Who’s your bird in hand 🐦 

In Mexico, we have a saying: ’Más vale pájaro en mano que cien volando,’ or ’A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ in English.

This saying represents a key aspect of nearbound marketing: it’s more valuable to focus on the customers and partners in your ecosystem (a bird in hand) than to target a broad audience without clear signals of interest (birds in the bush).

With limited marketing resources, focusing on a target account list with higher conversion potential is essential.

In today’s email, we’ll go through how you can integrate aspects of ABM into nearbound marketing strategy.

Let’s get into it!

Nearbound ABM 

Nearbound ABM is a strategy that leverages your partner ecosystem to surround the accounts on a targeted list with influence and trust. 

It combines the power of your ecosystem, trusted partnerships, and targeted marketing to accelerate revenue growth and overcome challenges in partnerships, marketing, and sales.

 The narrower your list, the more value you can deliver.  

How to get your CMO to invest in nearbound ABM

To prompt your CMO to consider nearbound ABM, highlight its benefits:

• Partner collaboration: Nearbound ABM utilizes partner ecosystems to enhance marketing effectiveness.

• Collective strategy: It combines ecosystem strengths, partnerships, and targeted marketing for accelerated revenue growth.

• Targeted focus: Narrowing the target account list allows for better value delivery.

• Mutual benefits: Partnerships offer intel, joint value propositions, database access, and collaborative deals.

• Influence on purchase decisions: Leveraging partners helps establish relationships and trust, as customers often rely on recommendations and associations with trusted entities.

Then, emphasize the importance of aligning GTM teams for revenue growth.

Nearbound ABM sharpens focus on valuable accounts, fostering trust nodes around potential buyers. 

By aligning teams and embracing nearbound ABM, you can effectively leverage influence orbits around key customers, driving success.

How to implement a nearbound ABM strategy

Here are the 8 basic steps shared by Jessica Fewless (Director of Partnerships at Inverta) to implement a nearbound marketing strategy: 

Step 1: Define goals.

Align ABM strategy with business objectives. Establish KPIs and monitor them using tools like Reveal’s 360° Goals.

Step 2: Identify partners.

Assess partner portfolio strength. Use Reveal’s insights for collaboration and partner selection.

Step 3: Build an account list.

Utilize Reveal’s data for targeted account filtering. Collaborate with Sales to identify high-value targets.

Step 4: Ensure alignment.

Align internal and partner teams. Develop personalized content and integrate ABM strategy with sales processes.

Step 5: Allocate resources.

Invest in ABM platforms and tools like Reveal. Leverage pipeline tracking for revenue insights.

Step 6: Design campaign.

Develop hyper-targeted content. Engage Marketing, Partnerships, and Sales for effective distribution.

Step 7: Iterate and adjust.

Analyze performance and gather feedback. Continuously improve strategies based on insights.

Step 8: Celebrate success.

Share insights and successes across the organization. Use campaigns as learning experiences for future initiatives.

Learn more in Isaac Morehouse (CMO at Reveal and nearbound.com) and Jessica Fewless’ (Director of Partnerships at Inverta) webinar on nearbound marketing. Catch the replay here.

Things to keep in mind:

• Who are you targeting with this initiative?

• Who has already engaged with you?

• What is the story/message you’re trying to tell?

• What is the action you want them to take? (Leverage an integration, book a demo, learn more about your partnership, download a joint book)

• Which partners should you work with?

• Who surrounds that list of people?

Win the attention of high-value accounts

The effectiveness of outbound and inbound strategies is stalling. Buyers don’t want to see another random name come through their inbox or another ad in their daily deluge of 10,000 impressions (Deloitte).

Today, building trust means delivering the right message at the right time to each individual. Understanding what each account needs is key.

That’s where Nearbound Account-based Marketing (ABM) comes in, revolutionizing how you engage with target accounts.

Learn more here. 

In an ideal world, this would be your CMO

Stuff you don’t want to miss!

• March 13th—Selling The Value of a Partnership to Your C-Suite: How to Prepare a Killer Business Case—Join Blake Cantrell (Vice President of Global Partnerships at Partnerize) and Scott Pollack (CEO at Firneo) where you’ll learn how to craft persuasive business cases that resonate with senior leadership and propel your career in partnerships. Register here.  

• March 14th—Running Nearbound Ops: How Partner Data Can Drive Revenue—Kelly Sarabyn (Head of HubSpot’s Product Partnerships and Enablement and Advocacy Team), Jill Rowley (Head of Strategy and Evangelism at Reveal), Elliot Smith (Head of Partnerships at 6Sense), Mary Vue (VP of Marketing and Partnerships at Syncari), and Mike O’Neil (VP of Partner Sales at Box). Register here.

• March 15th—Channels vs Ecosystems!—What partner strategies will "win" and which will "lose" as channels and ecosystems converge and compete this year? Attend & Ask Scott Brinker (Hubspot VP), Jay McBain (Canalys), and Justin Zimmerman (Partner Playbooks). Register here.

• March 16th—Firneo’s Mastering Partnerships Strategy 4-week program—Learn how to diagnose and solve your partner program’s biggest challenges from the world’s top partnership leaders. Mention “NEARBOUND” as a referrer and get a 1:1 Strategy Coaching package (worth $1,000) for FREE. Apply here.

• March 19-20th—Affiverse’s Amplify Summit—Join them for a 2-day virtual event to help affiliate businesses amplify their performance. Learn about digital, partnership, and affiliate marketing. Register here.

• Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.

The best way to target key accounts 

Send this to your Marketing team and start building nearbound marketing campaigns together.