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Increase Partner Marketing ROI with Hyper-Targeted ABM Account Lists

June 1, 2023

Account-based marketing (ABM) has made a big impact on enterprise marketing programs and pipeline generation over the past few years because of its ability to hone in on and accelerate deals with best-fit, high-value accounts. With ABM, select accounts are treated like individual markets, with tailored interactions and content at every step of their journey. Realizing the benefits of this approach, marketing teams have fully embraced ABM, especially within the enterprise segment. The adoption is further underscored by the myriad software companies that have popped up with different tools to support running ABM campaigns. 

Why ABM for partner marketing

Despite its uptake on marketing teams, partner marketing teams have been slower to incorporate ABM into their campaign strategies. Large enterprises spend millions each year running ads and putting on co-marketing events with partners, but up until now most companies aren’t thinking of partner-specific ABM programs.

Why is that? Well, the first step of any ABM program is to identify the set of accounts you want to engage with targeted messaging, content, ads, experiences and so forth.  Up until recently there hasn’t been an easy way to map partner accounts to identify the “high-value, best fit” list to target with an ABM program. Fortunately, with PartnerTap’s ecosystem platform there’s a very easy way to identify new logo and expansion accounts with every partner. Now partner marketers can reap the amazing revenue growth opportunity that ABM gives us.

The 5 steps partner marketers can take to run ABM campaigns and generate more revenue      

Here are the five steps that partner marketing teams can take to start running high-impact ABM programs and generate more pipeline and revenue with each partner: 

  • Step 1: Identify new logo accounts to target with each partner
  • Step 2: Use your hyper-targeted account lists to get MDF for your new ABM program
  • Step 3: Build a scalable ABM program that can extend across partners 
  • Step 4: Share and track partner pipeline on your ABM target accounts
  • Step 5: Enable your sellers to co-sell with partners and close opportunities faster

Step 1: Identify new logo accounts to target with each partner

PartnerTap’s enterprise-grade account mapping software gives partner marketing teams a secure platform to share data and map accounts with partners. PartnerTap syncs with your CRM and lets you upload partner spreadsheets or invite partners to connect directly for real-time data sharing (or both!). PartnerTap will instantly map your partner accounts against your data to identify all overlapping accounts, mutual customers, and specific new logo accounts for each side. 

Once you’ve mapped data with a partner you can identify new logos and mutual accounts in just one click. 

PartnerTap's product dashboard demonstrating how partners can co-sell. Shows hot prospects and how to help my partner.

Click on the Hot Prospects button to see the new logo accounts this partner can help you get into. 

  1. Review the data you now have for each new logo account. Information your partner has shared is available in the green columns.
  2. Use filters to narrow down your list of new logo accounts based on industry, segment, region, or any other field you’ve brought into PartnerTap.
  3. Export the list of high-value new logo accounts you want to target with an ABM program. 
PartnerTap's product dashboard with a drill down view showing a list of hot prospects.

Click on the Help Your Partner tile to see the accounts that are new logos for your partner.

  1. Review the data you now have for each account that could become a new logo for your partner.
  2. Use filters to narrow down a list of new logos for your partner based on industry, segment, region, or any other criteria you know is important to them.
  3. Export the list of high-value new logo accounts your partners can target by co-investing in your new ABM program.
PartnerTap's product dashboard with a drill down view showing a list of accounts to help your partner.

Click on the Mutual Customers tile to see the accounts of customers you have in common.

  1. Review the data you now have for mutual accounts that could provide an opportunity for expansion for you and your partner.
  2. Use filters to narrow down your list of mutual customers based on industry, segment, region, or any other criteria to target expansion accounts. 
  3. Export the list of high-opportunity accounts you want to show your partner to get them to co-invest in your new ABM program.
PartnerTap's product dashboard with a drill down view showing a list of accounts that are mutual customers between you and a partner.

Step 2: Use your hyper-targeted account lists to get MDF for your new ABM program

Your partners already provide MDF for your partner marketing programs. Your new hyper-targeted list of accounts gives you a chance to pitch your partner for more MDF to fund a new ABM partner marketing program targeting these specific accounts. Not only will there be opportunities to grow revenue with net new logos (for both you and your partner), there will also be opportunities for expansion on existing shared accounts. 

Step 3: Build a scalable ABM program that can extend across partners 

With PartnerTap it is easy to repeat step 1 above with tens, hundreds, and even thousands of partners to create your targeted account lists. And getting even one million in new MDF would be more than enough to fund a very successful ABM program for you and your partners. But it’s important to keep scalability and repeatability in mind. 

The magic of ABM is in the hyper-targeted account-based messaging to land the right message with the right audience at the right time, accelerating the sales cycle. 

With the right data and a hyper-targeted approach, you have an opportunity to build a high-ROI ABM program that turns your list of new logos as well as existing accounts into new opportunities. But doing this across tens or hundreds of partners will require an agency with the right experience and technology to build and run hyper-targeted ABM programs that can scale across hundreds of partners. That’s where our network of channel agency partners comes into play.  

Our channel agency partners help enterprises like HP, AT&T and AWS generate more partner revenue with high-performing ABM campaigns. Starting with data from PartnerTap, our channel agency partners work with you to design each ABM program, and then run the campaigns on your behalf. They handle everything from design and assets through tracking the engagement and opportunities created on each account. 

Step 4: Share and track partner pipeline on your ABM target accounts

Once your ABM campaigns are generating qualified opportunities, it’s important to track those partner opportunities as they move through the sales cycle. You need visibility into the opportunities your ABM campaigns generated to:

  • Ensure they all show up as registered deals so everyone gets proper credit
  • Track and update your forecast based on each partner’s expected timing to close each deal
  • Let your partners know the status of your deals
  • Track the pipeline and closed revenue sourced by your ABM investment and campaigns 

Tracking pipeline plays a critical role in documenting attribution as well as ROI. This has traditionally been done by manually sending spreadsheets of opportunities back and forth each week. This is time consuming and messy so that’s why we built our pipeline tracking module – to move the pipeline sharing process from spreadsheets and emails into our secure ecosystem platform. With PartnerTap you can now get real-time visibility to your partner’s pipeline in just one click.

PartnerTap's product dashboard demonstrating how to share and track partner pipeline.

Step 5: Enable your sellers to co-sell with partners and close opportunities faster

The days of selling alone are long gone. The fastest growing companies today are selling with their partners. But even a great partners-mindset can’t help reps co-sell if they don’t know who to co-sell with. Fortunately, PartnerTap’s Ecosystem Sales Platform makes this easier than ever.

In the platform, reps get real-time, always up-to-date details on the partner sales team for each account. This enables them to quickly identify and connect with AEs and product specialists from partners that already have strong existing relationships at their accounts. 

With PartnerTap, reps can easily share select data with their trusted partners, automate real-time data mapping, and collaborate on new and existing pipeline so they can work and close deals faster, together.   

A PartnerTap module within a Salesforce instance that shows all the partners of a given account.

Beat the campaign odds and help Sales crush their goals

We built PartnerTap to help sales reps and companies drive more revenue with and through partners. In 2023 it has now become the must-have partner sales solution for companies that need to hit aggressive revenue goals with fewer resources. If you’d like to learn more and hear strategies for unlocking growth in 2023, you can request a demo or contact us for a strategy discussion.

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