Account based marketing is a strategic approach to marketing based on account awareness in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one. Through a close strategic alignment between sales and marketing, we focus on target accounts that fit our ICP (ideal customer profile).
Account based marketing sits next to field marketing and is similarly aligned to sales. Account based marketing looks at an account or target account as a market of one, versus marketing to the total addressable market or to a specific region. This type of marketing is executed by the account based team whereas field marketing is focused on lead gen and account centric marketing.
The account based marketing team works in GitLab using MR's, issues, and boards. We have a public slack channel (#abmteam) for quick communications and questions. We also have a private slack channel for team communications.
Emily Luehrs
Manager, Account Based Marketing
Megan O'Dowd Account Based Marketing Manager
The account based marketing team is responsible for all account based marketing strategies, finding and targeting our ideal customer, and managing our ideal customer profile.
**Our highest value target accounts. These are 1:1 campaigns to engaged accounts that are a strategic priority to GitLab and the business.
Will include roughly 50 accounts at any given time globally. These accounts will receive an orchestration play that is a medium lift and focused on like accounts. This means there may be three different campaigns running in the segment, focused on a set of accounts rather than customized to a single account.
Will include 75-100 accounts globally at any given time. These accounts will have a digital campaign based on use case along with light email and SDR support
The account based marketing team will be monitoring accounts in all tiers and adjusting the level of marketing support for these accounts based on the accounts tiering qualifications. For an example, if an account is currently in tier 3 and then meets all of tier 2 qualifications, that account will be moved to tier 2. Additionally, the account team will be notified and brought in to strategize and engage in the marketing plan appropriately.
Accounts can also move tiers by being nominated by sales and accepted by the account based team. This is done through completing this issue template and assigning it to @emilyluehrs. The account will be evaluated by the account based team which has an SLA for a decision within 5 business days of the issue being submitted. Accounts are reviewed quarterly in line with the GL4300 & MM 4000 to ensure we are in line with company goals.
As our ICP iterates (we will be reviewing in July 2020 and then annually after that) we will be moving accounts into the account based strategy and could also be removing accounts or moving them to a lower tier. This could be because the intent signals have dropped to a level that does not support a custom marketing plan, or the sales team is not supporting the marketing plan as needed. An explanation will always be given if an account is moved to a different tier or removed from our account based strategy altogether.
If an account is selected for an ABM campaign there are some clean up/prep todo's that need to happen before the account can be added. This is done in the ABM nomination issue OR as part of the data clean up by the account owner prior to the start of the campaign.
account based- net new or account based- expand)As the account based team is focused on our high value accounts, it is natural to pair our acceleration team with the account based team to help accelerate the overall opportunity. Beginning Q2 FY21, we will be pairing the acceleration team and account-based team in order to align our most senior SDR’s to our highest value accounts while also solving for the need to accelerate sales onboarding and warming up sales territories. In parallel, we will also be incorporating the mapped SDR team in region into the plan and motions of the acceleration teams so as to encourage the transition to more acceleration based tactics across the entire organization, utilizing the intent data and other tools through the account based team. Detailed information about the ABM SDR workflow can be found on the SDR handbook page.
The Account Based Marketing Team owns Demandbase for GitLab. It is a targeting and personalization platform which we use to target online ads to companies that fit our ICP and tiered account criteria. Demandbase also has a wealth of intent data that is available to us through it's integration with Salesforce. For more information about this tool and how you can request leveraging it check out the Demandbase handbook page
The account based team utilizes Pathfactory to create customized experiences and guided content journeys for ABM target accounts. This includes content tracks and customized landing pages. To learn more about Pathfactory you can head over to the Pathfactory handbook page
Research and advisory firm used by companies to develop and orchestrate their account based strategy. We will be following their model for developing our ideal customer profile (ICP) and account based orchestration plays. TOPO research we are using
The ABM team works from issues and issue boards. If you are needing our assistance with any project, please open an issue and tag us using the ~Account Based Marketing label anywhere within the GitLab repo.
The ABM team has a few different boards to manage campaigns and projects as well as our project:
The ABM team uses a combination of labels and milestones to manage our work. In general our labels show the type of work an issue covers, and the milestone show when the work is planned for.
Global labels used by the team:
Account Based Marketing: pulls the issue into the board, and is used to put an issue on the team's radarABM FYI: used to put something on the account based marketing team's radar, however they are not the DRI (example: and account centric campaign being run by field marketing)ABM Campaign: Used to identify account based marketing campaignsABM::blocked: issues/work that is currently blocked. The team may be waiting in additional information or could be planning to execute but at a later date due to other circumstances that will be noted in the issueABM tier 1: issues and epics related to tier 1 campaignsABM tier 2: issues and epics related to tier 2 campaignsABM tier 3: issues and epics related to tier 3 campaignsABM Nomination: tracks all abm account nominations