How to Tap ABM Success via Customer Journey Mapping

It’s marketing conference season and there are several recurring themes: ABM, the need for good data and the customer journey and ABM needs good data and the customer journey needs good data. The theme I have not seen much of is ABM and the customer journey.

ABM is Here to Stay

I love ABM. For years, I’ve seen marketers struggle to align with sales and with revenue It’s been challenging for marketers to walk in the shoes of the sales organization – that world was just so different. With ABM, marketers acquired a tool and a process to engage with sales that sales actually found valuable and that created revenue. Today’s ABM stats are compelling both in terms of adoption and results. Here are a few of my favorites:

ABM Adoption:

• 86% of marketing and sales professionals from B2B companies have begun using targeted account strategies. (LeanData)
• More than 60% of B2B marketers surveyed said they plan to implement an ABM program within the next year. (Terminus)
• 52% of marketers stated that they currently have ABM pilot programs in place. (DemandBaseOpens a new window )

ABM Results:

• 97 percent of marketers said ABM had higher ROI than other marketing activities, according to a surveyOpens a new window  by Alterra Group.
• Nearly 85% of marketers that measure ROI say that ABM initiatives outperform other marketing investments — and 50% of those say the difference is significant. (ITSMA) Opens a new window
• 84% of marketers said that ABM had significant benefits to retaining and expanding existing client relationships. (Alterra Group)
• The longer ABM is in use, the more its full-funnel impact is experienced– 43 percent of those using ABM for three or more years report that it impacts the entire funnel. (DemandBase for eWeek)

ABM is Data Intensive

Now that we have established the broad adoption and killer results for ABM, let’s take a look at why data is so important to the success of ABM. In a 2018 report from Demand Gen Report, 83% of marketers reported having old or outdated data; 71% reported not having the time or resources to implement good data processes, and two out of three claimed not to have enough data on current customers. ABM is a surgically precise initiative and good data is essential, more specifically, good customer data. But having good customer dataOpens a new window can only be achieved by having an understanding of the customer journey.

Stunning Lack of The Customer Journey Application

We all know we live in a customer-driven economy. More companies are beginning to pivot from a product-focused go-to-market to a customer-driven go-to-market In this pivot, there is a stunning lack of ownership on the end-to-end customer journey. One of my favorite questions to ask marketers is “Who owns the customer journey in your company?” If you take a moment to honestly reflect on this question, you’ll be flummoxed. When I ask this question, here are the answers I get:

• “I don’t know.”
• “Not sure that is my responsibility.”
• “I know we have a team somewhere who is doing that.”
• “We only see a piece of it.”

These non-answers indicate a lack of holistic understanding, guidance and use of a customer journey. I recently attended the CRM Evolution conference in DC and several presenters noted that over 70% of companies still do not have a customer journey map that is used across functions to help orchestrate a seamless experience for the client. My point: Since ABM is a surgical operation focused on the customer, how successful can it really be if you don’t know the customer journey? I believe that just like data is key to ABM successOpens a new window , so is a customer journey map.

The ABM Customer Journey

So, what does an ABM focused customer journey map look like? Is it a part of the map already created or is it separate? Is it one journey or is it a combination of personas and their journeys? I see three characteristics of an ABM inspired customer journey map that will help answer these questions:

1. Enterprise buyer
2. Team buyer
3. Highly personalized

ABM as a tactic focuses on a specific set of larger or high value accounts for a company. This can be a big leap for marketing for three reasons. First, if your lead programs have been focused on smaller accounts pivoting to enterprise requires a unique journey map. Second, if ABM encompasses expansion of current enterprise accounts and you’ve been focusing on the acquisition of new leads, this requires a different part of the journey map. Three, if you don’t have a customer journey map and if you don’t have a customer journey mapping competency to help you with ABM, you’re in trouble. Here are five steps to building an ABM customer journey map:

1. Build the ABM set of personas
2. Build an initial map using an internal cross-functional team
3. Validate and amend maps based on data and customer interviews
4. Socialize final maps
5. Operationalize maps with technology

Step 1:  Building the set of personas is common practice in establishing an ABM practice. An enterprise customer typically has a more complex buying cycle involving multiple stakeholders (average of seven) so understanding each persona and how this buying team works together are ABM basics. The additional complexity to personas that affect your map is if the persona is a prospect or a customer. While the high-level journey steps may be similar – Awareness, Education, Engagement, etc. – what happens in those steps can be very different.

Step 2: The next step in building your ABM customer journey map is to develop a draft map working with an internal cross-functional team. Sales, customer success, customer support and any other customer-facing group all need to be represented.  Once you have a draft set of maps, use whatever data you have in-house or purchased to improve the maps.

Step 3: The final next step in building an ABM customer journey map is to interview customers and buying teams. This last step is not done about 97% of the time, yet, it is a requirement since ABM is a surgical initiative. I highly recommend you treat this as a rigorous data collection process and use surveys and interviews

Step 4: Internal socialization of the final set of maps involves going back to all the persona stakeholders to get their final buy-in.

Step 5: Use your technology to enable your ABM customer journey map.

Conclusion

Today’s marketer is inundated with more tools, processes, initiatives, and possibilities than ever before. Simplifying and becoming maniacally focused is quickly becoming a requisite skill. What I like about ABM customer journey mapping is that because sales want ABM to happen, they are often willing participants in this process. Because executives want more focus on key accounts, marketing often gains more access to all customer touchpoints in an ABM project. Bringing this all together under ABM allows marketing to develop a customer journey mapping capability and demonstrate this first across the company. This leads to ownership of the entire customer lifecycle process, not just an ABM project.