Marketers have segmented their most important accounts and begun creating highly targeted marketing programs that demonstrate a full understanding of those select customers’ business and technology issues. We call this approach Account Based Marketing (ABM), (also known as Key Account Marketing or One-to-One Marketing).

ABM requires a strong partnership between sales and marketing, a commitment to building new levels of relationships with customers, and strong support from sales and marketing leadership. That kind of change takes time.

Yet if companies know what steps to take going in, success can happen faster. In this ITSMA Update, we identify four steps for ABM adoption, based on ITSMA research and consulting and the experience of ITSMA’s ABM Council, a best practice sharing group from some of B2B’s top ABM practitioner companies.

• Defining the Process
• Building the Infrastructure
• Transforming Marketing Lead Management
• Optimizing Lead Management Processes

We will go into details for each of these phases and highlight examples at each stage. Results from ITSMA’s latest survey, B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks, which includes insights on the fundamental lead management practices underpinning the most successful providers, will also be shared. You will come away from this briefing with the ideas, benchmarks and best practices you need to improve your lead management operations and activities.

These customer engagement programs must be part of a portfolio focused on relevant business content and designed to progressively develop and nurture long-term relationships with existing customers. Additionally, building a successful customer engagement program requires an integrated approach with marketing, sales, account managers, delivery, support, offer development, and senior executives at the company. It is no easy task.

In this Update, ITSMA outlines in detail the eight critical elements of successful customer engagement, based on ITSMA survey research as well as interviews with ITSMA members and their clients.

Key Takeaways

• Customer engagement programs have a much better chance of succeeding when they have continued support from executives, sales leaders, and account managers.
• Account selection, programs, activities, and metrics should be driven by the objectives agreed upon by marketing and sales leaders.
• Customer engagement programs cannot be one-sided—they need to provide mutually beneficial business value to the company and the customer.
• By having a formal feedback loop process with account managers and customers, marketing demonstrates that they are listening, taking action, and valuing the feedback.

Lead Generation Benchmark Report: How the Best Firms Fill the Pipeline, based on research conducted by ITSMA in partnership with RainToday.com, examines the lead generation practices of professional services companies and identifies the best practices that drive superior business performance.

Key Findings

Based on the survey data, ITSMA and RainToday.com identified a number of characteristics of high performing companies. These are specifically around:

• Segmentation
• Referral generation
• Types of content, offers, and tactics used to generate leads
• Lead generation staffing
• Lead generation measurement

Study Methodology

• Online Web-based survey
• Survey invitations emailed during March and April 2010 to contacts from ITSMA and RainToday.com
• 859 respondents
• ITSMA and RainToday.com analyzed the data by:
  • Annual revenue (less than $1 million, $1 million–99.9 million, $100 million–999.9 million, $1 billion or more)
  • Industry
  • Company performance (Below average performers, average performers,
    high performers)

If your company is on the above list, please send us an email (using your company email) and request your free report. Orders will be processed the next business day.

This report is available for sale at member and nonmember prices.

• See if your company is an ITSMA member
• Email ITSMA for more information
• Download an abbreviated summary
• 

How do marketers get going on this all-important internal campaign? Slowly and by engaging a small group of employees to begin with, says Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence team. In this ITSMA Case Study, we will look at the ways that Intel built internal support for and engagement in social media among its employees.

Key Takeaways

• Finding and supporting employees to participate in social media has become marketers’ responsibility.
• Pair up customers with their natural conversation partners within the company.
• Companies must develop guidelines and frameworks for participation and offer education and support.
• Social media marketing must be integrated with the larger marketing strategy.

That’s why Kronos started a blog, Workforce Institute, that focuses on business issues in Kronos’ core market, workforce management, rather than on Kronos’ offerings.

In this ITSMA Case Study, we look at how Kronos has used blogging to expand its reach and influence among customers and influencers in the world of workforce management.

Key Takeaways

• Blogs, especially ones that focus on a specific target audience, are excellent platforms for discussing and debating industry issues.
• Independent advisory boards lend credibility to blogs and help generate ideas.
• Blogs need a content engine to sustain them over the long haul.

2010 is a year of marketing transformation and one area that remains at the top of the priority list is sales enablement. Marketers have made progress in trying to reduce the cost and effort to move opportunities through the buying process, but the fact remains that most sales teams and business development resources still spend more time on marketing related activities than they should.

According to ITSMA’s 2009 Sales Enablement survey, sales people and business developers averaged 23% of their time on indirect selling activities that were almost all marketing related. A number that high should be unacceptable to senior management. Part of the problem is that companies have cut marketing funding and resources that are needed to enable sales. The other part involves marketing’s need to focus the resources it does have on the areas that will have the greatest impact.

So what are the primary impact points to improve sales enablement? ITSMA has identified five areas critical for high performance in sales enablement that are discussed in this briefing. They include:

• Marketing and Sales Integration
• Sales Process Clarity
• Lead Generation Maturity
• Sales Tool Alignment
• Collaborative Account/Territory Planning

In this Online Briefing, Dave Munn, President & CEO of ITSMA, discusses how to find out what separates high performers from average performers in sales enablement. You will also hear from Ed Daly, Senior Director, Field Enablement & Marketing at Cisco Systems, and Charles Brower, Marketing Director, Information, Communications & Entertainment, KPMG, who will provide insight on where they have had the greatest impact on sales and how they approach sales enablement. In a year where marketers are focused on transformation, take time out of your busy day to review this briefing.

As we are repeatedly told through our research, an effective Client Reference is one of the most influencing factors in a sales cycle. From our How Customers Choose research we are told that when looking for new or alternative solutions one of the primary steps a buyer takes is to speak to colleagues for referrals; and from our recent Sales Enablement Survey our members told us that the most effective sales enablement programmes were References & Reference Management. Added to that, our clients today are more educated in the sales process and need to understand the true business value and benefits of the service or solution offered. However, in most organisations:

• There are insufficient case studies available for client facing teams
• The value of case studies are rarely realised
• Few case studies are written well
• Few case studies articulate true value

In this briefing, Paul Smitherman explores how to enhance the sales and marketing lifecycle of value-based case studies and create strong propositions and programmes using client referral to drive sales by:

• Demonstrating the value of your clients experience
• Evangelising client success
• Strengthening the value proposition
• Delivering effective client referral programmes

Patrick O’Halloran from Orange Business Services, describes his own approach to Reference Management.

Key Findings

• Having a formal, comprehensive customer engagement strategy is very important
• Customer engagement objectives are to strengthen relationships, grow revenue, and provide insight
  • But amplifying positive word-of-mouth and increasing advocacy are also important, based on buyer behavior
  • Potential buyers speak to colleagues through their personal networks and inside
    their own companies, as well as councils and communities to which they belong
• Customer engagement programs that are most important to a company’s
  performance are customer reference programs, and public and private customer events
• Companies continue to decrease their use of hospitality programs
• Online Community and Social Network Programs need to be tied more directly to lead generation and nurturing

Study Methodology

• Online Web-based survey
• Survey invitations were emailed during October 2009 to contacts from the three sponsoring companies: ITSMA, CSg, and Forrester
  • 71 Respondents from 62 Companies
• ITSMA analyzed the data by:
  • Company type (sells products and services
    or primarily services)
  • Annual services revenue (< $200M, $200–999M,$1– 4.9B, >=$5B)

This report is available free to companies that provided detailed data in the study.

If your company is on the above list, please send us an email (using your company email) and request your free report.

This report is available for sale at member and nonmember prices.

• See if your company is an ITSMA member
• Email ITSMA for more information