How is Account Based Marketing different for landing vs expanding/ cross-sell/ upsell?

I would recommend building target account lists based on where that account is in their customer journey. Channels are usually pretty constant. Your targeting ability, level of intent, tactics/offers, messages, and the budget you're willing to spend on them will change. It will cost significantly more budget & time to acquire a new customer, so focus on where you see the biggest potential impact first.

Within a tiered 1:1, 1:few, 1:many structure: what is the potential ARR of an account within each segment? That could help determine your effort & willingness to spend on a given account list. 

I don't think ABM at its core is all that different from landing net new vs cross/upsell/expansion.

If you boil it down, you are taking a set of channels and tactics and deploying campaigns to get your prospects or customers to take a desired action or behavior.

I will argue that you have more room for error when going into new prospects or markets where you might not have as much data or evidence to support your messaging, positioning and campaign strategy. 

When marketing to current customers, you better know what you're talking about. There is nothing worse that being an existing customer of a brand and receiving messaging and campaigns as if you had never worked with that brand in your life.

With cross/upsell/expansion, you not only have to know your customer, but you better make sure you let your customer know you know them. For example, if you're already in at Amazon and looking to upsell, you better be able to discuss pain points that came up at prior QBRs, understand their org chart, tech stack, and review how you can help them achieve their goals,

The way you approach the accounts is what is different.

• For a net new account, you are in the blind and trying everything under the sun. While you have 3rd party data on the target prospects, you can only customize to a certain extent. So your messaging is either generic or industry focused. You also have more room for trial and error as you broad base your campaigns.

• Targeting an existing account calls for more finesse, as you have access to information about the customer, their buying behavior, their org structure, their tech stack. You also have access to internal stakeholders who can be your advocates, which goes a long way. Leveraging all this information and translating it into the right content and tactics is the key to success in an expand strategy.

It really depends on campaign goals and budget.

The channel mix remains the same:

• Top-of-funnel: programmatic display, CTV, paid social and content syndication

• Middle-of-funnel: email nurture, Executive Q and A webinars

• Bottom-of-funnel: virtual experience events, in-person events, and direct mail

In the case of landing new business, paid media budget is a must-have. Alternatively, in the case of land and expand motion you can lean more on owned media and in-app promotion

At a foundational level, it’s relatively the same, prioritizing the right accounts based on intent and lifetime value. Where it can change is the messaging, tactics and channels.

Let’s start with messaging: Mapping your messaging to the customer journey is critical. ToFu content begins by educating your audience on your category which will anchor thought-leadership messaging and content that validates why the category exists. MoFu, the middle of funnel content, provides your pre-customers information that helps them evaluate their options. You'll see a lot of customer proof and feature-type content required at this stage. They know your category is validated, it’s about knowing why your product exists.  Leads in the BOFU stage need persuasive content to make the final decision. They know your product exists but now they need to know why it’s the very best. 

Now messaging for upselling and cross selling is different as  well. I've seen a lot of companies try to cut corners and blend these. Don’t.

Upselling requires content that educates your customers to purchase a more advanced version of your product, typically giving them access to more capacity, features, and users. 

Cross-selling helps them understand the value-add of additional tools from your suite, add ons, including services and integrations can bring to their use case. 

Expanding within landed customers is about helping them understand the business benefits of bringing on more users or teams to your tool and requires more customer understanding and ROI-type content than other plays. 

In regards to the tactics, while there is definitely not a one-size-fits-all-business, typically you’ll be invest more in digital channels such as paid and owned media when trying to acquire customers while when going wider and deeper in an account, you’re teams will invest more in events, 1:1 activities, product landing pages. 

Email plays a role in both but again, the messaging and personalization will be different. 

All of this requires strong PMM and great content writers.

ABM for new customer acquisition is focused on identifying, engaging, and converting high-value accounts (your ICP). The goal is to acquire and build relationships with key decision-makers at your top accounts and demonstrate the value of your solution via marketing campaigns.

ABM for expanding / cross-sell / upsell is focused on deepening relationships with existing customers. Your account list is smaller and more defined. The goal is to understand data and signals that will help your team identify additional opportunities to sell them more products or services.

Similar models but different data and execution.

When it comes to net-new logos and expanding within current customers, the key differences are within two areas - brand awareness and a key point-of-contact (POC).

When expanding within current customers, the brand awareness is there whereas it is not for net-new logos. Net-new logo target accounts required greater brand awareness efforts compared to expansion plays. With expansion, rather than needing to educate the audience on your brand, you may be able to start further funnel with generating awareness of the business problem that this particular expanded product offering solves for the ICPs within the target account. The caveat here is when the GTM motion sells into many different buying centers. When selling into many buying centers, you may need to assume that there actually is no brand awareness and treat the strategy as you would with a "net-new logo acquisition" play.

A huge benefit when driving an ABM expansion motion is that you have a POC within the account you're targeting. You could leverage this relationship for internal introductions or creative ideas like an internally hosted webinar just for their organization that hits on the business pain points your company solves for. It's a huge bonus if this person is a passionate champion of your solution.

Account-based marketing or ABM is different for landing vs expanding / cross-sell / upsell because the primary goal is different.

Landing ABM is typically focused on generating new customers based on a strategic target account list.

Expanding / cross-sell / upsell ABM is focused on increasing revenue from your current customer base. This target account list will be different from your landing ABM campaigns. In this scenario, you are increasing your customer lifetime value (CLV).