Account-based selling focuses on quality over quantity. The sales team should personalize their prospecting efforts based on the companies they should be contacting rather than the individuals. They use data to find particular accounts that would benefit from their product and then devise customized, high-value prospecting approaches for those target accounts.
We will go over the following:
- What is Account-Based Selling?
- Account-Based Selling (ABS) vs Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
- 5 Key Metrics to track Account-Based Selling Process
- How to create your targeted account list?
- Outreach tactics for Account-Based Selling
What is Account-Based Selling?
Account-based selling is a strategic sales model of services is carried out to narrow segments of the target audience or specific decision-makers. In this concept, the selling company forms a list of the targeted audiences and then divides it into narrow segments to offline selling. It is also known as account-based sales and hyper-segmented sales.
By deploying account-based selling, you can ensure that your sales teams are focusing on high potential and high-valued accounts to close deals, hit quotes, and grow business.
Account-Based Selling (ABS) vs Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
The account-based marketing strategy is handled by the marketing department and has a number of limitations. Contact information provided by ABM strategy doesn’t guarantee the continuation of business negotiations and provides for lead generation in offline sales. While ABS strategy provides information that has the power to transform leads into sales.
ABM implies teamwork of all departments involved in sales of services by marketing departments and primarily salespeople as well as corporate coaches and top management. It is considered as a bridge between the marketing and sales departments.
ABS adapt their work to specific microsegments of the target audience by focusing on customized interaction with multiple stakeholders. This is not a quantitative approach but a qualitative approach, which considers each microsegment of the target audience.
ABS strategy is more than the initial sales and used to scale up companies to increase sales volumes.
5 Key Metrics to track Account-Based Selling Process
Metric 1: Targets level 🎯
Sales level needed to meet your company’s revenue goals.
Metric 2: Pipeline 🏊🏻♀
Identify the opportunities for a salesperson to make a deal.
Metric 3: Target Accounts 🕵🏼
List the priority companies that your sales team wants to turn into customers.
Metric 4: Customer Acquisition Cost 💲
Cost of acquiring customers divided by the number of customers acquired in a particular time period.
Metric 5: Annual Contract Value 🏋🏻♀
The average annual contract value of your customer contracts in an organization record.
How to create your targeted account list?
The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a profile from a company that would benefit the most from your product or solution. The ICP is identified using firmographics, such as technographic data, company size, revenue, industry, and location.
Identifying your ICP is the first step in implementing an account-based selling strategy. Once you know your ICP list. Your sales team can determine their target account list and begin customized outreach. There are some possible ways to create your target account list.
- Determine Your Targeting Account List Criteria
Firmographic never creates a list in equally qualified. To kick-start, pick three or two most important attributes that you want to add to the targeted account list and narrow it down. You can always add or eliminate criteria to narrow your list as needed. - Audit Your Existing Target Accounts
Once you have listed the targeting criteria, the best way to examine the criteria is in the existing accounts that your sales team has been nurturing. If any company matches your criteria, put them at the top of your new targeting list. - Use Lead Generation Tool
Support your sales team’s account-based prospecting efforts by purchasing a search tool, like LeadMine, that allows them to search and filter the audience and even suggest new prospects. - Keep Updated on Industry News
Keep your sales team and other departments up-to-date on the industry news, which will help them to personalize communications to your targeted companies. Then, find new start-up industries that meet your ICP list, and keep track of your competitor's deal closing to know the opportunities.
Outreach tactics for Account-Based Selling
There is no single way to contact and nurture your accounts in account-based selling. Your campaigns should be targeted and customized to the specific company that you are selling to.
- Tailor Message
Account-based selling includes creating a tailored message for your target account. Gather your existing creative assets and contents and then customize them to your target customer’s specific attributes and needs. - Email Templates
Believe it or not, every industry has to send an email at some point. When you do send an email, start with a template. Having proper email templates increase the efficiency of your sales team. Create an email template that explains the value of your product and then ask your salespeople to add a personalized message. - Cold Calling
Before you dial to the person, make sure you have done your company research and have tailored your pitch to their specific business needs. - Social Selling
Sometimes emails and cold calls won’t work. At that time social media will help you to sell your product or service. You can contact your target accounts without disrupting their day, share relevant content until your prospect is ready to engage on other channels, and make a buying decision.
Selling is Winning
The ABS concept was developed for B2B industries, where an average of 6.8 people make purchasing decisions according to this concept. ABS increases sales level by involving all key persons in the transaction, offering them targeted presentation content that takes into account only their business interests.
LeadMine : Find Your Next Customer without Wasting Time
LeadMine is a lead generation platform used by all types of businesses. From over 200 million contacts, you may identify your target b2b leads as well as their email addresses.
LeadMine is an extremely simple and handy application that can improve your marketing and sales processes. Its user-friendly interface, strong algorithms, real-time data, and email verification features save time that can be better spent on other tasks. The rich API solution can also check hundreds of email addresses in less than a minute. The powerful yet easy solution might be your ideal marketing and sales partner, helping your business grow.
