There's no gray area with account-based marketing. Either an account is interested in purchasing from your company, or it isn't. This is the phase to find whether there is an opportunity to generate revenue for your company. To qualify an opportunity, you need a set of rules. There is a list for qualifying, called BANT:
- Budget: The contact said there is money approved to make a purchase decision. The budget has been set by the higher-ups at the account you're working.
If there is no budget, or the budget is too small for your product or service, you should walk away.
- Authority: Your contact either said they have the power to make a purchase decision, or they do not.
Your contact can be the influencer or ultimate user of your company's product or service, but they aren't the ultimate decision maker.
- Need: The contact stated there is a business need that your product or service can help meet.
Often, you need a discovery call with the contact, or multiple stakeholders within the account, to discover the need. After the need is determined, you can align marketing content to help educate your contacts on the purchase decision; for example, a case study of how your business helped a client fulfill that same need.
- Time: Your potential customer stated that there is a timeline for making a decision.
Avoid wasting your money or energy marketing to an account that doesn't have a target date for making a purchase.
When a contact meets all of the BANT criteria, it's a significant revenue opportunity. It's time to build out the account in your CRM and deliver it to sales.