Long gone are the days when B2B marketers tried reaching out to as many target companies as possible through their marketing campaigns. Today, they have adopted the Account-Based Marketing strategy to rope in high-value accounts that are the best fit to their target market. With this strategy at hand, companies are able to streamline their sales and marketing efforts that allow them to deliver personalized content to the target accounts. Not only does this help in delighting customers but also ensures long term business growth and a boost in the revenue. You can take a look at this case study which shows how Northrop Grumman, a leading American global aerospace and defense technology company, won a $2 Billion deal using Account-Based Marketing.
A marketing strategy that pushes you towards precision without wasting any resources on the uninterested accounts is certainly something to know more about.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing, or ABM, is a strategy using which you align your marketing and sales resources to deliver tailored content to high-value potential clients. This strategic B2B marketing approach allows you to focus on defining your outreach and building strong relationships. The personalized campaigns that resonate with the needs of particular clients speed up the sales process while sealing quality deals faster. A survey from Information Technology Services Marketing Association states – 84 percent of businesses implementing ABM say that the strategy delivers higher ROI as compared to other marketing tactics.
Implementing Account-Based Marketing
Following are the steps to implement an effective ABM strategy:
- Build your Account-Based Marketing team which has the members from the sales, sales development, and marketing teams.
- Set your Account-Based Marketing goal/s and define your KPIs to achieve the expectations of your organization.
- List out potential target accounts and prioritize them. These listed accounts should fit your ideal customer profile or buyer personas.
- Once you have identified the target accounts, you have to select your medium and activities for reaching out to them. A few of these include email, social media, in-person events, webinars, virtual events, blogs, display ads, and more. You can also consider using ABM technology to effectively reach your clients. These ABM tools help you in engaging customers through different digital channels. Once you have chosen your medium, you must curate personalized content for respective accounts.
- With personalized content at hand, you are now ready to run ABM campaigns for engaging and captivating your target accounts. After launching the campaigns, you must evaluate them and optimize further for greater ROI.
One of the best ways to understand the implementation of ABM is by studying how Invoca achieved 175 percent of pipeline opportunity goals with Account-Based Marketing.
Types of Account-Based Marketing
According to the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), considered to be the pioneers of the AMB strategy, there are three types of Account-Based Marketing that the B2B companies can take.
- Strategic ABM – This is a one-to-one approach that primarily focuses on strengthening the relationship with the client. Personalized campaigns that deeply resonate with the requirements of the target accounts lie at the core of this approach.
- ABM Lite – In this approach, you form a group of like accounts and deliver lightly customized campaigns.
- Programmatic ABM – This approach is a combination of Strategic ABM and ABM Lite. This approach helps B2B companies reach a number of target accounts with highly personalized campaigns in one go.
According to Demandbase, 56 percent marketers use Strategic ABM, 60 percent use ABM Lite, and 52 percent use Programmatic ABM.
SEE ALSO: Inside View Target With ABM For Better Based Marketing
Benefits of Account-Based Marketing
B2B companies should leverage Account-Based Marketing for the clear and observable benefits that it presents.
- Optimizes Resource Utilization – Using ABM, the marketing team works in alignment with the sales team as the strategy requires combined efforts to identify the most relevant accounts and deliver personalized marketing campaigns for driving up the sales. This results in the efficient utilization of resources. Also, the use of ABM technology allows marketers to target and convert more contacts with the help of limited resources.
- Helps Boost Customer Relationship – Account-Based Marketing requires you to deliver highly personalized offers to your clients. Seeing the tailored content that reflects their requirements, your clients acknowledge your efforts and trust you further to strengthen their relationship with you.
- Eases goal-tracking and analyzing – As your goals are focused on a set of target accounts, it is easy to analyze the effectiveness of your ABM campaigns. Be it email, display ads, or webinars, you do not have to deal with a wide range of metrics in order to study the success of your marketing strategies.
- Aides in Sales Alignment – As mentioned earlier, ABM requires perfect alignment of the marketing and sales team. This is because the Account-Based Marketing strategy works almost similar to a sales strategy. You identify potential accounts that are looking for a solution, map out a plan to draw them in, and finally convert them to generate revenue.
- Offers higher ROI – As mentioned earlier, B2B marketers state that there is a higher Return on Investment using ABM as compared to other B2B marketing strategies. As the strategy is very precise and personalized, it helps in bagging bigger deals and drives better business results. Also, these higher revenues are reflected in a shorter time frame with ABM. A report from TOPO Inc, commissioned by ABM Leadership Alliance stated that companies applying ABM have seen a rise of 171% in their average annual contract value.
Account-Based Marketing has seen a significant uptake in the past few years due to its ease of implementation and the benefits that the strategy promises to deliver. The thoughtful approach not only drives up business results but also helps in building lifelong relationships with clients. Adopt the ABM strategy today and combine your resources and efforts to effectively engage and convert valuable accounts.
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