Account-based marketing is the next big thing in the sales and marketing industry. Although in some ways it has been around since the 1990s, it’s always just been considered as a passing trend and never a legitimate strategy. At least, not until today. Much like sales automation, account-based marketing programs have become a necessity for every sales and marketing team.
However, despite this fact, most B2B businesses – small or big – and marketers still have no idea what account-based marketing or ABM actually is. As the name suggests, this particular strategy requires marketers to focus on large and important accounts instead of individual leads. They group prospects into separate accounts and treat those accounts as a single unit. Many debates have been had regarding the effectiveness of this particular strategy but statistics have shown that the ROI is much higher with ABM than with other marketing strategies.
Now that you know the truth behind ABM, you must have a slight inclination to try it out for your business. We’re going to tell you that it’s not going to be easy but it also isn’t impossible. We’ve even laid out some account-based marketing tips for small businesses in this said article!
Properly identify your target accounts
Everything you do with your strategy has to revolve around two things: your target accounts and your goals. We’ll discuss the goals later. For now, let’s focus on the accounts. You have to make sure that you have a clear idea of the individuals you are looking for. Once you have that, you can make a shortlist of people that fit that type or picture and group them all in a single account.
Note that these people must have similar attributes – the more alike they are, the better. In order to guarantee this, find everything there is to know about the people in your list such as revenue and location.
Set realistic goals and stick to them
We’ve mentioned it in the previous subhead: your campaign or strategy must revolve around your end goals. More often than not, ABM strategies are made and enacted in order to secure quality accounts or strengthen relationships with revenue-generating prospects. Other common goals include revenue expansion, accounts generation, and increasing contact with decision-making units.
Goals, however, are not limited to this, and you can easily set your own. What’s important is that you have a clear definition of success that you and your teams can collaboratively work towards.
Create relevant and appropriate content
After you’ve gathered your prospects and have set your goals, the next thing you have to do is create content that is both relevant and appropriate for your accounts. You can choose whatever form of content and channel you want, just make sure that those are the ones that work best for your accounts.
Aside from content form and channel being appropriate, the actual content itself should be personalised and engaging. It should resonate with your accounts’ experiences and struggles. What you need to accomplish this is a high level of insight and data on your prospects which you should have gotten before you even put the campaign in action.
Align your marketing and sales teams
Account-based marketing is a collaborative practice between marketing and sales teams. Although they are separate entities, their responsibilities within your business often cross over. Because of this, it is important that you keep both teams aligned. From start to finish, these teams must work together in unison in order to achieve your goals in a more efficient and effective manner.
Make good use of technology
Data accuracy and workforce efficiency is important to the success of your ABM strategy and one of the best ways to ensure and improve these two aspects is to make good use of technology.
An example of a good advanced and technological strategy to use is sales automation. Through sales automation, you free your employees from menial and administrative tasks that make up most of their day. As a result, they are left with more time to spend appealing to your accounts and accomplishing whatever goal you set for them.
Regularly evaluate and update your approach
Monitoring and evaluation of your account-based marketing strategy is just as important as creating it and putting it in motion. Through this process, you bring to light the strengths and weaknesses of your strategy. Once you have that data at hand, you can then work towards improving your approach until it hits peak effectiveness.
Note, though, that you’re going to have to do this quite regularly because changes that may affect the impact of your ABM strategy happen fast and almost unknowingly. If you don’t stay on top of things, you’re bound to get left behind and stuck with an ineffective approach.
Key takeaway
There are many more things that need to be known about account-based marketing. For now, however, it’s enough to understand what it actually is and what it does as well as the many different things you can do to successfully launch an ABM strategy. If you want a deep dive into the concept, however, you can always approach sales and marketing individuals who are in the know of the latest and most effective approaches!
