The account-based marketing technology matrices of the last decade are overwhelming – and they just keep growing. You’ve seen them, I’m sure. They’re scattershot graphs of every SaaS product under the sun sorted perhaps by cost, or maybe breadth and depth of a particular feature. Any time a new technology emerges, it gets added to the list and ultimately lost to the user in the decision fatigue of picking the right solution.
With the emergence of ABM in the last few years, more B2B marketers are adopting ABM technology, and the choices have escalated.
What are the top ABM tools to consider when putting together your marketing stack? We’ve got you covered with our recommendations and are happy to chat with you about what may work best for your marketing needs.
Evaluating Which ABM Tools You Need
The account-based marketing technology you need depends on your current gaps. Perhaps you already have Hubspot and are taking advantage of some of their tools to enable your ABM programs. Or you’ve invested in 6sense or DemandBase but don’t have the closed-loop capabilities to tie marketing efforts to closed-won opportunities. Evaluating where your team is at in its ABM journey will help you uncover what’s missing and what the next best step will be for you to evolve your marketing.
Just like ABM is all about scaling, so too should your adoption of technologies. Nail down the basics; get really good at what you have in your toolkit before taking the leap into something bigger. Once you understand how to optimize the ABM technology you have, you’ll be more prepared to effectively adopt new technologies that can scale your marketing.
We see too many clients sign the contract for that newest, greatest technology, only to utilize it for 10% of its abilities. Assign a point person within your team for each tool and allow them to become the subject matter expert. Make sure they communicate and collaborate on how their platforms are speaking to one another, and to sales. That way, you’ll get the most out of your current tools and be able to evaluate which tools you need to add to your tech stack.
The Best ABM Technology for 2021
Our recommendations below feature a variety of account-based marketing technology. Keep in mind that crafting the perfect toolkit isn’t limited to strictly ABM tools. We’ll be covering everything from account identification to chatbots, intent data providers, personalization tools and analytics and reporting technology.
First Up: Account Identification Tools
To put the “A” in ABM, you’ve got to find the right accounts. Assuming you’ve crafted an ideal customer persona (ICP) and understand what verticals or company firmographics define your market, you’re ready to pull the perfect account list. Here are a few tools that can be useful for account identification:
What About Intent Data Providers?
Intent data allows you to sort accounts by behavior, particularly around certain topics of interest for your business to determine whether an account is in-market or not. This is helpful in an ABM program to eliminate or include accounts depending on their current phase of the buying journey.
With a more personalized marketing plan, you will reach users with the right content to match their intent and scale success. Account-based marketing technology for gathering this info includes:
Next Up, Chatbots
Conversational marketing is useful beyond ABM, but by enabling real-time conversations or chatbot journeys for accounts you’ve identified with the ABM tools above, you increase the chances of a successful ABM program. The best ABM technology allows your sales team to pull up real-time account data and historical website activity. HubSpot has a customizable chatbot builder, while Drift is a great solution to add to any website.
More on Personalization
Ensuring that each touchpoint a prospect has with your business is personalized creates a stronger brand reputation and increases the likelihood of closing in on that business. Personalization is essential – and thankfully, these days it is very doable! Most marketing automation platforms have built in personalization technology or add-ons that allow you to flip the switch and craft custom journeys.
Don’t Forget Analytics and Reporting
Of course, you can’t prove the success of your amazing account-based marketing technology without the data! All of these tools likely have in-platform reporting, but finding one place to aggregate these disparate data sources to get a full view is essential.
Something like Datorama allows you to connect via APIs many tools and technologies with ease. There you can bring in your ad spend from your ABM advertising with the back-end analytics data from Google or Adobe Analytics, and tie it to real sales data from your CRM.
Having a simple but well-oiled machine is better than an overloaded and immovable monster. Account-based marketing technology can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Hopefully this information will help you on the path to ABM success. These are just some of the many available ABM tools on the market that we use with our clients.