Frequently Asked Questions about Agile Account-Based Marketing

We have compiled a list of questions, even doubts and objections about Agile ABM. Feel free to ask us anything that is unanswered here.

In a nutshell: what is Agile Account-Based Marketing?

It’s a natural evolution in account-based marketing that creates

• a smoother and more personalized experience with the vendor for the leads
• better quality leads and a faster sales cycle for the sales department,
• more kudos to marketing
• faster pipeline-velocity and better sales-marketing alignment

The way Agile ABM achieves this is inserting an element of multi-threaded, personal outreach to multiple tier 1 and 2 decision makers into the ABM process.

This outreach is aimed at selected, high-potential accounts who show signs of interest on the vendor’s digital platforms early, in the pre-MQL stage. The outreach itself is performed personally via phone/voicemail, Linkedin or email - often all three simultaneously.

As a result of the outreach, vendors get rich information very fast about intent and plans from high up in the prospect’s organization and are able to seed themselves very early in the process.

“What organizations benefit from Agile ABM?”

Companies creating complex solutions for enterprises; often with sales cycles lasting 6+ months will benefit the most from adding an agile angle to their ABM process.

“Should we get SDRs to do Agile ABM?”

They can. What we have found is that in most organizations, SDRs aren’t trained for cold outreach. They often lack the experience to engage VP- or C-level decision makers. SDRs are normally trained to follow up on marketing-qualified leads, and not cold prospects.

If that isn’t the case and sales development reps are capable of executing this guerrilla ABM strategy, then marketing has to agree with sales on the new “setup”, where SDRs will be deployed in new ways, under the supervision of marketing. This is easy where sales and marketing departments are merged, but quite a bit of a challenge otherwise.

For this reason, marketing departments looking to test an Agile ABM strategy often hire a whitelabel BDR partner to act on their behalf.

“What if sales doesn’t want to help out with SDRs?”

This strategy works best when marketing is controlling the process and in many cases, it’s hard/impossible to get sales on board. If that’s the case, partnering with a whitelabel provider such as Infinityn is a reliable way to launch a pilot, test and experience results in a short timeframe.

“Isn’t this strategy too aggressive? We wouldn’t want to ramp down on leads’ C-suite before it’s time”

That is a valid concern; if the execution is wrong, it could ruin the start of a relationship with key prospects. That’s why it’s advisable to use a partner with experience and proven Agile ABM processes. When done properly, Agile ABM feels authentic and is welcomed on the receiving end. It speeds up the sales cycle and help edge out competitors because the vendor gets access to C-suite and aids sense-making earlier than their counterparts.

“We are already doing something similar”

Many enterprises have started to evolve their ABM processes and are leaning towards an agile, multi-threaded and proactive outreach. They have started implementing pieces of the Agile ABM puzzle, which just makes it easier to launch the “real thing”.

Some marketing departments prefer to seek advice on how to implement Agile ABM the right way in their organizations, while others look to Infinityn to whitelabel the project.

"We already have a super-strong SDR team and they can take this on"

This question/objection to working with a partner is a stronger variation of the previous question. In pre pandemic times, we would advise these companies to do the implementation of AABM in-house - with perhaps advice from a partner like Infinityn International. 

However, with the business environment changing, it is advisable that companies step up their personal outreach to both prospects and existing clients. In order to stay relevant and have a meaningful presence, outbound teams should be performing much more human outreach than previously.

For most organizations, it makes sense to meet this new challenge by working with a partner initially. During the collaboration, hiring&training for an enlarged internal team can start; perhaps also with the help of the whitelabel partner.