Case Study: Found&Chosen's ABM Success

By aligning sales + marketing, Company A saw opportunity creation SOAR by 9x!

Terminus Rock Star, Emma Monro

Emma Monro is a textbook example of a marketer who got bit by the Account Based Marketing, or ABM, bug. She worked as a marketing leader for a Software as a Service, or SaaS company, directing the initial rollout of their account-based marketing strategy. Emma eventually left to set up her own ABM agency, called Found&Chosen. Now Found&Chosen and her team serves 25 brands (including her old friends at Company A), helping them find success through strong ABM strategies and execution.

About Terminus

Terminus was founded in 2014 out of a need to empower marketers to drive revenue impact with true account-based marketing. As the ABM category creators, we are passionate about revitalizing the role of marketing as a revenue engine. Terminus is the ABM platform choice of 1,000+ marketing leaders globally who are in the relentless pursuit of outperformance.

Company A + Terminus

When first building an ABM program, establishing the main goals and marks of success can be a challenge in and of itself. But Found&Chosen Team knew that Company A had a primary objective that was not negotiable; they needed to break into enterprise-level deals and get their pipeline supercharged with larger deals. 

They got to work by narrowing the focus onto a more tightly defined and refined ICP. And as the picture of the ICP became clearer, the Found&Chosen Team started to serve this new audience with content that was highly personalized based on the characteristics of the ICP as well as the funnel stage. After years of dreaming of enterprise, the Found&Chosen Team was able to bring these clients into the company’s pipeline.

Great success!
Mission accomplished! Right?

Satisfied that things were headed in the right direction, Company A decided to phase out their Terminus ad efforts, and Emma moved on to start an ABM-focused agency. Instead, the company decided to allocate a third of their marketing budget on Google Ads and events (a very traditional tactic). But ADRs weren’t clear on whom to target and when. What’s worse, their prospects were showing buying intent signals out in the marketplace, but with Terminus effectively switched off, there was no visibility into this data. 

Adding to the challenge was the all-too-common disconnect between marketing and sales. The data Terminus offered was strong, but without processes to communicate and actionize that data, reps were in the dark on how to approach accounts. 

Company A eventually — brought Emma—and her agency, Found&Chosen—back. They found over 800 target accounts were showing intent to buy, but weren’t visiting the company’s website. The initial ABM strategy was strong and effective, but as attention was placed elsewhere, those balls started to drop and opportunities were being missed. 

“There were enterprise accounts the team was trying to get in the pipeline for years. After just a few months of launching ABM, we had seven multi-million dollar accounts in the funnel. When you look at the difference between traditional marketing and account-based marketing, I think the power of ABM speaks for itself.”

Three Steps To A Solution

Step 1: Engaging Enterprise Accounts

With a clear objective of reaching enterprise prospects and getting them in pipeline, Found&Chosen helped Company A clearly define an ICP. And as prospects within the ICP showed up, they determined eight key engagement signals that, once indicated, told the company that they were ready to be pursued for a deal.

Step Two: Funnel-Centric Content®

Terminus intent data showed Found&Chosen which prospects were getting ready to buy. Depending on where in the buying process each enterprise prospect was, they were served appropriate messaging in equally appropriate places, from LinkedIn and display ads to marketing emails with verbiage that demonstrated Company A’s solution.

Step Three: Alignment and Execution

Under Found&Chosen’s guidance, and thanks to early buy-in from sales leadership, Found&Chosen created weekly and monthly calendar cadences to review Terminus data with marketers and salespeople alike.

Weekly Leadership Alignment Meeting:

What they cover:
Data from Measurement Studio - amount of account sales is working on
Accountability - account progression through stages and upcoming deadlines

Who’s involved:
Head of Marketing and Sales

Weekly Sales Meeting:

What they cover:
Terminus Engagement Spike Report - who is showing interest and are they worth a 1:1 high value ABM campaign
Coaching sales on how to personalize based on engagement spikes, based on what pages they have visited and how many people in the account are engaging
Content team commits to deliverables, if sales commits to outbound efforts on an account
“Fortunes in the Follow-up” - Look at accounts committed to last week and make sure everyone followed through
Upcoming demos
Account that have gone dark

Who’s involved:
Marketing and Sales stakeholders
Meet 1:1 with sales reps or have up to 3 in a call

Monthly Marketing SBR:

What they cover:
Trends in data for media, ads, and content
Determine which content is decaying
Decide what content needs to be created
Decide which ads and messaging needs to be refreshed

Who’s involved:
Head of Marketing and Content

Quick Win

The company noticed an Enterprise account who had 19 people visit a total of 28 pages on their website. The account went cold until a sales rep reached out. Without this data and the sales reps ability to personalize their outreach, this account could have been easily lost.

Found&Chosen’s Marketing Hot Take

You can do all the marketing you like but if the sales team isn't prepped, ready, and trained then it means nothing. I worked in sales for 10 years before moving to marketing. The only way to have success with ABM is to get buy-in and alignment with the sales and marketing functions.

Read the original article here.