Marketers today are faced with two imperatives for growth: maximize share of wallet from existing clients and identify opportunities with new clients. Achieving both requires at least five steps:

• Having a clear view of the clients you want
• Building intelligence about their business issues and the priorities of their key decision makers
• Understanding which elements of your portfolio you can sell
• Creating targeted campaigns and value propositions
• Working with sales teams, delivery staff and often partners to build strong relationships and move each client towards purchase and repurchase

Many of these activities have traditionally fallen within the scope of ‘account planning’ and, as such, owned by sales teams or consultants. Recently, however, marketing organizations have begun to focus more resources on onto these activities and the boundaries between sales and marketing are beginning to blur.

This ITSMA Europe briefing explores what is driving the adoption of account-based marketing by leading companies. The briefing outlines which marketing techniques are most effective, the methods used to integrate marketing activities with those of sales, delivery staff, and partners, and how account-based marketing is evaluated.

It sets out four main contexts in which account based marketing can prove valuable, and defines the marketing skills, systems, and activities that are appropriate in each one. The briefing also highlights successful account-based marketing initiatives from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Atos Origin and concludes with ten recommendations made to support improvements in account-based marketing.