Competitive intelligence can propel your account-based marketing (ABM) strategy from focused to unstoppable — optimizing performance and driving higher ROI.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a targeted approach to sales and marketing that focuses on only the highest-value accounts. ABM is especially useful when those high-dollar contracts come with a long sales cycle.
ABM can help you attract, retain, and even upsell customers, as well as to shorten the sales cycle. Rather than a typical one-to-many marketing approach, ABM employs a one-to-one method, which can be highly effective. In fact, 76% of B2B marketers who used ABM in 2020 reported an increased ROI compared to other forms of marketing.
The clear, shared focus ABM brings to both the sales and marketing teams results in higher-quality leads and an increase in cooperation across functions.
Here's a perfect example. Directive targeted Semrush employees with a message that feels very relevant and personal.
ABM provides marketers with a strategic framework to nurture the highest potential accounts and funnel high-quality leads to their sales teams. - Tony Smith, Seismic
To tailor each (often costly) interaction for maximum relevance, you'll need an in-depth understanding of customer needs and preferences. And remember, you're not the only one targeting these high-value customers. So, it's critical that you stay ahead of the competition and become the more attractive option. You'll do this largely by leveraging competitive intelligence.
Competitive intelligence gives you the insight needed to differentiate your solutions and gain an advantage. You'll use it to:
First, an unconventional use for competitive intelligence:
In this step, you aren't analyzing your competitors' behavior at all. Rather, you're learning everything possible about the customers you want to attract. But you'll be using many of the same techniques and tools that you'll use when you analyze your competitors.
Here are some of the things you should learn:
Once you have all of this information, make sure it is available to every sales and marketing professional on your team. We recommend formatting these as Battlecards. You'll also want to update this information regularly. The best way to do this is by using competitive intelligence automation. Learn more.
If you don't have marketing and sales aligned and using the same set of data, then you're not really doing ABM. — Liam Doyle, SVP of Product Management, Salesforce (source)
Insight into competitors' marketing strategies is key to differentiating your own marketing and winning those customers. You may also discover some areas you've overlooked, or find a weakness or two you can exploit by doubling down on where they're slacking. Here are some ways to find out which marketing strategies your competitors use today:
Competitor strategy analysis is a worthwhile endeavor, to be sure, but to keep on top of constant changes, you need competitive intelligence automation.
Competitive insights help sales teams develop and refine their strategies, identify customer needs and wants, evaluate competitor strengths and weaknesses, target customers who may be dissatisfied with the competition, and track competitor activity to position yourself as the smartest, best choice.
Here are some key ways to use competitive insights to increase your relevance in the eyes of your target customer:
Learn More About (and then cater to) Customer Preferences: Analyze customer feedback and study social media conversations about competing products or services. This feedback helps sales teams learn exactly what your shared audience cares about. Use these insights to tailor and position offerings more accurately while also creating a communication strategy that resonates with prospects.
Target Disgruntled Customers: Focus on individuals who aren't pleased with the product or service your competitors provide. Watch social media and review sites, or online forums for complaints and conversations. Social listening tools and competitive intelligence solutions like Kompyte, can alert you to mentions of your competitors across the web.
When you implement these two simple steps, your ABM program will be off to a flying start with the help of competitive intelligence.
Organizations using account-based intelligence can gain an important strategic advantage in their marketing campaigns by adding competitive intelligence. Here's how some Kompyte customers do it.
Once you've signed a new customer, keeping the high-touch relationship alive is key to retention and upselling services.
Company news provides a great icebreaker for a friendly "congratulations" email, while a notice of layoffs might mean this isn't a good time to convince them to upgrade their service.
You can also get specific about what kind of news you want to see.
One of our customers, for example, highly values sustainability, so they watch to see if their customers are mentioned in connection with that topic, allowing them to reach out on a topic they have in common. Maintaining that connection can make a world of difference when it comes to retaining customers.
One Kompyte customer segments prospective customers by industry, tracking nearly 200 of them at a time. Watching press releases and key insights for one segment at a time allows them to spot trends that can help them to sell.
For example, are several prospects in the healthcare industry making large acquisitions? This might be a good time to reach out to this segment.
Here, we've set up a process in Kompyte so that, whenever there is a new press release for one of our prospects, Kim receives an email notification.
Is there a company you'd like to partner with but you just haven't found a good "in" yet? Watch for company news that calls for a "congratulations" email or LinkedIn message. Or, keep an eye on upcoming events they'll be attending and arrange to meet them there.
Automated Battlecards create the perfect template for quick research on potential acquisition targets. Pulling in company size, revenue, funding information, and other key indicators, can help you prioritize your targets.
All of these use cases call for tracking a combination of key insights, press releases, news, events, hiring, and website changes. Updates are typically accessed in Battlecards or in an email digest - whatever fits your preferred workflow. All of which, by the way, is very easy to do with Kompyte!
Competitive intelligence, when added to your account-based marketing program, will help you:
When you need to overshadow your competition with a more focused, differentiated, and successful ABM strategy, competitive intelligence is your secret weapon.
Keeping all this crucial information up-to-date and accessible to your sales and marketing teams is a must. It's at this point that a competitive intelligence automation tool comes in handy, providing real-time updates and well-organized insights.
So, why not take your ABM strategy to the next level? Get a demo of our competitive intelligence automation tool today, and see how it can transform your approach to account-based marketing.