Finserv Meets ABM: Union Bank’s Journey to Account-Based Marketing Success

James Meono, Director of Digital Marketing at Union Bank, recently joined us for a webinar, “The Secret to Account-Based Marketing for Financial Services.” James shared Union Bank’s journey to account-based marketing (ABM) and the benefits it holds for Finserv companies.

Here are some of the questions James tackled:

How can marketing and sales be aligned for ABM success?

Before getting on the same page with the sales team, the first step is to gain their buy-in for ABM. It’s traditionally difficult to gain buy-in for new initiatives at large multinational banks, but James Meono did just that. How? He conducted a pilot to test ABM and shared the successful results with sales groups throughout Union Bank. He also made sure his ABM efforts were adding value from the very beginning. James and his team quickly sliced and diced the data to provide sellers and relationship managers with valuable specific company and industry information—the type of account-level data and insights they had never seen before.

After proving-out ABM and gaining momentum, the next step was to continuously refine and improve the program. At Union Bank, marketing and sales are true partners and collaborate closely to determine what’s working, what’s not, and new tactics to try. Near real-time data from the Demandbase platform enables the teams to quickly see results and, if needed, to immediately try a new approach.

How can ABM identify in-market accounts?

Union Bank leverages ABM and the Demandbase platform to identify in-market accounts—those who show signs of actually making a purchase decision soon versus those who may only be engaging online because they’re interested in the general topic area.

Union Bank found that ABM helped:

• Identify new in-market account prospects who weren’t on the radar
• Evaluate which accounts already in play are serious about moving forward
• Determine which existing customers were in the market for cross-sell opportunities

By evaluating intent and engagement data, Union Bank can understand what accounts are in market for a particular product or service. Now, when the sales team approaches a new account or follows-up with an existing one, they know the topics people at that organization are researching and where they are in the buyer journey. That’s valuable information for the salesperson to have in their hip pocket.

How can ABM be integrated with other marketing channels?

With its success at Union Bank, ABM now has as much visibility and focus as other marketing channels, such as programmatic advertising, paid search or paid social. And ABM data and insights are being integrated into and leveraged by those and other marketing areas. For example, intent data showing what prospects are researching can help the content team prioritize the topics it covers for highest impact. And high intent keywords are shared throughout Union Bank’s entire digital team. The SEO team uses them to improve organic search, while the paid search team also focuses on them to boost performance.

Learn more about ABM’s impact in financial services

If you’re working in financial services and considering setting up an ABM program, this is a great opportunity to learn from someone who has already successfully gone through the process. Watch the “The Secret to Account-Based Marketing for Financial Services“ webinar with timely and relevant information including how ABM is helping during COVID, when face-to-face meetings aren’t possible.