Target Account Selling: The
Holy Grail for High-Ticket Sales

As the B2B sales paradigm is evolving continuously, there is a need among organizations to reimagine the legacy account-based strategies and pivot towards a more focused approach using Target Account Selling.

Albeit an end-to-end sales activity at its core, the strategy requires the support and alignment of the demand generation teams to achieve the desired objectives. 

When it comes to B2B sales, there are multiple strategies to market and sell your products/services. There is the inbound route that helps you source leads and qualify them. On the other hand, there is the outbound route, where you connect with decision-makers of targeted accounts and nurture them to close a deal.

Businesses selling high-ticket products require a targeted sales approach rather than spray-and-pray methods. Targeted sales allow companies to scale quickly and maximize returns on investment.

What is Target Account Selling?

Target account selling is a sales approach where a set of highly qualified large accounts and key decision-makers from those accounts are targeted by building a personalized relationship with them. The key to target account selling is to create multiple points of contact within an account and engage them consistently using personalized details. The more personalized the experiences, the higher the chances of conversion.

While many confuse this approach with account-based marketing, the obvious difference is the outcome they produce. For starters, target account selling is a sales strategy where the main goal is to generate a conversion. On the contrary, ABM is a B2B demand generation technique where the goal is to nurture prospects and maintain good relations with them. The sales come later.

How to Kickstart Your Target Account Selling Campaign?

Target account selling is a resource-draining exercise but worth every penny when executed with proper planning, processes, and technology. You need a rock-solid B2B corporate database to connect with multiple decision-makers in targeted accounts and increase key account sales. Let’s identify the four functional areas essential to kickstarting a target-selling campaign:

#1 Data mapping

Beginning with a comprehensive data mapping will give an idea of how everything will pan out. Ideal buyer profiles are also considered data visualizations and critical to a successful account selection process. Businesses need to accurately map out the accounts and the key decision-makers in those accounts that they want to target. To achieve this, businesses must collaborate with B2B data providers to create a robust corporate database with accurate technographic, firmographic, demographic, and intent insights that will help them personalize their campaigns and achieve the desired results.

#2 Sales & marketing alignment

In order to be effective in targeted selling, the organization’s commitment must be driven by larger business development goals and not just hitting the sales quotas. To begin with, there should be an agreement on goals, processes, KPIs, and account management cadence where sales and marketing must conjoin together to support the common cause. Everyone from sales to marketing and account management teams should participate in the account development process and ensure that the objectives are met.

#3 Define metrics and track results

Starting with data visualization, the goal should be to lay out the blueprints of metrics and KPIs that must be tracked and spot areas of optimization. There are a number of metrics to track sales performance, but account-based selling must adopt an outcome-based model considering the high customer acquisition costs. Monitoring results for short-term pipeline impact, mid-term productivity, and long-term impact on revenue growth is critical.

Conclusion

Target account selling is a focused business development tactic that can help businesses acquire high-value deals. While it is a data-intensive practice that requires significant resource investment, the benefits far outweigh the costs in the long run. Another advantage is that TAS and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) share a similar approach and data set. This allows both strategies to be executed simultaneously, utilizing the same resources.