Accounts-based marketing (or ABM for those of you out there who love acronyms!) is the talk of the town for marketers these days. The approach consists of hand-selecting highly strategic accounts that you want to do business with and creating a priority wish list of companies to exclusively target.
The number of accounts you select really doesn’t matter, but they usually consist of a handful of large enterprises because the potential deal size they represent largely outweighs the effort you put into doing business with them.
ABM is often used as a strategy for end-user marketing, and it can also be adapted for OEM program holders targeting ISV accounts.
Here’s a step-by-step approach to help you get started…
1. Find ISVs with Lots of Solutions
The more solutions an ISV develops, the more potential OEM deals you can have in the one account. Finding ISVs that have many different products will help you increase your chances of finding ways in the door; you can target hundreds of different decision-makers in these more established ISVs which means that if one of them says no, there are 99 other people you can still talk to!
2. Review your Data and Fill in the Whitespace
The buy versus build argument (which is at the heart of every OEM discussion) can only happen when you are engaging Product Managers or other strategic decision-makers involved in the product development roadmap/strategy. By building a database of viable contacts within your select target account list, you will help your sales team go faster when conducting outreach. Data acquisition should include generating opt-ins at the same time so as to kill two birds with one stone; outsourcing this task can help your sales team focus on more value-added work (like conducting product demos).
3. Leverage Market Intelligence
By leveraging Market Intelligence, you can determine the structure and organization of such companies. Have they recently merged or acquired another ISV? What strategic business initiatives are under development currently? What types of technology partners are they already aligned with? What are end-users saying about them on review sites? This information will help you find “triggers” that will work in your favor when pitching decision-makers about the benefits of your OEM program, and exponentially improve your conversion rate.
4. Be Omni-Channel
Being present across channels is the only way to increase visibility for your OEM program. This means designing and executing a holistic, “always-on” outreach strategy to generate both inbound and outbound leads (on and offline). This may sound daunting, but it really starts by having great content. Creating engaging content that you publish online, driving traffic to those landing pages to capture inbound leads, and then proactively promoting that content through social selling, email marketing, and telemarketing, is one of the best ways to educate prospects about your offer. By doing this, you are sure to be where your prospects are, armed with the ability to nurture them over time.
5. Be Open to What Comes
Very often when you are looking for the “perfect” opportunity, you come across something else. You may find an end-user deal or a new reseller partner. It’s important to be open to all possibilities because, at the end of the day, the most important element is to do more business. It shouldn’t matter that it hasn’t taken the exact shape you imagined when you got started. The key is to remember that your ABM list is comprised of companies you want to do business with—so whatever business comes your way you should be open to receiving it.
Conclusion
ABM can help give focus to your ISV-OEM marketing efforts because you are sure to concentrate on the accounts that have the most potential to have a major impact on your bottom line. By having this kind of laser focus, you won’t get distracted or dispersed targeting accounts that won’t sign those 6 (or 7) figure deals. OEM sales cycles are usually rather long so it’s important that your energy is spent on the accounts that have the highest potential deal size.
