N.Rich story on implementing ABM

N.Rich is an ABM company. We deal in marketing campaigns and intent data. We're very data-driven. And we didn't have an ABM program... 

I joined in March and that was oneF of my first questions actually.

I was like, hi, do you guys do ABM? No, we don't. Okay. Weird. So we thought we'd do it.

It started a very flippant like, oh, we should really use our own tools and, we should drink our own champagne.

But it turned out an enormous project and it's really given us a lot of insight into how our customers are feeling about all this.

So we thought it would be really like point A to point B, decide to do it, do it, done.

What actually ended up happening is that we spent almost a month on the definitions of things. So we had to agree on our ICP and for context, we were in agreement about our ICP... until we started talking about it.

So we had a written down definition. We had a very established, very successful sales team that was working on ICP. Everything was in place until someone said, "Let's agree on ICP"... and then it just all went downhill.

We decided that we don't agree on it, we've changed it. Then started working on our accounts.

These are Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. Then we decided that we don't agree on that at all, so we changed it again.

So, there was a lot of work to do even before we got to the kind of the, the lovely coloring and part of, you know, creating the content and creating the campaigns.

The definitions took the longest.

So give yourself time to decide on things because people will fight a lot about things that you thought were just common sense. 

One thing we did get right though is making sure that everyone was in the room where these conversations happened.

At this stage, C-suite will be one of the weird ones to get involved. But if your C-suite doesn't understand how long getting ABM off the ground takes, they will start kicking off a lot earlier than you guys will be able to generate any kind of returns from ABM.

So, important to get them involved, and understand why it's important to switch strategies with the tool stack side of things so you can get a massively unfair advantage here. 

We ourselves use HubSpot as our CRM because it's my one and only true love. And then we obviously use N.Rich as our ABM platform because it would be stupid not to.

Effectively this is how it works for us. N.Rich and HubSpot have a solid integration.

So N.Rich pulls ICP accounts from HubSpot. So all of our data lives in HubSpot and we push that into N.Rich for marketing, for advertisement, for all that kind of good stuff.

Then en N.Rich pushes back data about intent signals. So first-party and third-party data like ad engagement, website visits, all that kind of stuff.

So all of that information goes in two directions. So accounts one way, all of the other info the other way.

Then what we've got is HubSpot workflows, which kind of prioritize things for SDRs.

Assign engaged and hot accounts to SDRs. Basically, all the heavy lifting that back in the day would've been done by a marketing operations person just frantically assigning leads. This is done via automation in HubSpot.

The other thing that I'm setting up as well as a little summary of all of the ABM stuff that's taking place in the accounts. So like, which ads they've seen, just basically all of the info N.Rich pushes, but like in a lovely little summarized section of tone in HubSpot.

And then obviously we're gonna have alerts for SDRs when their accounts become engaged. That's an interesting one because it's not been done before. Like obviously we've used intent data quite extensively enriched for many years, but... always manually. 

And then when it comes to like reporting and everything, HubSpot will act as our one source of truth, our one and only.

We've also got analytics, dashboards, and N.Rich, but the key with all of this is that at any given moment if the strategy changes, I can go in and change things in my tool stack.

I can tweak the HubSpot workflows. I can adjust the segments within N.Rich. I can do all of these things without tons of hours.

Very important. If you want to run an ABM campaign, you need to make sure that your tools allow you to run it in a very agile way and allow you to respond to changes in the market, changes in the strategy, and changes in teams' setup.

If they don't, you will end up spending more time on it than you need to.

So in summary, treat ABM with the care and consideration that it deserves because it's massive.

But it's beautiful when it works well. Before you set the program live, educate your team. Make sure it's in terms of what they understand, don't alienate them with buzzwords. Set yourself the right KPIs because otherwise your ABM campaign will just get canceled.

Treat it again as a strategy, not as a project. 

Want to learn more about N.Rich? Just check their website.

If you're looking for accessible and high-quality intent data, check IntentHub by N.Rich.