COVID-19 has put many companies under stress to retain and acquire new business. This meant focusing the majority of resources, money and time on nurturing and retaining clients and on-boarding new ones. This was the perfect setup for aligning sales and marketing efforts, that is, mass adoption of ABM.
So, What is Account-Based Marketing?
Imagine a scenario where your marketing and sales efforts are aligned completely for a greater ROI and higher customer loyalty all in a shorter period? That’s the exact premise behind Account-Based Marketing.
ABM follows a unique approach to marketing a company’s products or services. Firstly, the strategy looks at all likely leads possible and filters out all accounts that have a high chance of converting into a sale. Post this screening process, all campaigns are curated for the specific needs and attributes of a target account rather than creating a generic marketing message for the masses.
This strategy is mostly used by B2B marketers as they reach out to big businesses. Employing such a strategy often results in greater ROI for B2B organizations.
What makes ABM special?
The unique factor with the ABM approach is the alignment of the sales and marketing efforts, an otherwise unseen strategy with traditional marketing methods.
The sales team can help identify the top performing accounts from the target cohort. This gives the marketers a better basis to look for while curating the targets.
As the approach follows a specific messaging approach, it also becomes key that all execs are on the same page. This allows for all communication to be complimentary rather than confusing, thus creating a seamless experience for the client.
Here are a few examples that showcase how to implement ABM:
- Events
Events are great places to directly get in touch with your target accounts. At the same time, standing out from your competitors can become a hard task. This is where ABM comes to play. With the help of custom invites, hampers and specific follow up messages, your chances of a sale become higher.
- Direct Emails
Emails have been known to be one of the most effective manner of reaching out to potential clients. Creating personalized email campaigns that offer value and promotional offers to a client can yield better returns.
- Educational Content
Creating content that fits your target’s industry and offers them value can give the company an edge while reaching out for a pitch. These can be in the form of whitepapers, infographics, or blogs. This can help attract high-value clients.
- Dedicated Personnel
Organizations often opt for companies that provide instant information rather than delayed customer service. Dedicating executives from sales and marketing to key accounts can create a higher conversion and retention rate.
How to begin your ABM journey?
- Identify your targets
The key step to success with ABM marketing is having a list of high value accounts. These are companies that have a high chance of converting into a long-term client. Also factor in what revenue and profit your ABM efforts can yield from the chosen accounts.
- Research the target
The next step is understanding how the operations work at the client’s organization. It’s vital to understand who the decision makers are and how you can reach out to them.
- Create a content strategy
After understanding how the organization works, curate custom messaging for each client. The content you create should offer value to your client and compel them to do business with you. It is also key to pick out the best possible channels to reach out and relay your message. This can include emails, events, calls, etc.
- Carry out your ABM campaign
Coordinate and communicate your campaign through the chosen channels. To make your efforts successful, ensure both the sales and marketing teams are on the same page. After launching your campaigns, measure your results and tweak the strategies for optimal results in the future.
Benefits of ABM Marketing
- Measurable ROI
It is easy to measure how much time and resources were invested in each account as all targets have a custom marketing campaign for them. Such a tailored report can help both marketers and salespeople understand what is working and what isn’t. Compare this to traditional marketing approaches where there is no method of looking at a detailed breakup of your marketing budgets.
- Consistent Customer Experience
The primary goal of aligning sales and marketing efforts is to create consistent messaging that reaches the target account. This enables the company to offer various messages following the same tone, content, and personalization. This creates an enjoyable customer experience for all clients.
- Time-efficient
At face value, it might seem that ABM increases the amount of time that is spent on a single lead. However, ABM has proven to create long-lasting links with clients. Thus, making the custom marketing approach more time-efficient in the long run.
- Clear results
ABM marketing offers easy to understand and tangible results. It is easy to identify if your efforts have been successful or not. This is because all accounts have a custom campaign with custom goals, thus allowing marketers to analyze what they have accomplished with their strategy. This gets boosted with other metrics such as conversion rate, return ratios, and the ROI.
- CRM Success
As one of the main goals of ABM marketing is creating a seamless customer experience, the CRM of the company witnesses an instant boost. This can be attributed to the fact that there is no communication confusion on the company’s end.
Future of ABM
The future of account based marketing lies in how it will integrate with technology. As everything is hyper-custom in terms of messaging, AI can help create better insights about future clients. In addition, this can further boost the success of the ABM actions taken by companies. Along with that, we also see the rising value of re-targeting. Building impressions with already exposed clients can often see a positive return.
How does ABM differ from traditional methods?
| Inbound Marketing/Traditional Marketing | ABM Marketing |
| Inbound marketing looks at ideal segments, that is, general criteria that fits a wide audience base. | ABM targets to filter out potential clients, that is, specific companies that might require the brand offerings. |
| Messaging is curated for the masses and thus has a generic tone to it. | All communication is designed specifically for the account. No two clients receive the same messaging. |
| The main aim of inbound marketing is to create multiple leads. There is no filter of good or bad the lead is. | ABM focuses on finding target accounts that have high odds of converting into long-lasting relationships. |
In conclusion, ABM provides an approach to stand apart from competitors and create long term relationships with clients as companies receive greater service options for their needs. It also allows any company a chance to offer a great value to its clients. To get started with ABM or to amp your ABM offerings, contact us at Inventive-SMI.com.
