How To Find Talent With ABM Experience
Has your recent search history included “how to find talent with ABM experience”? If so, Sloane Staffing has you covered with our secrets to finding the best account based marketing candidates.
Account based marketing has been quite the hot topic in the B2B software world during the past few years. According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Trends Report 2022, 70% of marketers reported using account based marketing in 2021, up 15% from the previous year.
While skilled account based marketers have been more and more in demand, the majority of Sloane Staffing clients find that there are not a ton of ABM experts out there. Nor is there a large talent pool of candidates that have experience with the proper ABM tech stacks such as 6sense, Demandbase, Terminus, etc.
Here are the top three concerns we hear from Sloane Staffing clients looking for talent with ABM experience:
1: Lack of ABM experts
There are not a ton of ABM experts out there. So when it comes to finding your ABM manager, it is crucial that they have a full understanding of the sales cycle, from awareness to acquisition. Account based marketing is not like email marketing that has been done for the past 40 years. Remember, ABM is a strategic approach, not a tactic.
2. Strategy
Strategy is the key to success when finding someone to manage your company’s account based marketing. Do not limit yourself to finding an ABM manager that only uses a platform such as 6sense. Find a candidate that understands account based marketing as a whole and has knowledge of other ABM tools like Demand Base and Terminus.
3. Knowledge of ABM Tools
Many companies are looking for help with an ABM integration, however none of their current employees have that technology experience. Find a candidate who has actual knowledge of various ABM tools. Knowing how to use a singular enterprise ABM platform is great, but does your candidate have awareness of other tools? An account based marketing manager should be able to tell you which types of tools are best used for different types of account based marketing strategies, and what type of tool would be best used for your company.
What is Account Based Marketing?
Account based marketing uses the combined expertise of Marketing and Sales to create personalized buying experiences and target mutually-identified sets of high-value accounts.
According to HubSpot, account based marketing can be defined as, “a focused growth strategy in which Marketing and Sales collaborate to create personalized buying experiences for a mutually-identified set of high-value accounts”.
Marketers tend to be more focused on brand building and awareness, while salespeople are more concerned with driving revenue for their company. ABM is a team sport that shares goals, performance targets, and metrics to create a consistent approach to customer engagement that is more timely and efficient, which in turn increases revenue.
How to find your next ABM talent on LinkedIn
Step 1: Conceptualize Your Candidate
Before you begin your LinkedIn search, you must take the time to narrow down what you and your company are looking for. When conceptualizing your candidate, think about the role you’re hiring for with these questions:
Do they have 2-4 years of go-to-market account based marketing implementation experience?
Where is the location of your company? Are you hiring remotely?
What is the compensation range?
What industry is your company in?
Who is your ideal customer profile (ICP)?
Do you want someone with experience in your company’s industry?
Step 2: Targeting on LinkedIn
Once you put your framework together for your ideal candidate, you are ready to target them on LinkedIn. As account based marketing is relatively new field, #MarTechMax would advise against limiting your search and would suggest looking at other marketing titles besides those that solely include “ABM”. Include titles such as “Demand Gen”, “Marketing Operations”, “Digital Marketing”, and “ABM”. If your company just purchased an ABM platform such as 6sense, Max wouldn't limit search to only targeting candidates with 6sense experience. He would suggest searching candidates with other ABM enterprise platform experience as well, such as Demandbase.
Step 3: Key Terms
Use key terms on LinkedIn to scroll through over thousands of ABM candidates in the country. You can filter down more based on location, years of experience, etc.
Step 4: Outbound Personalization
The final step to finding talent with ABM experience is personalization of your outbound. Make sure that your message is concise, relevant, contains what you and your company are looking for, and why you think this candidate would be a good fit for your job opportunity.
Questions to ask in an interview:
Account based marketing is a strategic approach, not a tactic. To make sure you find your next perfect hire, consider asking these questions during your interview:
What account tiering or triaging criteria would you use to decide which type of ABM program to use? For example, one-to-many, one-to-few, or one-one?
Why this works: This question is used to test if the potential candidate understands how the connection between account selection and ABM alignment is crucial to success.
Explain the connection between revenue growth and account based marketing?
Why this works: This question is used to see how the potential ABM manager can bring growth to your company’s revenue and overall value.
How can you be truly customer-centric in the context of account based marketing?
Why this works: Targeting the right accounts is crucial, so your ABM specialist should consider customer pain point fit, high-value opportunities, and company information like maturity/size.
We have not done ABM before, how would you approach things to ensure ABM is successful for us?
Why this works: Remember, the main focus of account based marketing is to align Sales and Marketing to create personalized buying experiences for targeted accounts. Your candidate should be able to explain how their account based marketing strategy will benefit your company and align your company’s Sales and Marketing teams and increase revenue growth.
Why should you choose ABM over other forms of B2B marketing?
Why this works: As important as it is to understand how to implement account based marketing into your company’s growth tactics, it is equally important for your candidate to understand why they are implementing an ABM strategy.
