A Practitioner’s Guide to Account-Based Marketing: Accelerating Growth in Strategic Accounts
£28.50
Account-based marketing, also known as client-centric marketing, is in the process of transforming modern marketing practice. It involves taking a strategic approach to business to business marketing, whereby important individual accounts are treated as markets in their own right. After all, many of the world’s leading companies have annual revenues the size of some countries’ GDP, so for the businesses that provide services and solutions to these companies, such key accounts truly do represent a global market. A Practitioner’s Guide to Account-Based Marketing explores the development of account-based marketing (ABM) as a business practice, and outlines a clear, step-by-step process for readers who wish to set up an ABM programme to accelerate growth.
Rich with fascinating case studies and personal stories, A Practitioner’s Guide to Account-Based Marketing offers readers privileged access to lessons learned by pioneering companies in the field, including BT, Fujitsu, IBM, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, SAP, and many more. The text is fully endorsed by the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), who run the only formally recognized qualification in the sector: the Account-Based Marketing Certification Programme. Meticulously researched and highly practical, A Practitioner’s Guide to Account-Based Marketing will help all marketers strengthen relationships, build reputation, and increase revenues in their most important accounts.
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (3 Mar. 2020), Kogan page |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 288 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0749479892 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0749479893 |
| Dimensions | 15.24 x 1.91 x 24.13 cm |
by Tunde Williams
An excellent guide with lots of practical examples. It demystifies ABM, making it accessible to people from different backgrounds. A great read!
by Mark Clifton
This book provides a clear, easy to follow, overview of Account Based Marketing. I have learned so much from this text, highly recommended.
by Catherine W
The Practitioner’s Guide to Account Based Marketing is an excellent read. It not only provides a step by step guide to the complete ABM lifecycle, what to do and how to do it, but also terrific insight and great case study examples from real field marketers who use these techniques every day. Burgess and Munn have built a very successful association providing advice, training and guidance for many organisations setting off on the ABM journey, and we are lucky now to be able to share in their learnings through this book.
I have seen ABM in action for many years, both providing 1:1 tailored marketing plans for strategic pursuits and now leveraging digital innovation for more industrialised but still personalised campaigns. The challenge has always been in building leadership confidence that investing up front in slow burn customer relationships can pay dividends. Burgess and Munn deal with this head on, challenging thinking on which accounts to target and how to evidence return on marketing investment.
While much of the advice contained within the book is classic B2B marketing, and not “new news”, understanding how to apply it to a “market of 1” and how to build those all-important relationships with sales is extremely valuable. What is new is the huge quantity of worked examples and how-to guides which walk you through each stage of the process in detail. I particularly enjoyed the section on the top five ABM techniques, compared with those most commonly used for ABM-lite, versus the approach for programmatic ABM. That got me thinking again about the practical differences between building relationships with multinational accounts and those customers in smaller businesses, and how modern ABM thinking can flex to accomodate both ends of the scale.
I was fortunate to pick up a copy of this book when it was first published and have already re-read sections many times over. Burgess is an enthusiastic and compelling writer and, while I hesitate to describe any business book as a page-turner, it is highly readable and simply useful. If you are considering setting out on the ABM journey or curious about whether your account relationships might perform better, I would recommend this book as a very good place to start.
by @Timothy_Hughes
I’ve read a number of books on Account Based Marketing (ABM) and this for me is the best. Other books seemed to be more focused on product (how ABM works with Salesforce). This gets to grips with the concepts, the “why” as well as the “how”. Bev and Dave also provide case studies, so you have a good balance between theory and practice. I’ll be honest this isn’t a romcom and probably not beach reading but I felt I knew what ABM was and how to implement an ABM program after reading this. I need to declare an interest that I got this book as we share publishers, just so you know, I’m not just saying this is a good book on ABM as we share publishers, it really is.
by Bobby Tables
For many this book could or should be a game-changer; getting you to think about not only marketing as an entire being but also to focus different resources and approaches to different strategic account types. Further focussing an already (hopefully) directed marketing beam, you could say, through account-based or key account marketing, a strategic means of marketing.
This concept is not new, but it is less common than it should be in many cases, since it treats each individual prospect or customer account as a market of one. Obviously, you are not going to sell a 20-euro widget this way, but for larger “enterprise” prospects this can be a different matter. That said, even a large prospect company may have different departments that have different needs and they could even be viewed as different markets. This approach for marketing may not only increase sales but it can change the dynamic between supplier and supplied, leading to a closer, stronger and lengthier relationship. It requires more work, of course, but at this level the rewards can be worth it. Even if you have attracted a customer with your marketing, it does not mean that your marketing efforts end there – sustaining and informing the relationship then may take over the nature of your marketing activity.
The reader is therefore educated and guided through the entire process in this accessible, easy-to-follow and very engaging book. The enlightened company following this process would be advised to really leverage the gathered data and insights and share them internally, as it can yield great additional knowledge to benefit the company-at-large. Don’t throw anything away, even if you are going to make a personalised approach to each prospect.
This book is more than well-written theory and advice, it is backed up with many case studies shedding light on how the approach is used in many account-based marketing situations. Of course, not everything is sweetness and light, but you can learn by mistakes made and problems received and hopefully avoid them or handle them within your own implementations. It can also help challenge other possibly outdated elements of thought about marketing, communications and even business too if you let it!
It does a great job at imparting information and enthusing the reader, it manages to balance well the needs of different types of reader too. It certainly feels to be a book that you may want to keep close-at-hand and revisit from time-to-time as additional perspectives may emerge as your experience grows within this subject.
If you are marketing or selling to larger enterprises, you will want to consider a book like this if you are not already doing account-based marketing. Even if you are, this book will not break the bank and you only need to find one little tweak to your approach to get your investment back in spades!
by Will C
Very informative