Is your revenue team ready for what's next?
Marketing is a tough gig. Not only do you have to educate the market and generate leads, but you also need to investigate what worked in the past to reproduce it in the future. In this sense, a Marketer is part educator, part strategist, and part fortuneteller. How’s that for a job function?
The goal is revenue predictability. Of course, this is easier discussed than accomplished. Fortunately, there are innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) helping businesses do more to ensure revenue predictability—even without a crystal ball. Two such examples are Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Conversation Automation. While neither of these technologies is new per se, the marriage between the two provides a novel approach to Marketing and Sales.
Conversational ABM opens up new possibilities helping Marketers discover potential opportunities and follow up with those opportunities in a personalized and scalable manner.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a marketing strategy that targets accounts rather than individuals. Why is this important? Today’s B2B buying cycles are complicated. Rather than one person consuming your content, learning about your offerings, talking to Sales, and pulling out a credit card—buying decisions are made by multiple people within a target account or business.
For example, a Demand Generation leader might love your products at a high level. But she has a whole team of people who will interact with the solution daily—so, their opinions matter in the buying cycle too. And based on the structure of the company, the Demand Gen team might need buy-in from the CMO before making a purchase decision. In situations like this, convincing the Demand Gen leader alone that your offering is worth her investment might not be enough to seal the deal.
ABM is also helpful for detecting multiple signals coming from a single organization. While a single contact might never qualify, several contacts from within the same team might indicate the account is ready to buy—or at least ready to talk to Sales.
The best way to suss out opportunities from within these accounts is to engage each in a conversation to see if the account is really sales-ready. But therein lies a challenge—how can revenue teams keep up with so many accounts? When volume outpaces your team’s ability to work each account to the fullest, opportunities are lost. To help Marketers communicate at scale, many are exploring Conversation Automation.
Conversation Automation helps automate human-like, two-way interactions with prospects and customers.
Conversational Marketing is a specific AI use case designed to detect, engage, and qualify contacts. This is a boon for Marketers and Salespeople because it means that Revenue Digital Assistants™ for Marketing and Sales can autonomously touch every contact and determine the next best step based on the AI’s interactions with each contact. This includes engaging contacts in two-way conversations, letting the contact self-identify as interested in learning more, and accelerating sales-ready accounts to the notice of a Salesperson.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is an essential tool helping businesses engage customers. But ABM execution is lagging due to capacity limitations and an inability to scale personalized outreach. Explore the State of ABM Report for common challenges and solutions facing the use of ABM.
While ABM provides the data and insights to drive personalization, left solely to human-powered customer engagement, ABM is ineffective in consistently delivering personalization at scale. Conversely, Conversation Automation is great at delivering consistency and personalization at scale but relies on data-driven insights to deliver personalization.
Imagine the possibility if you could take all the rich insights from an ABM platform and marry it with the capabilities of Conversation Automation to deliver personalization at scale. That’s how Conversational ABM is born.
While each of these technologies is extremely powerful in its own right, when used in tandem, they offer the unparalleled ability to target the right customers with the right messaging at the right time, at scale. Conversational ABM has the potential to revolutionize how Marketing and Sales teams identify and prioritize target accounts, tailor persona-based messaging, drive engagement, and accelerate opportunities.
This approach is ideal for meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow, including changes in B2B buyers’ behavior—such as increased demand for self-service, the need for hyper-personalized customer experiences, and meeting customers on their time across multiple channels.
Conversational ABM offers a sustainable way to follow up with digitally sourced accounts to uncover revenue opportunities. It also helps companies strive for revenue predictability in an uncertain economy by making the most of every opportunity. Early adopters of Conversational ABM gain a competitive advantage by delivering iconic customer experiences, increasing engagement rates, and accelerating deal cycles.
Conversica, the leading provider of Conversation Automation for revenue teams, has already launched a Conversational ABM skill for our Revenue Digital Assistants to help our customers make the most of their Account-Based Marketing.
Want a deep dive into Account-Based Marketing, its benefits, and its limitations? Explore the 2021 State of ABM Report from Renegade, The New Sales and Marketing Divide: It’s Not What You Think.
* By submitting this form, I agree to receive information and updates, including marketing communications, by email about Conversica’s products and services. By submitting this form, I am agreeing to Conversica's privacy policy.
Let us show you how our Powerfully Human®️ digital assistants can help your team unlock revenue. Get the conversation started today.