Account Based Marketing customer insight
Customer feedback supporting Account Based Marketing
Gaining insightful and actionable customer feedback will help ensure the success of an Account Based Marketing strategy. Historically the approach to marketing in a B2B environment was focused on identifying multiple new sales opportunities that were then qualified through a sales funnel to generate a small number of quality leads. Account Based Marketing focusses in on the value to your business of the customers you already have. No matter what the ratio is for your particular industry it is a well-recognised fact that it is far more productive to sell additional services to your current customers than it is to go after completely new customers.
Account Based Marketing is focussed on targeting a small number of important accounts and looking to identify all key decision makers and key influencers within that account in order to generate a flourishing list of quality opportunities. It’s an approach that is increasingly being undertaken by all types of B2B suppliers where the value of the relationship you already have, combined with the knowledge of both your customer’s offerings and its industry can prove to be a unique selling point.
Customer feedback
So ensuring you are obtaining valuable insight into those current customer’s perceptions of your organisation along with a clear view of their future needs is an essential building block for a successful Account Based Marketing strategy.
Taking a matrix approach to developing an effective customer feedback programme will look at both the journey that your customer experiences when dealing with your organisation, as well as identifying different levels of decision making and key influencers in that organisation and matching the appropriate customer feedback tool.
Tools for supporting Account Based Marketing
As a starting point to gain a complete insight into your targeted accounts we would propose that mapping out the Customer Journey for your organisation will give you a strong foundation on which to build not only a feedback programme, but also how best to position your internal resources. Developing a customer journey map will identify the touchpoints your organisation and key accounts have as well as establishing where the current gaps are in your customer insight programme.
With a customer journey map tracking the total experience you then need to overlay this with understanding key individuals acting as decision makers and key influencers at various times throughout the journey. Here we would propose a portfolio of feedback solutions to maximise that insight.
Starting with CXO level customers a face to face executive interviews that follows a structured list of topics will provide high level qualitative views that are primarily focused on the strategic relationship between you and your customer, alongside insight into their future needs and how they perceive you are positioned to meet those needs
At an operational level each project that you are delivering for your customer could be evaluated through a quantifiable perspective by conducting focused telephone interviews that also capture the key reasons behind their scores. If appropriate these could be rolled up into more of a programme or portfolio view. This analysed data can then be used as part of an account review.
Even with an Account Based Marketing strategy there will be occasions when a particular bid is not successful, so again the use of a third party independent loss review would provide insight into how future bids can be successful. Similarly there is value in reviewing successful bids.
Tools such as Shared Expectations Workshops take a 360 degree in-depth view of both the customers and suppliers performance against major projects and facilitates the development of joint action plans.
Account Based Marketing Plus
Account Based Marketing is without doubt a positive approach to positioning your company, this can only be further enhanced with the aid of actionable insight into their current and future needs, along with their views on you as a supplier.
Getting started
If you would like to discuss a customer feedback programme that provides a foundation for your Account Based Marketing please do get in touch.