Attracting customers’ attention today is very different from what it was just a few years ago. We are witnessing an era where everyone and everything is connected – new channels, strategies, and constantly evolving technologies enable marketers to connect with customers at a whole new level. But this new horizon comes with a multitude of challenges as we navigate through an increasing abundance of information, heightened buyer expectations, and strive to stand out amidst a cacophony of competitors. To achieve their goals, many businesses targeting high-value clients often find that an Account Based Marketing strategy serves them better than casting a wide net.
What does an Account Based Marketing strategy mean?
Account Based Marketing (ABM) is a targeted B2B marketing growth strategy where marketing and sales teams work together to target the most suitable accounts and convert them into customers.
This approach allows for quickly filtering out less profitable businesses and focusing on the highest return on investment. This alignment between marketing and sales leads to faster engagement and satisfaction processes with these accounts.
What does Account Based Marketing consist of?
Account Based Marketing includes targeting, engagement, and measurement. Integrating these aspects at the core of your program sets up your marketing team for success.
- Targeting and managing the right accounts
ABM enables you to use technology to target and manage accounts that are worth your time and will translate into optimal return on investment. This allows you to centralize account targeting and management rather than managing and synchronizing accounts and lists across multiple applications. The type of accounts you target depends on your organization, but the following criteria are a good starting point: high yield, product fit, quick wins, strategic importance, competitors, and territory.
- Engage across all channels
Design and execute coordinated, personalized, and consistent campaigns across each of your marketing channels from a single platform rather than managing them independently. This requires an ABM solution that ties together each channel and provides a foundation for delivering informed, comprehensive cross-channel campaigns to your target accounts.
- Measure and optimize methods
Your ABM strategy needs to be measurable so you can assess your success and improve over time. It’s up to you to choose the best tools to synthesize information, create account dashboards that examine specific programs and targets, and provide consistent revenue-based account analytics – all centralized on a single platform.
In this guide, we will detail all the benefits of Account Based Marketing, the process of its implementation, and the issues it can solve – all immediately following an analysis of its synergy with another important strategy: Inbound Marketing.
Often, these strategies are viewed as independent and separate. However, several aspects of synergy and complementarity prove very useful.
Account-Based Marketing & Inbound Marketing, what links?
Together, ABM and Inbound Marketing form a strong couple capable of generating optimal results, if implemented correctly.
This part addresses fundamental questions: “How can this collaboration be concretely achieved? And why do it in the first place?”
If Account Based Marketing is a highly targeted strategy, then Inbound Marketing is more fundamental. Its methodology focuses on creating valuable content, SEO, and a pleasant customer experience to attract customers and ensure business growth. In contrast to its counterpart Outbound Marketing, this strategy does not involve hunting or harassing your target audience and customers, but rather organically providing them with the information they want when they want it. Already there, Inbound Marketing lays the groundwork for a solid ABM strategy through a well-thought-out and effective resource allocation for qualified accounts.
If you still doubt the effectiveness of this duo, a few reasons will suffice to convince you to implement both ABM and Inbound Marketing. The latter’s role comes in the initial phase to help you attract target accounts. Then, ABM speeds up the process by ensuring a pleasant customer experience, which would push them to never leave you again. Thus, Inbound marketing lays the foundation for a solid ABM strategy which, in turn, builds on the first in order to ensure a targeted and efficient allocation of resources for valuable accounts. Through such a combined approach, the targeted segments will be broader than if you opt for a single strategy. No right to make mistakes! Each strategy complements opportunities missed by the other strategy.
Moreover, you produce multi-use content – it will serve both ABM and an Inbound strategy. For example, you can create a customized case study for a target account that you also share on your website.
How to concretely implement an Account Based Marketing strategy?
The foundation of a successful ABM program is a carefully curated list of accounts. Once you have defined your goals, your marketing and sales teams can come together to design and deploy personalized campaigns via the right channels to deliver the best outcome.
- Identify high-value target accounts
ABM centers all activity around specific key client accounts. Unlike traditional lead generation-focused strategies, which focus on lead volume, the goal with ABM is to focus on the quality of generated leads and enhance relationships with target accounts and especially the people behind them.
So, to run a successful campaign, you must first have a clearly defined view of your target accounts based on expected profit and ABM targeting criteria: nature of targets (accounts, vertical sectors, clusters, etc.), their attributes (ideal revenues, size, location, etc.), and their key challenges that your solution addresses.
Once you have clarity on the attributes you are looking for, you can create a shortlist of targets that meet these parameters and use them to qualify all current contacts you have. Then, be sure to prioritize the selected accounts to ensure optimal resource allocation.
- Build profiles and identify decision-makers
A solid and reliable foundation of information is integral to the success of any marketing campaign. ABM is no different. At this stage, it’s imperative to understand the internal structure of target accounts, how decisions are made, and the identities of decision-makers and key players in decision-making.
Based on this data, you can develop tailored proposals and messages for each client or stakeholder. Use, for example, social listening to identify customer needs and serve them better than anyone else.
- Align marketing and sales teams
Indeed, the operation of sales and marketing must be more cooperative, clear, and complementary.
Today, instead of working on marketing to generate leads before handing them over to sales teams, both teams must align on campaign goals and activities overall, to ensure transparent support and consistent decisions at every stage of a prospect’s journey. In any ABM campaign, both sides of the business must have a clear view of the precise direction of the account, campaign goals, responsibilities, and returns for campaigns to be successfully executed.
- Create target-focused content
ABM is highly personalized targeted marketing that addresses clear and significant business challenges faced by the target account. So, if you’re not creating messages and content that reflect this, you’re not making the most of your strategy.
Once you have a proper understanding of your target accounts, think about how your messaging and content can solve specific problems for the target account.
From targeted and segmented email marketing, to social selling, to personalized page content (smart content), ensure that every interaction your account has with your messaging and content is relevant to them (and personalized where appropriate). Here, the choice of channels also proves to be a crucial element in achieving your goals. So, take it into account!
- Measure, learn, and optimize!
Since ABM does not primarily focus on lead volume but on developing a relationship with a quality account, it is important to define a range of relevant performance indicators that can be linked to specific sales and marketing objectives.
When evaluating success, consider the following questions:
- Are the chosen and converted accounts proving to be profitable enough?
- Are you effectively converting prospects into promising opportunities?
- How would you describe your relationships with strategic decision units related to accounts?
- Are you achieving satisfactory return on investment?
- Are you on track to meet your goals?
Above all, ensure you continuously test, measure, and optimize your ABM campaigns!
Why opt for Account Based Marketing?
None of the above is convincing unless Account Based Marketing presents clear and observable benefits. Fortunately, it does.
Benefit #1: ROI is much clearer
ABM is the sniper’s way of marketing. It is incredibly precise, targeted, personalized, and accurate compared to general Outbound or Inbound strategies, making ROI measurement easier.
Benefit #2: Less waste and lower risks
All of this means that unnecessary spending—and risks—are significantly reduced. By tailoring ABM marketing strategies, B2B marketers can do more with less. A smart ABM tech stack helps a smaller number of account managers target, market, convert, and sell better than a larger number of non-ABM tool adopters.
This means there is much less risk and resources involved. You don’t have to hire and fire talent based on account performance. With properly configured ABM, accounts become revolving doors—even if one contact is lost, another will enter directly.
Benefit #3: Customers love it because it’s tailored
Many customers prefer personalized offerings. This has been demonstrated time and again. That’s why email marketing remains so successful compared to other more generic forms of marketing.
ABM is implemented with the needs of a specific target prospect in mind for a specific target account. The necessary research to set up this kind of marketing means your prospects will know that you are well-informed—and they will love you for it.
Benefit #4: Goal setting and analysis are easier
When analyzing the effectiveness of a campaign, you would find it easier to draw conclusions. Not only are you looking at a smaller set of targeted accounts, but you also have well-tracked dashboards for each account that allow you to easily compare end-of-quarter results to forecasted goals. This brings us to the last big advantage.
Benefit #5: Aligning with sales is much easier
ABM marketers speak the same language and have the same knowledge as the salespeople they work with. They must work closely with sales to accurately identify target accounts, map them out, and align with sales initiatives. This type of marketing and sales partnership is what ultimately leads to powerful, predictive marketing and targeted advertising that unlocks accounts.
Common Issues ABM Can Solve
A broad marketing approach may make sense initially in the B2B space, but it can significantly reduce your return on investment compared to a targeted approach. A successful ABM initiative can increase revenue, optimize your efforts, and provide in-depth metrics that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Issue #1: “I can’t show a clear return on investment.”
One of the main goals of Account Based Marketing is to prioritize return on investment, resulting in clear business outcomes. In fact, compared to other marketing initiatives, the ITSMA 2014 survey on Account Based Marketing revealed that “ABM offers the best return on investment of any B2B marketing strategy or tactic.”
Issue #2: “We’re wasting a lot of time, personnel, and budget.”
ABM focuses on investing time in promising, high-value accounts, allowing marketers to more efficiently concentrate their resources and execute specifically optimized marketing strategies for target accounts.
Issue #3: “I’m not seeing engagement with my audience anymore.”
Because ABM is so personalized, targeted customers are more likely to engage with the content. Since it addresses them specifically, their company, and their specific stage of the customer journey, buyers are more likely to interact.
Issue #4: “I don’t know what goals and metrics I should be tracking.”
Account Based Marketing makes it easier to analyze the effectiveness of your campaigns, as you are measuring a narrower set of target accounts across emails, ads, web, and events. The data you collect will also be more detailed and can provide insights that you wouldn’t otherwise gather.
Issue #5: “Our marketing and sales teams aren’t aligned.”
If your sales and marketing teams aren’t syncing up, ABM is one of the most effective ways to get them on the same page. Account Based Marketing operates similarly to sales, aligning marketing and sales teams to think in terms of accounts and how to target, bring them to the table, and close the deal.
Examples of Account Based Marketing
Account Based Marketing begins with creating meaningful segments, then identifying marketing programs that can be personalized for these segments on channels that have the most impact for them (events, website, email). Each company’s strategy will use its own mix of tactics.
Your approach to targeting a specific account will depend on the unique attributes of that account, meaningful segments for that account, and relevant marketing channels. The target segments you choose for ABM programs will be those that can add the most value to your organization. Below are some concrete examples of how B2B marketers can use Account Based Marketing to develop targeted marketing programs:
- Events
In-person events have always been one of the most successful opportunities for sales teams to influence decision-makers. An ABM approach to events can include personalized invitations to key prospects from target accounts, special VIP dinners, personalized gifts, etc., followed by personalized follow-up after the event.
- Webinars
Similar to events, webinars can be tailored to be relevant and timely for a specific target account. Event and webinar follow-ups can be tailored to specific companies, and unique webinar content can be created with the target audience in mind.
- Email Campaigns
Despite the popularity of direct mail, email remains a valuable marketing channel for ABM. While a volume-based marketing approach may use templates and marketing automation, ABM involves creating personalized email messages for each company and individual.
- Paid Advertising
PPC and paid ads on social media are common ways to reach target accounts online. Social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook allow you to target specific companies and individuals, and by using technologies such as IP targeting and retargeting, your display campaigns can be personalized to focus on a handful of target accounts rather than broadcasting to a broad network.
- Web Personalization
Web-based ABM campaigns go beyond generating traffic through customized SEM and inbound marketing campaigns. Once visitors reach the website, website personalization technology can be used to create a personalized, account-specific experience for target prospects compared to the generic website experience.
So, what are you waiting for to adopt Account Based Marketing as a winning strategy for your business?
