The Essential Guide to the Account Funnel

2

Ta b l e of C o n te n t s

Conclusion

Introduction to the Account Funnel pg. 3 - 8

Five Stages of the Account Funnel pg. 9 - 14

Account Funnel in Action » Case Study: Plex Systems

pg. 15 - 25

Getting Started with the Account Funnel » Case Study: Digium » Case Study: Clarabridge

pg. 26 - 30

3

D e m a n d Fu n n e l : T i m e to C h a n g e

The marketing demand funnel has been the best framework to organize and track campaigns to generate demand. Currently, the funnel helps marketers capture more leads, nurture them, and hand them off to sales.

However, leads campaigns, measured by opt-ins, waste marketing spend on leads that will never buy. Leads campaigns have different messages and calls-to-action designed to increase leads from each marketing channel, which reduces effectiveness.

Leads campaigns optimize total leads but are suboptimal for winning target accounts.

The account funnel focuses spend and campaigns only on target accounts Once marketers have target accounts segments, they use marketing campaigns to generate initial purchase interest in target accounts.

After activating interest, marketing campaigns are coordinated with sales plays to increase engagement and to qualify accounts for a potential sales meeting. During sales pipeline all the way to close, marketing campaigns continue to influence stakeholders to purchase.

The funnel still focuses on leads

A demand funnel should focus on accounts

Interested

Engaged

Qualified

Pipeline

Closed

4

Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l i s Mo re Ef f i c i e n t a n d Ef fe c t i ve

Focus on target accounts before and after opt-in

Consistent messaging and CTAs for known and unknown stakeholders

An account funnel focuses on target accounts. Outbound marketing campaigns and sales plays try to reach known and unknown stakeholders to activate purchase interest prior to opt-in.

Campaigns and plays continue to advance accounts at every stage of the purchase journey. Concentrating marketing spend and sales time primarily to target accounts increases sales opportunities and revenue.

Marketers coordinate messaging and call to action at each stage of the purchase journey. Known and unknown stakeholders receive consistent messaging and CTAs across all channels instead of different ones meant to increase leads for each channel.

By using the account funnel for demand generation, marketers increase leads, engagement, sales opportunities and revenue.

T h e B 2 B B u ye r Jo u r n ey : G ro u p B u y i n g

B2B purchases are made in groups. The average number of stakeholders involved in a B2B purchase is 6.8. The number can be dozens of stakeholders or more if the need is complex, impactful, or if the company is particularly large.

Some contacts will opt-in to communication with vendors, but many others will not.

To advance accounts through the purchase journey, marketing must influence as many stakeholders as possible.

Number of Stakeholdersinvolved in B2B purchase

Account Buying GroupKnown Stakeholders

UnknownStakeholders

{{

6.8

Influence known and unknown stakeholders

6

Mo s t of t h e B u ye r Jo u r n ey i s A n o ny m o u s

Pre Opt-In Lead Funnel & PipelineSome stakeholders are knownAll stakeholders are unknown

At the start, stakeholders research anonymouslyWhen the purchase journey starts, all the stakeholders are anonymous.

Anonymity is preferred for longer. That’s one reason why bounce rates are 80% or higher on landing pages, and 90% or more of website visitors do not complete the website form.

Some stakeholders, like execs, will never opt-inEven after one stakeholder opts in from a target account, many other stakeholders from the target account will continue to remain anonymous while they research to form a purchase opinion.

Marketing and sales teams who interact with all stakeholders get the best results.

What do marketers do when they recognize the account profile of an unknown stakeholder

at each purchase stage?

7

I n t ro d u c i n g t h e Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l

The account funnel is a framework for marketers to focus demand strategy on target accounts.

Interested

Engaged

Qualified

Pipeline

Closed

Known Stakeholders Unknown Stakeholders

Track target accounts by grouping stakeholders

Account stages

Accounts move through funnel stages based on the collective purchase interest of all the stakeholders in the target accounts.

Instead of stakeholders from the same account belonging to different stages of the funnel, all stakeholders in an account move together.

For example, one stakeholder, the user, may signal account purchase intent first, and then opt-in via email. After the user opts in, a manager becomes interested and opts in.

After both known stakeholders interact with campaigns, they become qualified and take a sales meeting. After several sales meetings, the executive and decision maker research and approve the purchase.

8

Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l vs . Le a d Fu n n e l

Lead Funnel Account Funnel

Target AccountFocus

Known

Unknown

Known

Unknown

Non-Target AccountFocus

The account funnel redirects focus to target account segments from non-target account segments. It redirects focus from increasing and nurturing known leads to focus on known and unknown stakeholders in target accounts.

Marketing and sales only spend time and money on accounts that are most likely to lead to revenue.

They try to reach, engage, and convert every single stakeholder to advance an account through each purchase journey stage.

Focus spend on known and unknown stakeholders in target accounts at every stage of the funnel.

Anonymously explores purchase interest

Reacts to marketing and sales communication

Indicates sustained interest, typically by opting-in

Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l : 5 S t a g e s

Other Account FunnelsMarketing consultancies like Sirius and TOPO have introduced their account funnels. See appendix for more information

Interested

Engaged

Pipeline

Closed

Qualified

The account funnel comprises of 5 main stages. Accounts change stages during their purchase journey based on their desire to interact with vendors.

Agrees to meet with sales

Decision made

10

S t a g e 1 : I n te re s te d

Accounts signal purchase interest when they visit web channels, browse relevant 3rd party media sites, or register for content that you’ve sponsored.

Even though the account wants to be anonymous, with technology like Triblio, marketers can recognize these accounts to understand their purchase interest. Marketers can identify how many individuals in target accounts signal purchase interest as well as what content they consume.

Websites and landing pages visits signal purchase interest. These visits can be repeat visits from one stakeholder or from multiple stakeholders.

Later in the guide, you’ll learn how to effectively reach and activate purchase interest, and how marketers are engaging accounts that signal purchase interest.

An account anonymously signals purchase interest based on the behavior of its stakeholders.

All Unknown Stakeholders

At this first stage, accounts try to remain as anonymous as possible to you.

Web

11

When a target account sustains their purchase interest, they become engaged. The simplest way to determine if an account is engaged is when one relevant stakeholder opts in for more information. Opt-in is most commonly defined by an email form fill, but could also be a visit at an event or direct response to a sales outbounding campaign.

Most upsell or cross sell purchase journeys begin at the engaged stage. One or more relevant stakeholders for a current customer will already have opted in during a prior purchase journey.

100% anonymous target account behavior

As buyers continue to refuse to fill out forms, sustained purchase interest may be defined by anonymous account behavior. Repeat website and landing page visits by several stakeholders would signal the account should be in the engaged stage. They just don’t to fill out forms.

Upsell / Cross-Sell starts at Stage 2

In the future, engagement may be signaled by 100% anonymous target account behavior

S t a g e 2 : E n g a g e d

One Known Stakeholder

Web

Opt-in

An account is engaged when one relevant stakeholder opts-in, while other stakeholders remain anonymous.

12

S t a g e 3 : Q u a l i f i e d

If accounts favorably react to enough marketing campaigns and sales plays, they may be ready to have a sales meeting.

• Who and how many are responding to marketing campaigns and sales plays?

• How often?

• Did they respond directly or visit other web channels?

• What content is consumed?

• How many stakeholders have consumed it?

Marketing and teleprospecting reps must work together to reach, engage, and convert multiple stakeholders so an account will agree to a meeting.

One Known Stakeholder

Opt-in

An account signals they're qualified if they react favorably to marketing and sales communication.

Web

Web

13

Web

S t a g e s 4 & 5 : P i p e l i n e a n d C l o s e d

In account funnel framework, marketing is involved at every stage. When sales is trying to advance the purchase journey from pipeline to closed, they need marketing campaigns to influence stakeholders.

Sending email campaigns is not sufficient as multiple stakeholders are searching web channels, reading earned media, and receiving emails.

Marketing must reinforce the message discussed in the sales meetings and reach to influence unknown stakeholders everywhere they are researching their purchase.

Multiple Known StakeholdersMarketing influences pipeline

Pipeline stage is when an account agrees to take a sales meeting and sales opportunity is created. The closed stage is when the account decides to make a purchase or not.

Web

Opt-in

Web

14

E n g a g e m e n t S c o re

Marketers track engagement score at every stage of the funnel. The engagement score tracks the collective digital body language and purchase interest of stakeholders in target accounts.

Engagement score tracks responses to outbound activity like account based advertising, emails, and sales plays. And, they track inbound activity like web channels or attending a webinar or reading an ebook.

Use the engagement score to prioritize and determine the marketing campaigns and sales plays at each stage of the account funnel.

98Total Engagement Score

Opt-in WebWeb

+5 +10 +20+50 +3 +10

Engagement Score Breakdown

15

Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l C a s e S t u d y : P l ex

As “one of the world’s leading ABM practitioners,” Plex is a model case study for the account funnel.

Plex presented their 100% account based funnel at Demand Gen report’s B2BMX and TOPO’s Summit.

We will summarize their approach, as we describe the 5 steps to operationalizing an account funnel.

"One of the world's leading ABM practitioners"Scott Albro, CEO, TOPO

Jen Dimas Plex Systems | VP

Integrated Marketing & Business Operations

16

O p e ra t i o n a l i z i n g t h e Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l

1 D e f i n ea cco u nt s e g m e nt s

2 G ro u pco nt a c t s a n d l e a d s i n to a cco u nt s

3 S e tg o a l s fo r t a rg et a cco u nt s

4 S t a r ta cco u nt fo c u s e d c a m p a i g n s a t t h e n ew a n o ny m o u s a cco u nt s t a g e

5 M e a s u re

Do you just want to sample account based marketing?

Try increasing leads in target accounts, or identifying and increasing engagement in top accounts.

How to D e f i n e Au d i e n c e S e g m e n t s

Marketers define target accounts segments by:

• Using their ideal customer profile (ICP)

• Estimating ease of identification and measurement

• Considering likelihood to buy within next 12 months

• Determining assignment to a sales person

Each of these criteria are essential. Account segments that fit ICP are likely responsible for most of the company revenue.

They must be easy to identify as a distinct segment in marketing and sales initiatives to be actionable by attributes like employee size, industry, location, and technology used.

They must be ready to buy as determined by surveys or digital behavior. They must have clear sales ownership in order for coordinated marketing and sales outbounding.

Plex has identified ~40,000 target accounts based on joint agreement between sales, marketing, strategy, and product. They organize accounts by the product manufacturing method, discrete or process, and company size.

FirmographicsSales AccountOwnership

Ideal CustomerProfile

Target Accounts

1

EXAMPLE

How to G ro u p I n d i v i d u a l s by Ac c o u n t

Once target account segments are identified, marketers need to organize their tech stack and metrics by account.

In their database and martech automation stack, marketers will need to group their lists, leads, and contacts into accounts.

For metrics, web metrics need to be grouped by account. There are a number of data vendors, consultancies, and ABM platforms that can help quickly bridge your tech stack and metrics to an account focus.

Plex aggregates their account data using the DUNs number as the one source of truth. They work with data vendors to increase contacts / account and acquire purchase insights on target.

They group these contacts by accounts, create account records in their CRM, and assign them to reps by terrority. They aggregate and group metrics by account using from multiple systems including Google analytics, CRM, and marketing automation.

2

EXAMPLE

Group contacts by account

Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l Me t r i c s a n d G o a l s

The account funnel, just like every demand funnel, must be measurable at each stage.

The main metric is accounts at each stage.

How many accounts are each stage? How quickly are accounts moving from one stage to another by week, month, and quarter?

3

70%

40%

30%

15%5%

7,000

10,000

4,000

3,000

1,500500

Accounts % of Target

Plex has adopted the lead funnel stages to form their account funnel. They broadly define their funnel by TOFU stages (top of the funnel) and MIFU (middle of the funnel).

They track the number of accounts that are at each one of their stages. They have dedicated marketing teams and marketing campaigns and teleprospecting plays for accounts in TOFU and MIFU.

EXAMPLE

20

Ac c o u n t Me t r i c s

Do you have enough contacts in your target accounts in your database? The number of contacts per target account should match the average number of stakeholders required to purchase your solution.

How do all stakeholders in target accounts interact with your campaigns and web channels?

Engagement helps sales prioritize which buyers to talk to and trigger marketing campaigns.

Marketing has been proven to influence sales pipeline by 10-30%. An account funnel will make it easy to show how marketing influenced revenue. Compare engagement per account to win rates and revenue to see how engagement correlates with win rates and pipeline acceleration.

Leads are still important. If stakeholders are willing to be contacted, that is a strong signal of purchase intent. Track opt-ins/account by channel.

Engagement

Contacts / Account Opt-ins and Conversions

Pipeline acceleration and revenue

RevenueOpt-inEngagement

While tracking accounts at each stage is the key measure, there are important leading indicators and KPIs to help you adjust marketing campaigns and sales priorities.

3

21

Ac c o u n t C a m p a i g n s

As marketers have adopted the account funnel, they’ve created new campaigns to increase demand. These campaigns scale personalized 1:1 account targeting at every stage of the account funnel.

Marketers should reorient existing campaigns to be account focused. Account based campaigns to include are:

• Account based advertising• Web personalization• Sales play orchestration• Email campaigns

4

22

Re a c h w i t h Ac c o u n t B a s e d Ad ve r t i s i n g

Plex, the leading manufacturing ERP cloud software provider, advertised to reach and engage their 40,000 target accounts. Plex segmented their account based advertising audiences by funnel stage and industry segment. Advertising helped drive 76% of their pipeline.

Use account based advertising to reach, engage, and convert key stakeholders within your target accounts. Account based advertising increases ad spend efficiency because ads are targeted to only specified target accounts and relevant stakeholders.

Relevant account based advertising drives target accounts to the website. Once they reach the website, engagement and conversions increase in target accounts.

"Account based ads help with early funnel

engagement"

23

E n g a g e a n d C o nve r t w i t h We b a n d L a n d i n g P a g e s

Plex personalizes their website and landing pages for target account segments such as geographic location, manufacturing type, and funnel stage.

Personalization by account is for both known visitors, identified in marketing automation and their CRM systems, and for unknown target account visitors who haven’t opted in to email yet. Home page creative, messaging, recommended content, and calls to action all dynamically change based on the account segment.

Personalization ensures that Plex's target accounts have higher engagement and conversion rates.

Web personalization dynamically serves content, CTAs, and messaging for stakeholders’ unique interests.

Personalization enhances the web experience of different stakeholder personas by reducing clicks and immediately serving them relevant information.

Use web personalization in tandem with account based advertising to strengthen core messaging and align sales conversations at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Personalized by Industry

Personalized by Geography

24

O rc h e s t ra te S a l e s P l ays w i t h Ac c o u n t P u rc h a s e I n te n t S i g n a l

Plex used Triblio’s engagement reporting to identify the frequency, number of stakeholders, and specific content interest for target accounts.

Knowing an account’s digital body language from known contacts and unknown visitors triggers sales prioritization and influences what sales plays to use.

The account funnel campaigns coordinate marketing campaigns with sales plays. For example marketing develops account based ads and web personalization campaigns to increase anonymous traffic and engagement to the website from target accounts. Sales will receive an alert to contact target accounts who visited the web with specific sales plays developed by marketing.

Website Visit from User

Ad seen on WSJ.com

GeneratesActivity Alert

Outbound Email

"76% of pipeline is sourced through

our account funnel"

25

E m a i l C a m p a i g n s fo r Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l

In a lead funnel model, email campaigns are used by marketing to nurture leads to increase their lead score enough to hand to sales.

In the account funnel, email campaigns will:

1. Increasingly originate more from sales than in marketing. Marketing will set up campaigns, but sales will send the emails from their inbox. Sales reps are already assigned to target accounts and email campaigns will be part of their sales outbounding touchpoints.

2. Target multiple stakeholders belonging to multiple functions. As part of one campaign to a target account, user stakeholders will receive emails from sales, the technical stakeholder from the sales systems engineer, and the decision maker stakeholder an email from the sales leader.

3. Complement cross-channel campaigns. For example DLT, a $1B dollar IT solution provider, sent emails to their target accounts. When a stakeholder from the buying center opened the email, the buying center became part of an advertising campaign which drove anonymous stakeholders to their website. As a result, they got a 40% increase in sales quote requests year to year.

Sales Marketing

Any email open triggers an account based advertising campaign.

26

P rov i n g Ac c o u n t Fu n n e l S u c c e s s

Many marketers will want to transition their existing demand gen framework to an account funnel.

There are two common ways to transition:

12Increase leads in target account segments

Use ABM funnel tactics to improve outcomes for a select group of target accounts

27

I n c re a s e Le a d s i n Ta rg e t Ac c o u n t s

For those with a mature lead gen funnel, a good first step is to increase leads in target accounts. Marketers can start by defining target accounts by easily measurable account metrics like employee size or industry.

Once defined, marketers can increase reach in target accounts. They can acquire more contacts to increase their email lists. They can start account based advertising and web personalization campaigns.

Convert TrafficDigium’s main source of leads are their web channels, which attract hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. Because of a vibrant open source community, visitors come with different needs, firmographic profile, and country location.

To meet these diverse needs simultaneously, Digium‘s corporate website contains many different navigation paths and call to action options in order to entice each of these unique segments.

David DuttonDigium | Director

Sales & Marketing Operations

ABM tactics increase total web

leads by 32%

Industry-Specific Content and MessagingDigium wanted to increase leads from unknown visitors from their target industries. Digium uses an ABM platform like Triblio to recognize an unknown visitor’s industry profile using reverse IP lookup, marketing automation segments, and user behavior.

Once anonymous visitors are profiled by account, relevant content is offered by account segment on the website’s pages such as eBooks, webinars, and whitepapers.

On the other hand, customers who visit digium.com view relevant promotions on the homepage to purchase more equipment. Product offers depend on the purchase history and firmographics.

32% 4x $1.3m

Chat Engagement

GeneratedPipeline

Web Contacts

29

A p p ly A B M to N a m e d Ac c o u n t s

Another approach is to identify a target segment to generate demand using an account funnel. Imagine that this account segment is the only group of accounts that would receive marketing campaigns.

Create new content, messaging, and CTAs. Increase contacts / target account. Change the media spending that best optimizes reach and engagement to those target accounts. Start sales outbounding campaigns at the first sign of initial interest instead of waiting until an account is engaged by opting in.

Increase EngagementClarabridge, a customer experience management software company, needed a way to acquire key accounts. They were using a lead funnel, but they were getting too many low quality leads.

They decided they needed to focus marketing on target account segments that had the potential to generate the most revenue instead of leads. Before ABM, Clarabridge hadn't even defined their verticals, let alone run specific programs targeting them.

Carrie Carroll Clarabridge | Sr. Director

Brand & Design

"Stronger conversions,

faster pipeline"

Clarabridge created two account segments, finance and health care industries, that fit their ideal customer profile (ICP), were easy to identify by NAIC code, and tended to close at a faster rate. They assigned these segments to specialized teleprospecting reps and AEs.

Clarabridge's marketing team adapted existing content and campaigns to target these two industries. They prepared a special playbook for their sales team for these two segments consisting of whitepapers and sales telescripts.

When a target account visited the website, they dynamically customized the content for known and unknown visitors to those two segments. They reported to their sales team whenever a target account visited the website to trigger sales outbounding.

The combination of content, sales plays, and website personalization accelerated sales conversations.

After 6 months, Clarabridge’s account segmenting strategy has influenced 96 deals, representing $24m in revenue.

Targeted Account Segments

$24m

since January 2017

Default View

Healthcare View Whitepapers

Retail Banking View Whitepapers

Revenue Influenced

31

C o n c l u s i o n

In a few years, the account funnel will be the primary framework B2B marketers use to generate demand.

Campaigns are focused only on target account segments, and they occur from the beginning to the end of the purchase journey.

Instead of waiting until a stakeholder opts in, outbound marketing campaigns and sales plays will start as soon as an account indicates purchase interest.

Marketing also assists sales by influencing stakeholders until the end of the purchase journey.

Marketing campaigns and sales plays direct efforts to target accounts and to known and unknown stakeholders at every stage of the purchase journey.

This is a major shift from a leads model which focuses on increasing more leads and nurturing them to hand over to sales.

Join us in rewriting the rules of demand gen marketing and watching leads, opportunities, and revenue increase in a couple of months.