Are we ABM ready?
That’s the question Jamie Armstrong, Marketing Manager at BICS, a global leader in digital transformation and enterprise communication, asked himself.
BICS, like many technology firms, has grown over the years through more traditional Sales and Marketing efforts, with a particular focus on lead generation strategies.
But, the company and the markets in which it operates has changed.
BICS was now firmly focused on winning and growing its share of the enterprise market, and it needed a new game plan.
This is the story of BICS and Jamie Armstrong’s ABM journey.
An ABM story of a change of mindset, achieving alignment, and preparing the building blocks to conquer the enterprise market.
Join us, as we share this ABM Heroes story of alignment and ABM readiness with you.
At a glance:
- Challenge: A new marketing strategy to target and win enterprise accounts
- Solution: Internal alignment around a One-to-few ABM strategy.
- Results: True ABM readiness – with a new mindset, aligned teams, new capabilities, and an ABM-ready tech stack – all providing a firm foundation for business growth.
Meet Jamie - the ABM catalyst
Introducing Jamie Armstrong, Marketing Manager at BICS.
Jamie’s B2B Marketing career has seen him work for several leading technology firms.
His work has focused particularly on strategic planning, demand generation, and campaign management.
On joining BICS in late 2022, he was set the challenge of winning enterprise accounts with a new marketing strategy.
Despite our strong presence in the Telco market, we needed to build awareness within the enterprise market,” said Jamie
Account-based Marketing was the obvious candidate to help address this challenge.
Jamie recognized that the benefits of targeting Enterprise businesses with an Account-based approach would bring significant benefits to the organization, and help BICS meet its aggressive growth objectives:
- Building relationships with senior target account business executives
- The ability to engage target accounts earlier in the decision-making process
- The effective positioning of BICS’ capabilities and credentials around its new CPaaS proposition
- The shaping of the conversation as a valued and trusted advisor in this space
Launching an ABM strategy is no simple task. It requires deep knowledge, resources, and experience. It also requires deep alignment between Sales and Marketing.
“We recognized the need for specialized expertise and a strategic approach to ABM, to achieve our goals,” Jamie reflected.
And so the ABM adventure begins...
A look at BICS
Established in 2004, BICS is at the heart of the communications ecosystem, enabling the global mobility of people, applications and things, wherever they are.
With its headquarters in Europe (Belgium) and teams all over the world, BICS’ solutions span global voice and messaging to IoT, roaming, and cloud communications.
With BICS’s enterprise growth and acquisition strategy firmly defined, it is well-placed to benefit from the technology transformation opportunities that arise globally.
The Challenge
Jamie Armstrong had identified three main challenges to resolve before BICS could launch an ABM strategy:
1. Change in mindset
An Account-based approach requires a change in mindset - not just of the Marketing team, but also of Sales and Leadership.
Why?
- The shift from lead-centric to account-centric
- The need for deep alignment between teams, most notably Sales and Marketing
- The demand for deep personalization
- An emphasis on account intelligence
- A new way to measure results and performance
- The need for organizational alignment and Executive buy-in
On joining the company, Jamie recognized that the lead-centric approach would not meet the new enterprise challenge he and BICS faced. But, any switch of this nature and depth requires a carefully planned and orchestrated education and trust-building program.
The switch from leads to targeting high-value accounts would mean achieving consensus on who and why, as key milestones.
2. State of ABM readiness
Was BICS ready for ABM?
That was the question Jamie posed himself. He knew from experience and conversations with peers and ABM experts that there were several gaps.
One of the most important being Sales and Marketing alignment. There was work to be done.
“Whilst people understood we needed to ‘do ABM’, it was difficult to know where to start – and who did what,” Jamie recalls.
The answers to these questions and more help define your state of readiness for an Account-based strategy.
3. Defining an ICP
As with many companies, there was no clear definition of what BICS’ Ideal Customer was. Each department and leader had their own definition.
This lack of clarity meant that effective account selection and targeting were suboptimal.
BICS had grown with an outbound Sales and lead generation model. While effective in its earlier years it was not fit for purpose as BICS evolved its thinking to target high-value strategic accounts.
“We had kicked things off internally, but programs would often stop and start, and then freeze.”
The Discovery
Definitions and set goals
The primary objective for BICS’ new ABM strategy was to drive growth in the Telco and Enterprise markets.
In addition, Jamie set the following additional objectives for this new ABM strategy:
At this point, Jamie made and won his case for bringing in external support in the form of a specialist ABM Agency, strategicabm.
As BICS was launching an Account-based Marketing strategy from scratch, Jamie needed to call on deep expertise and experience to support his Marketing team in this new ABM adventure.
“We chose strategicabm after reading many of their newsletters and signing up for one of their ABM Lunch & Learn sessions. That was followed by an ABM Readiness workshop, and we’re now partnering with them to provide a comprehensive, strategic approach tailored to our specific needs.”
Jamie Armstrong | Marketing Manager | BICS
ABM Readiness process
The first part of this new collaboration was to get BICS ‘ABM ready’. Together, the two firms ran a series of workshops, data exchange sessions, and reviews to calibrate:
- Business objectives and context for ABM
- ABM program-type recommendations
- Assessment score of current Sales and Marketing alignment
- Resource recommendations (budget + people)
- Review of in-house capabilities and capacity
- Technology assessment
- ABM success measurement
- ABM reporting recommendations
The output from this four-week process was a detailed ABM Readiness report with clear recommendations and next steps.
From the workshop, the two teams learnt that there was a relatively low level of ABM maturity within the wider organization at BICS.
The Marketing team was the main driver of the ABM strategy. During the workshop, some key areas were baselined, as follows:
Based on the ABM Readiness process, the Agency recommended a One-to-few ABM program aimed at raising BICS’ reputation and building senior executive relationships within a selection of strategic accounts, around the CPaaS proposition.
The final target account list for the One-to-few needed to be validated further, based on additional profiling and data analysis.
A more data-driven approach with this ABM strategy meant using a mix of Fit (ICP), Intent, and Engagement data. This enabled BICS to segment, prioritize, and select accounts in a much more efficient and effective manner.
The initial proposed One-to-few ABM program allowed the firm to develop a repeatable end-to-end ABM process - including the defining of an ABM Strategy, the planning of the campaign, and the execution, measurement and optimization of the activities and outcomes.
Driving alignment
BICS had developed a compelling value proposition. What was missing was how to get this into the right accounts, with the right messaging, in the right way.
Together, the two teams set to work on:
- Account Selection and Insights: Leveraging first- and third- party data to identify and prioritize the right target accounts.
- Content Strategy and Personalization: Creating and executing personalized content strategies that resonated with BICS’ target accounts.
- Sales and Marketing Alignment: Ensuring collaboration and alignment between Sales and Marketing teams to drive ABM success.
Achieving ABM readiness with strategicabm’s support, Jamie saw a clear path to ABM success.
The underpinning aligning Sales and Marketing was achieved. Always essential at the heart of any successful ABM campaign, this collaboration between BICS’ teams heralded a new era for the business, with crucial definitions, target accounts, goals, and KPIs all set and agreed upon.
The Change
The project to achieve ABM readiness at BICS has been highly effective, with significant steps that have opened up new vistas of opportunities for the business.
Firstly, in terms of account selection, a new more collaborative way of working between the GTM and Sales teams has successfully defined the required, universally ratified ICP.
Complementing this, new technology was brought into play. This upgrade was realized as necessary to facilitate the formulation of an account list for the first wave of the One-to-few program – but its usefulness will only increase over time.
“Through the Readiness workshop, we noticed that we had a significant gap in our tech stack, in which we didn’t have access to third-party intent data. We have now brought on a platform that helps to unite both first- and third-party intent data, allowing us to prioritize accounts.” - Jamie Armstrong, Marketing Manager at BICS
Jamie also places great emphasis on the internal shift in mindset that has been achieved within the company.
The term ‘Account-based Marketing’ is now being frequently used in meetings, he says – and crucially, its meaning is now widely understood! “People are considering ABM campaigns for various initiatives,” he reveals.
All of this has set the business up for continued success.
The ABM Readiness process has enabled the launch of BICS’ first ‘ABM pilot’.
Subsequently, further enterprise accounts across a wider geographic area are being chosen and targeted – not for a moment forgetting the existing Telco customers, with those relationships being strengthened on an ongoing basis, through impactful campaign creative.
The Future
The biggest lesson learned at BICS, Jamie says without hesitation, is the importance of data-driven decision-making.
Leveraging both first-party and third-party insights, and smart analytics, is now firmly at the heart of the company’s ABM strategy for the long term.
Guiding the future direction of the business, this “has been crucial in identifying the right accounts, developing effective messaging, and measuring success,” he explains.
“One of the unexpected outcomes was the level of alignment and collaboration achieved between our GTM, Sales and Marketing teams. The ABM program facilitated better communication and joint efforts, leading to more cohesive and effective campaigns.” - Jamie Armstrong, Marketing Manager at BICS
This ABM journey so far for BICS has underscored the value of building solid GTM foundations.
The investment made in getting ‘ABM ready’ has united the company behind one North Star - engaging and winning Enterprise accounts.
The true impact will now be seen as the ABM campaigns are placed in market, and engagement takes off with target accounts.
Growth in all 3Rs - Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue – will follow.
The future’s bright for BICS.
The firm now has a new and robust GTM strategy which is fit for its aggressive growth plans.
There have been many learnings along the way for BICS, but its success started with our ABM hero –Jamie Armstrong.
Here’s to the next chapter in this ABM story.
