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Admit it.
You are frustrated with waiting for the right prospects to land into your funnel so that you can nurture them to convert to lead and then close sales. Especially because the majority of them are not even the right product fit.
Or, your engagement strategies with the inbound leads are not working.
And even if you gain initial traction, stakeholders go dark when you try to take it to the next level.
If you find yourself nodding away at these scenarios, what you need is to adopt the account based marketing approach.
Because account based marketing enables you to fish for prospects using fishing line aka one at a time rather than casting a wide net and waiting for something good to get caught.
What is Account Based Marketing (ABM)
Account based marketing or key account marketing is a B2B marketing strategy where you go after a small set of accounts rather than a large set of leads.
The ABM approach treats an account or a group of similar accounts as a single market in itself. All your marketing efforts targeted towards this market are fully customized. Each piece of communication, be it emailers, social media campaigns or blogs, is written with a single account or market in mind.
According to the CMI 2022 Survey, account based management strategy for demand generation has witnessed almost 46% jump. Only 28% of the surveyed organizations were using account based marketing for demand generation in 2020 but for 2022 the figure is 48%.
Here is Why You Should Go For Account Based Marketing
Account based marketing provides the following benefits:
- ABM boosts revenue
- Since the sales and marketing teams are completely aligned, there is better utilization of budgetary allocations and human resources.
- It is easier to deliver consistent customer experience because each account is fully customized.
- A documented marketing plan helps create consistent communication.
- Measuring ROI on marketing budgets is straightforward.
- It is easier to expand business by building personalized relationships with the “buying committee” or “buying teams.”
But Not Everything is Enviable About Account Based Marketing
However not everything is exceptional about account based marketing. It has its own challenges too:
- Tools are necessary to ensure seamless coordination between all stakeholders, especially sales and marketing teams.
- Choosing the right digital marketing service suppliers who can providers 360 degrees support on ABM activities such as lead gen, email marketing, extracting insights from data, etc.
- ABM requires a huge amount of resources, be it budget allocation or human resource. So, ABM works best when you handle only a handful of accounts.
3 Types of Account Based Marketing: Which is Your Style?
There are primarily three types of account based marketing styles depending on the number of accounts being handled by each team.
1 to 1 Account Based Marketing
In 1-to-1 account based marketing, each ABM team handles only one account. The relationships with buying committee members and other stakeholders are highly personalized and hence communication can be on target.
1 to few
In the 1-to-few setup, each ABM team handles a few accounts (typically up to 10–12) that are similar in nature. When we say the accounts are similar in nature, it refers to their pain points being similar.
Due to similar pain points, the communication needed with each account is similar and same set of assets can be used with minor customizations. This reduces overall effort drastically.
1 to many
In the 1-to-many strategy, each ABM team deals with many accounts that are similar in nature. Even if you have a handful of key accounts to start with, you can expand the list by including companies with similar business pain points, goals, size or industries.
Since the logistics of providing customized and consistent user experience to each account can quickly turn into a nightmare, automation tools are essential for a successful 1-to-many ABM strategy.
4 Stages of ABM Framework
Once you are confident that account based marketing is what your organization needs, you must create a framework. A documented framework — even if it’s just one page — helps keep the team members aligned and acts as the benchmark for measuring success.
An ABM framework has four stages — identify, communicate, close and delight.
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Identify
The first step is identifying the target accounts. Here are some questions to ask while considering an account:
- Will this be a good product fit?
- Is it a high-value account?
- Can I achieve a quick win?
- Are there any strategic advantages of pursuing this account?
- Are my competitors targeting the account and how likely are they to win?
Communicate
The next step is to present your product/service through customized communication. This communication could be via emails, if you have access, social media channels of their choice or creating highly targeted content.
Close
If the communication stage happens correctly, you can move to close the deal. This is typically handled by the members of the sales team but the marketing team members must always be present because they were the ones who made the first contact and established a relationship in the first place.
Delight
Once the deal is closed you must continue to delight the customer to ensure they do not move elsewhere. A sustained relationship can mean more revenue in the long run.
5 Account Based Marketing Strategies (With Examples)
Here we give you five ABM strategies to get started.
Document the ABM strategy
An ABM strategy document enables all stakeholders to understand, interpret and implement it. Even if some team members quit, organizational knowledge is retained, which helps new members in understanding the core points. The document also acts as the single source of truth in case of a conflict.
Align All Stakeholders
You must secure alignment on the ABM strategy from key stakeholders. Besides the top management, it must include key collaborators who would actually implement the strategy.
Identify Target Accounts Strategically
You need to be strategic in identifying target accounts. They should be a good product fit as well as provide higher return on investments. You should also consider if many of your competitors are pursuing the account. At least initially, you should go for easy wins to boost team morale.
Build an ABM team with care
You may have the world’s best strategy in place, but if your team fails to implement it fully, everything else is futile. So, choose members of your ABM team carefully. The team must have key members with strong skills such as sales, marketing, digital marketing, media management, PR, etc.
Build strong relationships with the buying committee
As you are selling high-ticket items, the ultimate buying decision will typically be taken by a buying committee, not an individual. Your marketing team must reach out to build strong relationships with as many committee members as possible. The more the merrier.
Popular Account Based Marketing Platforms
Any decent sized ABM effort needs use of digital tools. They are essential to map leads and contacts, integrate data into your CRM, get access to dashboard views of your progress, promote seamless collaboration between the team members, track communication with multiple clients and more.
With dozens of ABM platforms available in the market, it can be really challenging to choose the one best for your needs. To help you in making an informed choice, here is a list of popular ABM platforms.
- Demandbase One
- Engagio
- Terminus Engagement Hub
- 6sense
- LeanData
- Tribilio
- Adobe Marketo Engage
You can read their review on review sites such as G2, Capterra or Gartner.
Partner with Think ABM for Account Based Marketing
We at Think ABM enable you to increase your funnel velocity through the use of AI-driven intent data and psychological profiling. We own a first-party database with 36M+ prospects. Our established lead nurturing processes help you align and resonate with the prospects quickly, which further enables you to close sales swiftly.
Get Our Free Guide to Boost Your Strategies!
See related posts
The Criticality of Quality Data in Your Marketing and Lead Gen Efforts
10 Reasons Why You Need to Outsource Your B2B Lead Generation
Fueling ABM Success Through an Optimized Content Strategy