Account Based Marketing – Ensuring Flow for Water Utilities

In a 6-month pilot project, our client, Itineris, wanted to develop qualitative and lasting relationships with decision-makers at 6 leading, future-ready water utilities. To provide reliable, high-quality water services at the lowest possible cost, while supporting public health and protecting the environment.

We had worked collaboratively with Itineris on their rebranding. Wanting to take their B2B marketing strategy stratospheric, they approached us about the power of an ABM approach.

Pre-ABM Challenges:

Itineris had been struggling to get their sales teams’ foot in the door of their target cities. They had found the decision-making process quite complex, often having to deal with several different departments. 

On top of that, the compliance & regulatory requirements common to these types of projects can be dense. This was especially true for an ‘out-of-town’ Belgian company (vs a locally based or native company). 

The final cherry on this hard-to-crack cake: a conservative target audience. It was clear it would not be plain sailing on calm waters.

Through the powers of an ABM strategy, we sought to solve this problem.

The Aim

In order to test the water, forgive the very obvious pun, we created an ABM pilot project that ran for 6 months, targeting 6 accounts in North America.

The aim was straightforward. 

• Deploy ABM strategies to develop qualitative relationships with at least 3 decision-makers from the target accounts. 
• Further to developing relationships, seek to generate strategic meetings.
• Ensure Itineris was on the tender shortlist for several municipalities.

Enter BBC’s 5 steps of Account-Based Marketing

Using our hallowed ‘5 steps of account-based marketing’ strategy, we began the transformation from commodity seller to service leader.  

1. Define your account(s) and objective(s)

Fresh from a successful NYC project, Itineris wanted to capitalize on its momentum and develop a North American market. The New York case was the perfect launch point to start engaging their target cities. 

Before setting sail, our team of ABM experts flushed out the challenges to overcome and the opportunities they could present.

Being an ‘outsider’ rather than a known company, combined with a conservative audience and a complex market, meant that a hyper personalized approach was needed. With the decision to start an ABM pilot being taken at the head office in Belgium, the US sales teams would need motivation to adopt this approach. 

The spread of teams across Belgium and the US meant that there often was a lack of alignment and synchronisation between the teams. However, with comprehensive research and a strong target group analysis in our arsenal, the potential upsides were clear.

2. Research

Data Expansion: Starting with an account workshop to determine the baseline in collaboration with the sales team, we then took the information they provided and added our own extensive research. In this way, we outlined the priorities and challenges of our target municipalities. 

People and priorities: Next, we researched the decision-makers: who are they & what they care about. After compiling our hit list, we created a data report, which becomes the basis for the playbook creation.

3. Create the Playbook

Value chain and proposition: Through in-depth research, we determined the ambitions and key priorities of these utilities. We then mapped how Itineris could help with each of those key priorities, resulting in an extremely tailored value proposition. 

Message house: In order to bring the process to life, we first had to translate the value chain into a creative concept and creative proposition that we could use throughout the campaign in all copy assets (taglines, image copy, etc).  

Creating Itineris visuals: To ensure maximum impact, it was important to adjust Itineris’ brand identity, creating a visual identity that was specific to the campaign, and not just repeating the general Itineris branding, which wasn’t known in the target markets. However, it was also important to ensure that the new branding was relevant to the brands of the target accounts. The BBC visual arts team understood the brief perfectly, creating water droplet visuals for North America.

4. Execute

In an ideal ABM world, we would use the normal sales cycle of the company as the project time frame. As this was a pilot, we agreed on a 6-month time frame with Itineris. 

In the 6 month period we were able to learn a great deal about our target audience, including what channels they used, their level of seniority, and what type of content was most successful.