customer Advisory Boards
The Five Biggest Benefits Your Company Can Get From a Customer Advisory Council
Six Tips for Ensuring Your Customer Advisory Board Doesn't Backfire
Taking the Fear Out of Customer Advisory Programs
CEO's Mandates: Setting Up a (Really Good) Customer Advisory Board
