A Guide to B2B Account Based Marketing (ABM)
Account-Based Marketing or ABM provides organizations with a significant return on investment work their B2B marketing and lead generation tactics. In this article, we'll learn everything you need to know about ABM, and how to leverage it with your marketing channels.
What is Account Based Marketing and Why will it Improve your Marketing Efforts and Lead Generation?
ABM is about leveraging the expertise of both marketing and sales teams, and target key accounts to design a customized and tailored marketing plan to nurture them through the sales process.
Marketing teams of the future bring together sales and marketing processes to:
- target the right client accounts
- nurture them into your cycle
- drive momentum that helps close the sale
Benefits of Account-Based Marketing Tactics
With social selling, it's getting harder to capture the attention of decision-makers. An ABM strategy helps your organization by allowing the marketing team to specifically target accounts that sales reps want to pursue. Many companies seeking high-value customers often find that this strategy works better than trying to reach a large number of people at once.
What makes this a unique marketing approach is it doesn't just try and get a huge number of leads into your funnel and hope the message sticks. Instead, it's a focused content marketing approach that keys on accounts you already know could be customers. This makes closing the deal that much easier because your speaking with leads that are better qualified.
B2B marketers typically target leads more broadly in an attempt to reach as many companies as possible. However, this approach does not generate the best return on investment. Thanks to advances in technology, it is now easier and more affordable to tailor an account-based marketing strategy to a variety of organizations. As a result, marketers from all industries are implementing ABM within their teams in order to achieve better results.
Advantages and disadvantages of using Account Based Marketing.
B2B companies are moving to an ABM approach because it improves the sales funnel while also delivering a better customer experience. Of course, it's not without some perceived downsides. ABM takes more time to set up because key account marketing is more intentional than just spraying and praying, as they say. Marketing professionals might not like the upfront work of creating a set of target accounts.
We want this to be objective so here are some pros and cons to consider.
Pros:
- ABM is Great for Social Selling on Platforms like LinkedIn with Personalization
- Using personalized content is the name of the game with ABM, and that works really well on places like LinkedIn and Twitter
- You still have to get best practices right like identifying key pain points, but once these marketing activities become a habit, things become a lot easier
- Marketing Alignment with Sales on Key Accounts
- An ABM strategy will allow your sales and marketing teams to focus on high-value accounts. Providing these prospects with valuable content will work in your favor long-term. These accounts will hopefully want to be part of your client base and will help to spread the word about your value.
Cons:
- More Accounts to Target = More Work
- Effective account-based marketing means you're doing more work to cater to each target account. This approach to marketing is more effort, and there's no denying that. There are solutions and workarounds here like automation tools we offer at Poseidon, but it should be said up-front. ABM takes a bit more effort
- ABM Requires more Focus on Fewer Accounts.
- To implement an account-based marketing campaign, you have to focus on fewer accounts. You cant' spam hundreds of prospects and expect to deliver personalized messages. This type of marketing involves intentionality and dedication to the customer journey.
Planning your Business Marketing around ABM
ABM might be more work but it's worth it. By targeting specific accounts of potential B2B buyers that look like existing customers, you are creating a marketing framework that makes selling easier. After you establish your goals, your marketing and sales teams can work together to create and deliver targeted campaigns through the appropriate channels to achieve the optimal outcome.
Let's look at practical steps to using account-based marketing:
1. Build account profiles that you know well
It's easier to create personalized campaigns for accounts that you know well. This process will allow your marketing and sales activities to be consistent for each profile that's built out.
2. Ensure sales and marketing alignment by mapping out resources from the beginning
Having particular accounts means you can begin to see patterns develop throughout your sales cycle. Create consistency in your team so that everyone knows when to engage in the process.
3. Marketing requires personalized messages because they are more likely to convert
The content you create is important and both marketers and sales reps need to be aligned to ensure conversion rates are high. This is how you justify the upfront efforts.
4. Find the right marketing channels
So many marketing tools and B2B marketing tactics are focused on using very specific channels. If you're not in the right place, implementing an ABM strategy won't matter.
5. Keep executing your campaigns no matter what
Long sales cycles and large amounts are inevitable for all B2B organizations. Stay the course when using an ABM approach.
6. Always learn and improve
Marketing needs to be based on lessons learned. Make sure your marketing and sales teams work together to identify mistakes and areas for improvement.
An ABM Program can bring Incredible Revenue Potential
ABM allows for you to meet decision makers where they are and hit them with specific and useful messages. It takes effort but it's worth it in the end. If you want to make the process even easier, reach out to us at Poseidon to learn how our platform can simplify this whole process.
