account based marketing – Implisense Blog

The ongoing Covid 19 pandemic presents companies with lasting challenges. Namely in three successive phases:
Phase 1: Stabilizing the business after the beginning of the crisis
Phase 2: Accepting changed conditions during the crisis and taking advantage of the resulting opportunities
Phase 3: Being prepared at the end of the crisis to emerge as a winner

While phase 1 and partly also phase 2 are mainly characterized by reacting to the dynamically changing conditions during the worldwide corona wave, you have to create the turn towards action at the latest by the transition to the third phase. Because this is exactly what all those companies that have emerged as winners from previous crises have succeeded in doing. The numerous insights you gain during the second phase will help you do this – right now! Provided that you reflect on them properly.

Gather knowledge about your customers

Not only your business environment is undergoing profound changes during the Covid 19 pandemic, but also that of your customers. In order to be able to provide targeted sales under the changed conditions even during the crisis, it is therefore essential to keep a dynamic eye on their current situation and their changing needs. And this has to be done on a very small scale, because the effects of the pandemic can vary greatly from segment to segment and even from customer to customer. In many cases, you and your sales team will therefore be dealing with your individual customers more intensively than you would in your normal day-to-day business.

Use this opportunity to improve the quality and depth of the data in your CRM. A solid database not only helps you to dynamically assess the situation of your customers during the crisis, but also provides important insights for the time after the crisis. With the help of smart data management and targeted, value-added sales approaches today, you can go ahead with a strengthened customer relationship and a much more detailed
Knowledge about your customers from the pandemic.

Gather knowledge about modern sales strategies

The longer the pandemic lasts, the more likely some of the new habits of cooperation will continue afterwards. So the fact that you are currently forced to find new sales approaches and try out new ways of communicating with your customers is a great opportunity. Use the current time as an experimental laboratory to collect internal best practice examples and to test new, more modern sales approaches and tools in practice.

This applies in particular to digital solutions. While classic B2B marketing and sales tools such as events, trade fairs, congresses and the like are hardly possible in the foreseeable future, many of your customers currently spend considerably more time online. Test digital sales channels and retain those that have proven to pay off for you. In many cases this will require a blurring of the boundaries between sales, marketing and customer service and a transition to more account based sales approaches. Also, be prepared to make structural changes of this kind if they promise success for your business.

Realigning sales and using momentum

Rarely have you been forced to innovate in sales as much as you are now. The decisive step is the switch from merely reacting to the changing framework conditions to a mindset of acting and actively planning the post-corona period. Don’t let the supposedly low level of planning security during the current phase slow you down, but prepare yourself for both the best case scenarios and the worst case. And thus regain control over your company’s roadmap.

Important in this way is above all a clever data management during the current phase 2.
The deeper insights gained into the market environment, structures and needs of your customers will allow you to take more targeted, individual and efficient sales approaches in the future. Knowing which newly tested tools, approaches and channels have proven to be particularly successful internally and externally will enable you to align your sales team in a more modern and successful way. And strengthened customer relationships through intensive contact during the crisis make it easier for you to anticipate how your customers’ needs will develop, where cross- and upselling potential will arise at the end of the crisis and which accounts are likely to emerge as winners from the Covid 19 pandemic.

So lay the foundation for the shift from reacting to acting right now! By building up a solid database of your customers and observing exactly what works on the operational level – and why. With the help of these insights, you can forge a promising master plan for your B2B sales after Corona.

After free registration on Implisense.com, create a favorites list and monitor changes in your customers in real-time.

A few weeks ago we already pointed out the advantages of an efficient account based marketing in our blog and outlined how you can reach your account based marketing strategy in 5 steps. (You can read the article here.) In this article, we would like to take a closer look at one of these steps: Account based prospecting – the targeted identification of the right prospective customers for your marketing and sales activities. After all, their efficiency depends on this.

Reasons for account based prospecting

If you want to develop your business quickly and sustainably, it is not only important to find new customers, but to find the right ones. After all, the cost of a new customer and what he or she brings you can vary greatly from case to case. By focusing your activities on those prospective customers who promise an ideal cost-benefit ratio, you not only maximize your efficiency in sales and marketing, but also the return on investment for your company. This is ensured by successful account based prospecting. So what do customers look like who promise a quick deal, generate large revenues, offer interesting cross-selling and up-selling opportunities and will remain loyal to you for years to come? This is exactly what you should concentrate on.

What is the challenge?

This fact alone is probably not yet an incredibly new insight for you. Most sales and marketing professionals are now well aware of the importance of the targeted selection of potential interested parties. And yet in many places there is still a lack of consistent implementation of account based prospecting. When asked about the reasons for this, the quality of the available data is always mentioned. After all, a prediction about the quality of an interested party can only succeed if it is based on a sufficiently broad, deep and not least up-to-date database. Common data sources, however, often only allow a classification that contains inaccuracies that are too large. As a result, all too often the focus is still on too weak leads – an expensive waste of resources.

Another problem with the successful implementation of account based prospecting may be less obvious: Many companies use the same data sources – and due to the low depth of information can only segment according to similar criteria. In many cases, the same companies are at the top of the wish lists of several service providers. An expensive competition for all involved.

The more data, the more accurate the account based prospecting.

Implisense can help you to avoid this bottleneck in a meaningful way. With the help of our own company database, 100 percent of all companies listed in the German commercial register can be analyzed for prospecting. This allows segmentation in order to identify prospects for your company and your offer. The more accurate, the more your results will differ from those of your competitors and the greater your chances are that the prospective buyer will finally decide for you.

However, Implisense can also start one step earlier and help you to identify the criteria for your segmentation in the first place. With the help of a list of top customers, Implisense can automatically search for Lookalikes (similar companies). What characteristics do your most rewarding customers have in common? This results in a list of other companies that also have these characteristics. Thanks to the daily update and data depth, you also have insight into numerous signals from your potential customers that suggest a current interest in your solution. The perfect approach for true account based prospecting.

Thus, in many cases there is no lack of understanding of the necessity of a well thought-out account based prospecting, but rather of a sufficient database for its consistent application.

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Tag: account based marketing

Acting instead of reacting: How to prepare your B2B sales team for the time after Corona