HOW TO GET SALESFORCE ABM READYFrom lead assignment to reporting, here’s what will change

WHO IS THIS FOR?

THIS GUIDE IS NOT

An argument to adopt or pilot an ABM strategy. There are lots of resources out there to help you formulate an overall strategy. We recommend the resources of our friends at Triblio (triblio.com).

MARKETING OPERATIONS

This guide will help you understand what Salesforce changes are needed for an ABM strategy driven by Salesforce and integrated with your marketing automation system.

SALES OPERATIONS

We know you live in Salesforce and are sensitive to major changes to the CRM. This guide is meant to help you understand what these changes mean for your Salesforce account.

WHY WE WROTE THISSince account-based marketing is in its infancy, most marketing technology vendors have been publishing various articles on strategy and how to align ABM with sales.

Absent from this conversation is how your primary tool, Salesforce, will change. The CRM is already built around the premise of account-based sales, so this guide will outline what needs to change to accommodate an ABM strategy.

We know that inbound marketing and traditional demand generation aren't going away anytime soon, so it would be foolish to completely stop these activities. Since ABM is going to function in parallel with demand generation, your marketing automation system and Salesforce must deepen their integrations to support inbound marketing, account-based marketing and account-based sales.

We’ve helped dozens of businesses move to a blend of inbound and account-based marketing strategies. This guide is about the 12 things that need to change to transform Salesforce into a well-oiled ABM machine.

OBJECT CHANGES

AccountsAccounts have always been the source of truth for prospect and customer accounts. In ABM implementations we're seeing this object created far earlier in the sales and marketing cycle as organizations create various target accounts. The account object is now being used to aggregate the information between leads, contacts, opportunities and tasks, giving metrics like number of qualified names, activity tracking, and overall engagement status.

ContactsContacts have quickly become the home for all outboundprospecting activity. This is where SDRs are managing call cadences while keeping the contacts’ overall status in sync with the account.

LeadsYes you need to use leads, every organization needs a place to dump web form data, tradeshows and random lists. Since demand generation is far from dead, ABM is requiring enhancement to this object, leads can be matched to accounts, assigned to the right reps, and reported along with contact data.

Salesforce has a core data model consisting of leads, accounts and contacts. An organization doing a blend of demand generation and ABM will need to redefine what these objects mean for all core functions.

WORKING WITH ACCOUNT DATA Accounts should now be regarded as the center of demand generation, but working with accounts is different than leads

Sales ops use accounts too. It's important to understand that accounts are also the center of the universe for sales operations. This key overlap needs to be managed in a precise and data-driven way. Marketers can’t create accounts with the same junk data that was used to create a lead. A minimum data standard must be enforced to ensure sufficient information is on the account to allow segmentation, and assignment activities by marketing and sales.

Accounts are managed by teams. Accounts go through a life cycle, which is managed by different people at each stage. For example, a named account will be owned by an account executive, supported by an SDR for outbound cold calling, handed off to customer success when the opportunity closes, and managed by a named support person. The management of these account teams must be incorporated when assigning leads, contacts and accounts.

Account data impacts financial planning. Accounts are the home for territory and capacity planning. This information ensures adequate territory coverage for sales reps, and named account distribution. All of these use cases must be taken into consideration when creating or assigning account-based data, as it must align with the organizations segmentation model.

LEAD TO ACCOUNT MATCHING

Leads are not deadYou need to use leads because most inbound and demand-generation data comes from sources that can be of poor quality, for example online registration forms. The lead object is the place to stage this data ensuring you don't create unqualified accounts. Since most organizations assign leads, an ABM strategy will require you to check if the account of this lead already exists in Salesforce.

Leads must be related to accountsSince leads are not dead, a check must be applied to see if a lead matches an account already in Salesforce. Fuzzy logic matching is needed because form data can't be trusted to provide enough information to match leads and accounts directly. Fortunately, Salesforce has the infrastructure to achieve these complicated matches.

Matches need prioritizationAccount-based sales strategies are going beyond a single account as organizations are selling into account hierarchies. This trend in sales means a fuzzy lead-to-account matching strategy will generate multiple potential results in your CRM. An optimized lead-to-account matching strategy will allow you to prioritize these matches based on account type, region, etc.

OWNERSHIP CONSIDERATIONSThree objects need clear ownersOne of the biggest challenges to an ABM strategy is managing the ownership of multiple objects, not just leads. You now have up to three objects, each with a different potential owner for the same account data. Further complicating this is the fact that accounts and contacts lack out-of-the box tools to manage assignments and keep these object owners in sync. The general ownership model for each of these objects needs to be evaluated using the following questions:

AccountAre named accounts owned by specific account executives? Will SDRs own accounts or will prospect accounts always be owned by account executives?When an owner becomes inactive, which user will these accounts get assigned to?When an account becomes a customer, will it be assigned to an account exeuctive, account manager or customer success?

ContactsDo SDRs manage prospecting activity for specific AEs?Should SDRs manage contacts while an AE manages the account?Will the entire account and contact structure transition to an account executive from SDR ownership?

LeadsWho owns a lead which matches an account owned by an AE, SDR or Inactive Owner?Who owns a lead which matches a target or named account?When a lead does not match an account, should it be assigned right away or when it becomes an MQL?When a lead is to be assigned, should some leads go to specific people and some to a regional or segment round robin?

ABM will require clear ownership between multiple objects

ASSIGNMENT FLOWBest practices for managing object ownership

Account executives are typically the owner of accounts. This assists in territory and capacity reporting by the sales operations team. A more general rule for account ownership is any higher-value account that is expected to be worked (i.e. Named accounts) should be owned by an account executive responsible for selling into the organization, vertical, or region.

Unqualified or prospect accounts can be owned by an SDR who prospects the account, but often this is represented by a secondary field on the account, not the owner field. If there is no AE or SDR to own the account, a system administrator likethe marketing user is often used, which means the account is pending assignment.

Customer accounts should be assigned to an account manager who is responsible for renewals, upsells and the ongoing relationship. Customer accounts often require a team-based approach as other individuals are often involved, including customer success managers, exeuctive sponsors, support personnel, etc.

Contacts are generally owned by SDRs for prospect accounts. This allows a lead-like ownership, assignment and reporting model. If your SDRs support a specific account executive, then your account to contact ownership model should reflect this functional relationship, meaning the contacts are owed by the SDR who supports the AE who owns the account.

Leads which match accounts should be assigned based on the information in the matched account. This can be any of the following scenarios: The account owner becomes the lead owner, the lead is assigned to the account owner’s SDR or a member of the account team, a regional or segment-based round robin if there's no suitable owner on the account, or finally a default queue or round robin if no account segment can be used.

Leads which do not match an account are typically assigned when they become an MQL. These leads should be assigned via regional, segment- or vertical-based assignment rules to a specific individual or via round robin rules.

WHEN OWNERSHIP CHANGESStaff changes and turnover will happen. Yourwell-oiledassignmentplanmusteasilyadapttotherealityofhighsalesturnover,staffpromotions,teamrealignment,etc.Turnoverwillforcesignificantamountsofchangeinanyassignmentfunction.Thiswillrequireyoutomanagethefollowingkindsofassignmentchanges:

AccountexecutivesorSDRsleavethecompany.Salesforcesystemadminsareveryquicktodisableusersandtopreventsysteminstability.Accountsareoftenassignedtosystemadminstemporarilycreatingunassignedorhouseaccountsthatmustbemanagedwhenleadsmatchthisaccount.Theseinactiveuserswillalsobeinroundrobins,accountteamassignments,andownleads,accountsandcontacts.Theserecordswillneedtoquicklybeassignedtotherightuserwhowillcontinuetoworkthesepeopleandaccounts.

SDRsmoveintoadifferentrole.MostsalesorganizationsusetheSDRfunctionasanentry-levelpositionhopingtheywillmoveupintheorganization.Whenthishappensyouwillneedtoupdateroundrobins,accountteamassignments,andreassigntheirleads,accountsandcontacts.

SDRtoAccountExeuctiveteamschange. Asyoursalesorganizationgrows,sodothenumberofSDRteams,causingperiodicre-alignmentofaccountteams.OnceanSDRismovedintoanotherteam,ifyouuseanAEtoSDRteam-basedassignment,youwillneedtore-alignthecontactsownedbytheseSDRstofittheupdatedteamassignmentmodel.

AcontactbecomesanMQLatanunassignedaccount.Thisisthemostsignificantissueforleadfollow-uptime.Ifacontactoraleadwhichmatchesanaccountbecomesqualified,youneedtoensuretheleadorcontactisassignedquicklywithoutallowinginactiveownersoraccountsassignedtosystemadministratorsslowfollow-uptime.

Accountsarereassignedtoadifferentuser. Salesmanagersandsalesoperationsregularlyre-alignaccountsbasedonsegmentationmodelsandday-to-dayneeds.ThereassignmentoftheseaccountswilllikelyrequirecontactsandleadstobeupdatedtoadifferentSDR.

Change in a sales organization is inevitable, putting pressure on the assignment function

STATUSES IN ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING

Lead status à Contact status à Account Status ß Opportunity Stage

An ABM strategy requires you to mange the lineage between lead, contact, opportunity and account stages.

Lead Status. This is the traditional measure of where a lead is in your follow-up process. You should use the lead status to define initial follow-up actions expected by an SDR.

Contact Status. Should mirror or continue from the lead status defined above. Since Salesforce does not support a standard contact status field, this field will need to be created and mapped from the lead status. Often, the most advanced contact status is rolled-up to the account.

Account Status. The overall account status can be maintained in one of three ways. The most advanced stage of the related contacts or opportunity and manual updating of the account status. Depending on the various use cases, the account status should update contact status, for example, when an account becomes a customer, the contact status should become ‘customer.’

Opportunity Stage. This is the traditional way of tracking opportunity progression. Select opportunity stages should control the account status, i.e. a qualified opportunity will qualify the account.

ROUND ROBINS

Segment. Contacts at standard prospect accounts or MQLs which don't match accounts should be assigned to an SDR based on regional or explicit information like company size or industry.

Account Team. When multiple SDRs manage prospecting for a single AE, team-based round robins will be needed to select an SDR to work prospects at a target account.

Outbound. A growing trend is to assign high-value MQLs which match accounts to specialized SDR teams or AEs based on account information like region, employees or revenue.

Default. MQLs that need assignment can lack enough data for a segment-based round robin. These leads will need to be routed to a general group of SDRs.

These are quickly becoming the easiest way to manage assignments across teams of sales people. There are four different types of round robins often implemented.

Finalize matched account rulesOnce matched account rules are working the way everyone in the organization expects. Organizations are starting to take the next step and automate the conversion of leads into the match account (and contact, if one already exists).

Plan the auto convert logicAfter your lead to account matching rules are in place, begin testing the number of leads which match various accounts. Some organizations will find that 30 – 50% of their MQLs already match accounts. This volume of data needs to be carefully managed and communicated to sales users.

Refine auto convert rulesSince large volumes of data have the potential of matching accounts, you may need to refine your rules to only include accounts which have an opportunity, or leads with a responded campaign.

LEAD AUTO CONVERT RULESWhen leads match accounts, just auto convert them

MQL FOLLOW-UP TRACKING

Marketing works hard to create MQLs, so don't waste them with poor follow-up. Salespeople know what gets measured gets managed, so you should track the exact amount of time it takes a sales rep to log a follow-up task. The reinforcement of this tracking can improve actual response time. There are a few considerations for this kind of tracking program:

Business Hours. The lead that requests a demo at 11 p.m. on Friday night isn't 3 days old by Monday morning. A good tracking system will use Salesforce business hours to determine the exact age of the lead in business hours and calculate an appropriate average follow-up time.

Contacts are MQLs too. Account-based marketing strategies are starting to create MQLs from contacts, so your follow-up tracking must include leads and contacts.

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS FOR MQLS

ACTIVITY TRACKING Task à Leads à Accounts ß Contact ß Opportunity

Reps are now managing leads, accounts, contacts and opportunities. This is spreading task tracking across multiple entities.

Two types of task tracking:Task types — Measure the type of activity the salesperson is doing. Are leads only ever being followed up via email, or are calls being logged?Last Activity Dates — How many days has it been since the most recent activity on a lead, contact, opportunity or account? These dates can help you identify leads, contacts or accounts that have gone dead.

There are several considerations when managing this kind of task tracking:

• Tasks should be rolled up to leads, contacts and opportunities. Then, task counts should be rolled up to the account. This will allow you to track frequency of follow-up by lead, contact and account.

• Tasks created by various automation systems should be filtered out because these tools create exponentially more tasks than people.

REPORTING CHANGES Bridging lead, contact and account reporting

MQL counts. ABM is making reporting that used to be easy—like counting MQLs—into more difficult tasks. When MQLs can be contacts, the simple MQL report now requires joining lead and account data.

Defining a qualified account. Experts at SiriusDecisions, TOPO and Gartner are recommending that the focus of marketing reporting be on qualified accounts. But what defines a qualified account? This is a new metric that your organization needs to define. Is it an opportunity created at the account, a lead or contact passing a specific stage, a lead generated at a dead account, etc.

Call lists. When only leads were being managed, list views and call reports were easy to set up and share with salespeople. While it sounds easy enough, sales reps struggle to work from multiple Salesforce tabs and reports. Leads and contacts should be bridged into simple lists, which will make a rep’s job—and your job—much easier.

Account-based marketing is spreading data across lead, contact, account and opportunities. This new data model is unintentionally complicating reporting.