Challenges and Solutions of the Account Based Marketing (ABM) Approach in the B2B Market

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At the last Startup Summit, which took place in Florianópolis, we were present with a special focus on solutions for the B2B market, especially in the challenges of demand generation and the session “B2B is Sexy Yes” brought some valuable tips.

The talk by Felipe Spina, founder of the ABM platform Maestro, provided an interesting overview of the ABM scenario in Brazil, opportunities and challenges in the context of B2B sales.

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According to Felipe, today's customers are bombarded with cameroon whatsapp number database messages, without personalization and that make little sense for their business. And the popularization of automated prospecting tools, empowered by Artificial Intelligence, has been worsening the problem.

This scenario increases the challenge of opening new conversations with large companies and requires even more effort for those who need to make complex sales, as is the case with most B2B solutions.

A recent study by Maestro shows that today, 22 points of contact are needed to secure a quality meeting with a large company. Therefore, relying solely on cold outbound will no longer be enough. More than selling, companies need to learn how to help prospects buy.



The account-based approach allows you to better understand this long sales journey from a perspective that makes sense for each prospected company, helping to inform, engage and add value at each stage of the decision process.

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It is a comprehensive vision that involves analyzing, impacting and engaging different points of contact within the same company to expand the surface of interaction and the efficiency of sales cycles. After all, Maestro data shows that the more engaged a company is, with more people interacting, the less time until the first quality meeting.

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Lecture slide



Felipe also pointed out that working with more contacts within the same company brings other advantages in different phases of the sales process, such as avoiding the loss of the customer in case the lead changes companies, reducing blockages and objections from people impacted by the solution, and opening up new possibilities for selling services or products in other areas and sectors of the company.

At a quick glance, the ABM methodology involves 5 steps, ranging from defining the customer to engagement and sales and measuring results.

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The first steps are dedicated to understanding who the client is. Since there will be an investment of energy, time and even money in this client, it is important to make good choices. It is necessary to identify the accounts, the areas and the target people within the areas.

You should approach decision makers, influencers, buyers and people who will be impacted by the solution you want to sell. The strategy can also include people who will not be directly involved in the decision-making process, but who will help design the offer in benchmarking or testing meetings.

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Once the ideal profiles have been identified, the pain points are mapped and the content that will connect with these pain points and help the company move forward with the decision is created, based on the different points of contact.



Felipe commented on some interesting approaches that he and some of his partners have already used:

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Sending personalized coffees, vouchers or gifts to strategic prospects. They once said that they customized Mondelez product packaging to encourage meetings with the company.