A Simple Guide to ABM Best Practices in 2023

Building Account-Specific Teams 

If you’re a startup founder with a compelling solution for the market, you need to reach those customers with the highest propensity to take action. This is where building account-specific teams becomes a necessity. It would be best to gather a team of experts who can work together to create a personalized experience for your highest-value customers.

With an account-specific team, each member can bring their skills. Your marketer can create messages that speak directly to the customer’s needs. Your analyst can find helpful information about the customer’s preferences. And your product management group can design a plan that perfectly fits their needs.

Every interaction becomes a chance to make a lasting impression. From customized emails to tailored product demonstrations, your account-specific team ensures each contact suits that customer. They understand their problems, anticipate their needs, and create an experience beyond expectations.

In 2023, account-specific teams will be critical for startups to create exceptional experiences. Here’s how you can get started.

1. 1. Select a team management tool: Evaluate Slack, Asana, and Trello to find the one that best suits your company and team’s communication styles and preferences. 
   2. Make a dedicated team for each account: Once you have chosen a team management tool, create separate groups for each account targeting. This approach ensures effective organization and allows you to focus on specific account-related messages, tasks, and activities within each team.
   3. Add the right team members to each team: Carefully select team members who require access to a particular account. This step helps maintain a clean and secure team management tool, allowing only those directly involved with accurate access to relevant information and discussions.
   4. Assign appropriate permissions: Once team members are added to each account-specific team, assign them the appropriate permissions within the team management tool. This step determines what actions they can perform and what information they can view, ensuring proper control and security.
   5. Start leveraging your account-specific teams: Once you have completed the setup and configuration, utilize your account-specific teams for effective communication and collaboration. Use them as dedicated spaces to exchange ideas, share updates, and coordinate efforts related to the epic account.

Make your account-specific teams more organized and efficient with these tips:

• Use consistent names: Give your teams names that follow a standard format. This makes it easier to find the team you’re looking for.
• Provide clear descriptions: Write detailed reports for each team to give team members a clear understanding of their purpose. 

For example, the marketing team’s description could be “Team dedicated to managing communications and tasks for [Client Name].”

You can tag the sales teams with relevant pipeline stages like “Prospecting” or “Negotiation.”

• Keep teams up-to-date: As your startup evolves, regularly update your teams to reflect any changes in your team’s composition or structure. This ensures that team members have accurate information about their roles and responsibilities.

Here’s how startups can effectively use account-specific teams.

Marketing team

Create teams for each major client to keep track of all communications and tasks related to them. For instance, the team description for Client A could be “Team responsible for developing tailored marketing strategies and campaigns for Client A.”

Sales team

Make teams for different sales pipelines. It allows collaboration on deals and tracking progress. For example, the team description for the “Enterprise Sales” team could be “Team focused on closing high-value enterprise deals and maintaining customer relationships.”

Product team

Have teams for each product to discuss development and address issues. For instance, the team description for the “Product X Development” team could be “Team dedicated to designing and improving features of Product X based on user feedback and market trends.”

But what makes this practice important? 

Without account-specific teams, companies may face the following challenges in their ABM efforts:

• Lack of alignment, resulting in inconsistent experiences.
• Generic targeting and messaging that fails to resonate with specific accounts.
• Missed opportunities for personalization and tailored approaches.
• Inefficient resource allocation and suboptimal use.
• Limited insights and measurement capabilities for individual accounts.