Find Out What Martech You Need: An Interactive Evaluator and 4 Strategy Tips

In today’s crowded technology landscape, making a purchase decision can turn into a daunting and unceasing evaluation of vendors. This is particularly true as innovative account-based technologies have exploded onto the scene in recent years. To help B2B marketers make sense of the crowded tech landscape, we launched the ABM Tech Stack Evaluator a couple of years back. The interactive tool provides personalized recommendations based on your B2B challenges.

We’ve included 123 vendor solutions in the enhanced ABM Tech Stack Evaluator.

But as so much innovation has taken place in the short time since then, we went back to the drawing board to make the Evaluator much more powerful and in tune with the current tech landscape. It includes over 100 technology vendors, 39 challenges, and 28 different tech solutions for thousands of possible variations depending on the user’s challenges. (Compare this to the original version with just 17 vendors and 9 challenges!)

The enhanced ABM Tech Stack Evaluator is based on ABX. Here’s why.

The enhanced evaluator is based on Jon Miller’s, CMO of Demandbase, evaluation of ABX technology in his book The Clear & Complete Guide to Account-Based Experience (ABX). (See the chapter on ABX technology, which starts on page 222.) He explored, sorted, and cataloged over one hundred B2B technology vendors according to the five ABX processes: Build, Find, Engage, Close, and Measure.

Building on this work, the enhanced ABM Tech Stack Evaluator doesn’t just address general ABM challenges, it now digs deeper into the challenges that B2B marketers face as they build account-based strategies that take into account the complete customer lifecycle (ABX).

How the Evaluator works

Just answer nine questions centered around the challenges you may have with your current account-based strategy. Your post-submission report will show you:

• Benchmarks by challenge: Find out what percentage of other users share your challenge.
• Recommended solutions: There are up to 28 distinct stack solutions and insights that can resolve thousands of variations to support a scalable account-based strategy customized to your business.
• Key technology vendors: We’ve done the research so you don’t have to. See what vendors (a total of 123 of them, to be exact) match up to the solutions you need.

Armed with your report, you’ll undoubtedly feel more empowered to make your next tech move — whether you’re piloting your first account-based strategy or looking to scale. As your ABM matures, you can always retake the assessment to see how your challenges have evolved.

Once you take the assessment, then what?

Chances are, you have a set of core technologies in your stack. But you may not be sure which technology to invest in next. Don’t be overwhelmed.

Sure, there are a lot of technologies that support ABX, but you don’t need to buy technology from each category to embrace an account-based go-to-market! Every business is different and will have a different tech stack. Identify your unique business goals and challenges, prioritize them, and then match the tech solution incrementally over time.

Four tips to help plan your tech strategy in 2022 and beyond

Think big, but start small. You can dip your toe in the water with a pilot using limited technology (perhaps intent data + LinkedIn), and then invest in an account-based platform when looking to scale to the next stage.

Here are four tips to help you scale your account-based strategy — to ultimately get to the most sophisticated, and highest performing level: ABX.

          1. You don’t have to start from scratch.

You probably already have a CRM system, CMS, or MAS. These technologies will help you build your first-party data, which is the first step in building your ABX foundation.

To get these technologies ABM ready, you’ll need to customize them to focus on your target account list. And you’ll need the ability to identify and group target accounts, determine how they are performing, and deliver these insights to Sales.

          2. Don’t buy software; solve problems.

As you start out with ABM, you can begin to identify gaps in your strategy and decide which ones you want to address first. For example, do you need to reach a wider audience, leveraging data from different sources, like technographics, intent, and advertising? Or are you looking to create more focused outreach, serving up content that appeals to accounts based on what stage they are in their path to purchase? Perhaps you want to create more personalized experiences? There are software solutions for all of those needs.

It’s important to remember that each company is different — with varying business challenges, goals and objectives, and existing technologies in place. So it’s likely that you may not have or need all of the possible technologies. We recommend focusing on what technology will help you to achieve your business goals, in the short term and the long term.

          3. Measure what matters.

Account-based metrics are an integral part of building a solid ABM strategy. Put simply, you want to focus on measuring the impact on the accounts that matter.

While secondary metrics like unique visitors and click-through rate is still valuable information, you will also, and most importantly, want to incorporate metrics that help you identify if you are deepening your relationships if your campaigns are helping to move accounts across their path to purchase, and if you can attribute revenue to your GTM programs.

That’s where an account-based platform comes in. Platforms like Demandbase One are designed to deliver insights that matter most to account-based B2B strategists.

          4. Invest in connecting technologies.

As your ABM strategy becomes more mature, you may want to extend it and add on different pieces to make it even more powerful. For that, you’ll want to ensure that the vendors you choose are capable of extending into the various platforms you will need.

Happily, many point solutions from the early days of ABM are coalescing into a single category known as account-based platforms. These solutions, including the Demandbase One platform, can provide all the essential capabilities: single view of the account, intent, scoring, advertising, segmentation, orchestration, sales insights, and measurement.

Bottom line: With today’s tech advancements, you can get more technology tools in one comprehensive and efficient platform.

Ready to see how your tech stacks up?

Whether you are just starting out or want to take your account-based strategy to the next level, the Tech Stack Evaluator offers recommendations both for starting from scratch and ABM stack fine-tuning.

Ready to see how your tech stacks up? Take the evaluator now.