Murphy, good to meet with you and great question!
Before I give my response (long response!) to it, I want to share that I am from Marketo, however my response below is not biased towards Marketo ABM. I am rather sharing pointers to hopefully help you decide the right product or solution for your ABM strategy:
At a high level, you have 2 types of solutions out there to execute your ABM strategy:
- Foundational: This is where you should start ABM! You need to determine what makes your ABM foundation strong and if that will live with you for years. Marketo ABM is a foundational solution. If you believe your data is not good, then you need a data provider which helps you to enrich that. Most common foundational ABM tech stack that I have seen so far is: Marketing Automation(with Marketo ABM Add-on)+CRM (e.g. Salesforce, Dynamics) +Data Provider (e.g. Reachforce or D&B). Good news is that you already have Marketo and CRM today, you just need to add a native Marketo ABM add-on to your Marketo instance to start your ABM journey!
- Point Solutions: This is completely need based! Some very common point solutions that I have seen needed for ABM executions are around predictive analytics & scoring, lead-to-account (L2A) matching. In such cases, your tech stack will look like this: Marketing Automation (with Marketo ABM Add-on)+CRM+Data Provider+Predictive+L2A.
Providers that are offering Foundational solution must have following characteristics at the least:
- Robust Multi-Channel Engagement Platform (Natively Built): Successful ABM strategy depends on ability to engage people from target accounts across different channels, at any stage of customer lifecycle. Be very clear who is the engagement platform and who is not. Most of the ABM providers are NOT the engagement platforms, rather they are aggregators highly dependent on the engagement platform such as Marketo. They are merely aggregating information from many different solutions e.g. Marketing Automation, CRM, Predictive Analytics, Data providers etc. and presenting it in a single user interface but they do not own any of the core components. Just do your due diligence whether you need to spend money in such aggregators.
- CRM Integrated (Natively): Having a product that has sophisticated CRM integration is paramount. It takes years to build the right integration with CRM such as what Marketo built over the years. This is essential component for ABM.
- Strong Marketing Focused: It goes without saying that ABM is all about aligning Marketing and Sales closely. But most of the solutions there are highly sales focused, leaving Marketing a non-function in an ABM strategy. Marketing is a key function in making ABM work and must be armed with tools that helps influence the pipeline and revenue. Sales don’t have time to build/nurture personalized engagement with target accounts, that’s not their job, it’s Marketing’s job. Your ABM foundation starts with a solution that is Marketing focused as much as it should be Sales focused.
- Long-Term Product Roadmap: ABM is a new cool kid on the street. Everyone who is offering a solution today including Marketo is at the early stage. You must ask for a roadmap to evaluate who has the best plan and what meets your needs in a long term. I would avoid short term benefits and look at the long-term benefits.
- Total Cost of Ownership: You have basically 2 options, either use multiple point solutions to achieve what you want to achieve which incurs higher cost over also you need to learn all different tools and stitch them together OR use single unified platform which Marketo ABM provides.
Providers that are offering Point solutions must have the following:
- Pluggable: Can these solutions easily plug-into your foundational solutions? Are they part of the partner eco-system of vendors that are offering foundational solutions e.g. Marketo Launchpoint
- Financially Stable: There are many point solutions out there with funding from investors but how do you know who will stay there for you in a long run. What if you invest year or 2 in a solution and the business runs out of money or dies? You need to start over, right? Therefore, you must look for a vendor who is financially stable.
I have seen many customers getting started with point solutions such as Lead-to-Account matching or Predictive and spending many months perfecting it first before they start engaging with those accounts. That is not necessary and shouldn't be the approach!! You don't need to L2A, Data Enrichment or Predictive scoring first to get started with ABM. You can always start your ABM with just your marketing automation and CRM system e.g. for existing customers where your see cross-sell/up-sell opportunities or known prospects that already showed interest in your brand and are part your lead/company database already.
Marketo ABM is a foundational solution but open enough for point solutions to plug-in to it.
Hope you find the ABM solution that fits your needs! Let me know if I can help answer any other questions on this topic.
Good luck!
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