Account-based marketing (ABM) requires you to use a multi-channel approach and a wide array of marketing tactics, which means you’ll also need multiple technologies to make it a success. When it comes to ABM, there’s a vast number of technologies you can use to execute effectively. It’s important to know exactly what an ABM approach looks like before embarking on the journey.

Flip the Funnel

ABM challenges marketers to flip the funnel by identifying target accounts and building a plan around directly engaging those people before and after they become a customer. Generally, the stages of the funnel look like this:

  • Identify target accounts.
  • Expand your reach within those accounts.
  • Engage those accounts with relevant content and outreach.
  • Advocate—turn customers into advocates.
  • Measure the results of the campaigns.

61 ABM Technologies

As you consider the funnel stages and where your company needs to focus, you’ll use technology for key ABM activities, such as finding data on accounts, storing customer information, communicating with key stakeholders, and running ads. Below, I’ve broken technology out based on how your company could use it to facilitate ABM.

CRM

The data and utility of your CRM or account management system are critical to managing account details and communication, but your CRM can also help you determine the best accounts to prioritize and help you map essential stakeholders and past relationships to accounts. Some of the best CRMs on the market for supporting ABM include:

Whatever CRM you decide to use, there are some key features that will be valuable for ABM:

  • Ability to match leads to accounts
  • Lead and account-level reporting
  • Built-in account insights
  • Integrations or an open API to connect with other key ABM platforms

Account Mapping

Mapping the landscape of the account, as well as your strategic communication plan, is an essential part of ABM. The tools that are best for you depend on the CRM you use, because there are quite a few plug-ins and integrations that streamline account mapping in your CRM. Some common tools include:

Data Enrichment

When building out profiles of key people within accounts, you will need additional data and information about those people. You will also need to understand the specific account and key aspects of the company like what’s in their technology stack. As you look to enrich your data, there are several technologies available, including:

As you select this type of technology, there are a few important things to keep in mind:

  • Some platforms are better suited towards start-ups, small organizations, or, enterprise data.
  • Most are priced around the volume of contacts and data calls.
  • Accuracy varies, even on the best of these platforms, so validation by your sales team is important.

Do your homework carefully. This purchase tends to be a big investment, and the best tool varies based on the types of accounts you target and the tools you’ll need in order to integrate with the data enrichment platform.

Predictive Analytics

Beyond data enrichment, you can also identify target accounts through predictive analytics such as lead scoring and account intelligence. A few of the major marketing automation platforms have this capability built in, but there are also stand-alone tools that can help you analyze your current accounts to identify targets.

Sales Enablement

Technology is essential for sales teams to facilitate conversations and coordinate efforts with marketing and other team members. Beyond the tools we’ve already discussed, your sales team can also benefit from these technologies that facilitate communication and the sales process.

Email Tools

Email is a big part of ABM campaigns and sales enablement. Most CRM and marketing automation tools have built-in capabilities for sending brand-approved email, tracking email engagement, and providing performance insights. Here are some email tools that can benefit ABM:

Chat, Messaging, Video, and Calling

As you engage with key people at target accounts, SMS, web chat, phone, video, and messaging platforms can be a valuable way to connect, both when you’re doing outreach and when accounts reach out to you. The following list is big because communication plays a big part in ABM:

Social Media

Social selling is a crucial aspect of ABM. All major social media platforms that your target accounts utilize will be valuable. You can make those platforms easier to manage and more effective through these technologies:

  • HubSpot Social Media allows you to monitor, publish, and engage with critical social channels. It also includes a handy extension that’s great for a busy sales rep. This tool is only available when you purchase the platform.
  • HootSuite is similar but is a standalone social management platform, so there’s no need to buy a comprehensive marketing or sales solution to get the full functionality. It’s also great for an enterprise, because it includes workflows to help stay compliant and on-brand.
  • Buffer is like Hootsuite or HubSpot Social but less robust.
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator not only allows you to research and identify target accounts, but it also has some neat features built in for sharing sales content and showing you those in your network that could help make an introduction to key contacts.

Monitoring Beyond Social

Beyond the monitoring you can do on social media, there are also tools that allow you to keep an eye on brands outside of social media channels and across digital, which is valuable when monitoring acquisitions, product releases, leadership changes, and industry news. Some of my favorites include:

  • Mention will give you updates straight to your email, like many of these platforms do, to share information about brands or terms you want to monitor. You can also use the platform for competitive analysis and to identify key influencers at the account or industry level.
  • Cision is a PR tool, but it can also serve as an excellent tool for monitoring digital news of target accounts. However, it is expensive, so it is only worth the investment if you plan to use it for PR in addition to ABM campaigns.
  • Meltwater combines social media and news monitoring, which makes it useful for supporting ABM monitoring, as well as an excellent tool for marketing.

Marketing

When it comes to ABM, sales and marketing need to be like PB&J, and any marketing efforts along the way must carefully coordinate with the tools and activities of sales. This is why marketing automation is one of the first and most essential marketing ABM technologies to consider.

Marketing Automation

I’m a firm believer in getting the most out of your marketing automation tools. The following tend to enable that, but there are some tools on the list that are also effective at supporting the capabilities mentioned above for ABM. If you are looking to minimize your stack with ABM, HubSpot is best suited to accomplish that.

CMS and Content

The tools and technology required of conventional demand generation or inbound marketing campaigns apply to ABM. You’ll need tools to create content for your website, social media, and sales enablement strategy and tactics.

With ABM, you’ll need to be even more nimble in developing and launching materials. Not only that, but you’ll also need to be very strategic about resources and the campaigns you develop. It’s easy to put too much effort into one or two targeted accounts and see little to no ROI. To ensure the highest ROI and also the best experience for your target accounts, these tools and features will be valuable:

  • Conversion Forms: Although you likely don’t need to focus on lead capture with ABM, you do need to collect account intelligence and measure engagement. Thus, having conversion forms, especially early in the campaign, and how this integrates with other ABM tools is an important consideration when choosing your tech stack.
  • Progressive Profiling: With marketing automation tools such as HubSpot or Marketo, you’ll be able to collect only the information you’ll need at the moment, while gaining account intelligence. This is important for ABM, in which you typically have a good portion of data already available on your account profiles.
  • Landing Page A/B Testing: Utilizing A/B testing of landing pages through your CMS is essential as you target your accounts via advertising and digital campaigns, but you can also use an add-on tool like Optimizely to conduct tests.

Ad Targeting

Reaching your accounts across digital channels is vital to ABM success. We’ve all probably heard that a person sees a brand seven times before taking action, but I’d argue that it’s more like 30 times in the ABM world where other brands wanting their attention are inundating your target accounts. The following tools are great for stealing your target accounts’ attention:

Offline Campaigns

Not only do you need to reach target accounts digitally, but to keep your brand at the top of their mind, you’ll need to integrate non-digital channels for ABM, including events, direct mail campaigns, and even passing out swag at on-site visits. Keep in mind that these efforts need to be carefully coordinated with digital efforts. These are some tools you can use:

  • [Direct Mail] PFL allows you to use digital actions to trigger direct mail campaigns.
  • [Direct Mail] Enthusem does the above but is specially built to integrate with HubSpot.
  • [Event Planning] Whether you host a small event for a single account or a significant event for multiple accounts, Bizzabo is the tool you need to orchestrate it all.
  • [Live Events] If there are people within the account that can’t make it to a live event or if you want to simulate a live event experience, Facebook Live is a great tool to do that.
  • [Swag Management] Take the headache out of sending and managing swag with Printfection.

Integrations

Depending on what your final tech stack looks like, you may need to integrate critical technologies. While there are standard integrations built into many of these technologies, you may need to rely on one of these tools for integration:

Measuring Performance

As mentioned earlier, you can quickly diminish returns on ABM campaigns if you aren’t carefully monitoring ROI, especially when you factor in the technology required to make the campaigns successful. You have to use data and analytics to measure performance and ensure you’re putting dollars where they will have the most significant impact. While many marketing automation and CRM platforms have built-in analytics, ABM will undoubtedly cause you to compile data from multiple sources. For this reason, you’ll likely need data analytics tools such as:

What to Consider When Finding Technology for Your Needs

Kudos to you if you’ve made it this far through the article! Your brain has probably never been so full of options for ABM technology. While I’d love to deliver you the ultimate ABM tech stack, doing so wouldn’t set you up for success because what you need is unique to your organization. When finalizing your stack, think about these factors:

  • Your Target Accounts: Whom you are trying to reach with ABM plays into your final tech stack. For example, let’s say you are only going after a few accounts where building out profiles could be done manually instead of utilizing a data enrichment tool such as ZoomInfo. In this example, your campaigns and tech stack will differ from a strategy that targets thirty accounts.
  • Your ABM Campaigns: You should always put the campaign strategy first when it comes to ABM. Look at what technology you’ll need to achieve your campaign goals.
  • All-in-One Solutions: As mentioned earlier, it is possible to get a good chunk of your tech stack covered in one solution. If this is your aim, you’ll want to approach technology accordingly.
  • Integrations: If you have multiple systems you’re tied to that will need to work with ABM campaigns, take into account any critical data that will need to pass between systems. As you identify the best technology for your ABM stack, make sure you’re selecting with integrations in mind.
  • Budget: Obviously, you’ll need to be very careful about every dollar you spend on an ABM campaign. Tying up too much into technology can cause your campaign to fall flat.