Account based marketing (ABM) is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of marketing. It’s a highly focused business strategy in which a marketing team treats an individual prospect or customer like its very own market. The marketing team can create content, events, and entire campaigns dedicated to the people associated with that account, rather than the industry as a whole. The marketing is based entirely around one single customer, which has its advantages and disadvantages. This article is going to look at the disadvantages of account-based marketing.
ABM is not a strategy that you can expand to include every account you have – unless of course, you only have a handful. With the necessary level of detail, it becomes too easily unwieldy and almost impossible to leverage across the hundreds or even thousands of accounts that most businesses will have. In that sense, it’s not a strategy that is meant for every business or every industry. The good news is that the general elements of ABM are the same as the general elements of any other customer-focused marketing strategy: personalization, customization, and a streamlined, buyer-directed buying cycle. These can be much more easily integrated into a marketing strategy that’s a better fit for your business.
ABM is also labor intensive. For each of the accounts you target with this strategy, you’ll need to identify the right messaging, the right cadence, and then create the right content to sustain a campaign. If you have a strong content team with enough resources and the right skill set, then it’s doable. Again, a closely aligned marketing and sales team will be essential because how and when your sales team distributes your content will need to be tuned to each of your disparate campaigns.
ABM also puts the sales team in control of the marketing process. A business starts to develop a list of target accounts whose needs must be met under any circumstances. This sometimes results in the sales team not spending enough time on lower level accounts that may be just as important to the business’s success. A simple solution to this problem is to have the sales team work directly with the marketing team to establish guidelines for what accounts will be helped and how specifically they will be helped.
A final issue with account-based marketing is the technology limitations that are imposed on it. Since Account based marketing is still relatively new in the marketing industry, it takes many hours to get an efficient and automated ABM system up and running. If your business implements an ABM system, be sure to do it when it is convenient, rather than when it is needed. You can’t leave your most valuable customers out to dry because your technology systems are not up to date.
Account based marketing is a powerful tool to use for lead generation. It allows for customization and personalization for individual clients. Knowing the disadvantages as discussed above can help you make the right marketing decision for your business.
