Marketing is a vast industry that is constantly expanding. Always two (or maybe more) new techniques will pop in the market just when you think there are no other means you can handle a situation. That’s why the marketing industry has been thriving for so long.
Now, when it comes to business using marketing techniques, there are many ways to increase your profits. For example, most marketers run campaigns that target a wide range of audiences. But this strategy rarely succeeds, especially when it comes to B2B.
So, rather than throwing these campaigns at someone else, it’s better only to chase the audience that businesses are actually intended for. That’s where account-based marketing comes into play.
With account-based marketing, your marketing message is created using the specific qualities and needs of the account you are pursuing. As a result, it provides many benefits to your business.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a big deal. It seems to be mentioned in every webinar, every marketing conference, and every significant marketing strategy discussion.
What is ABM
ABM is tact that directs marketing resources to engage a specific set of target accounts. ABM does not only call for alignment between marketing and sales teams – it pushes teams to align as account-level personalization requires sales and marketing through account-specific messages. What is the inspiration behind this – more revenue in a shorter time frame.
Instead of throwing a vast network with their generational efforts, marketers using ABM work closely with sales to identify key potential customers and then tailor customized programs and messages to the buying team within target accounts.
Benefits of Account-Based Marketing
1. Personalization
Personalization is one of the most advanced benefits of account-based marketing! When trying to reach your target account, individual messages or campaigns are much more effective than a one-to-one message.
ABM has the opportunity to help target all stakeholders into the target account and with a level of personalization. ABM involves a lot of personal research, and this gives it an edge over traditional marketing methods.
2. Cost-Effective
Since account-based marketing requires more account-level personalization than traditional marketing, it usually costs lesser. Nevertheless, developments in marketing technology have enabled marketers to use ABM at a much larger scale.
3. It Helps to Loop in All Decision Makers
On average, each purchase now requires 5.4 people for official login. It means it’s essential to get all parties involved from the start. Every time you add the person to your decision-making team, your sales cycle continues. For example, assume everyone is set to sign, and then the VP joins the shopping team, and you’ve to start at the beginning with that person). When targeting an account rather than an individual, you can close deals faster by contacting all decision-makers from the beginning of the buyer journey.
4. Simpler And More Effective Lead Routing Process
By aligning account managers with the industry-specific, sector, or individual accounts, lead routing and assignments become more direct. Not only does this simplifies lead assignment automation in CRM systems like Salesforce, but it also allows account managers to become authorities in their area of accounting. It also saves administrative time spent on allowing sales reps to focus on building revenue.
5. It Offers Trust-Based Relationships
While customers search for answers online to solve a problem or achieve a goal, ABM allows you to actively communicate that you can help them by providing quality information online through blogs, whiteboards, videos, and social media. As a result, customers are drawn to you for answers, and when they find a suitable answer, they learn to trust you. Once trust is built, a relationship is formed, and this, in turn, leads to sales.
6. Resolving Challenges Across Divisions
For companies with multiple locations and multiple products, reporting and insights into marketing and sales performance are often siloed. As a result, education gained in one division may not translate into another, resulting in missed opportunities and wasted expenditure on marketing.
The right ABM tech stack can deal with such challenges. With a fully implemented, integrated, and customized tech stack, the company will have complete visibility for reporting and analysis from point A to point B. This combined reporting dashboard will enable company stakeholders to measure overall profitability and decide how to utilize the strategy across all markets optimally.
How to Align Marketing And Sales Around An ABM Strategy
Achieving sales and marketing by working as a cohesive account team is the final secret to success. Without such alignment, your target accounts will suffer from fragmented experiences like marketing and sales journeys over each other instead of paving the way for each other to work effectively with key decision-makers.
Success begins with clear communication between sales representatives and marketers and continues as both groups carry out their share of strategy throughout the customer journey. Agreeing on the program’s ultimate goal helps ABM synchronize marketing and sales and find out the most suitable target accounts and the best strategy for reaching and engaging them.
While the main goal is to take on new accounts or expand the business with existing ones, marketing and sales need to define smaller goals aligned with larger goals. These step-by-step process may include:
- Indicating a large number of decision-makers in each account
- Providing more appointments/meetings at higher levels
- Accelerate the sales cycle
- Encourage greater customer loyalty or reduce anxiety
- Closing a high percentage of large deals
- Optimizing revenue in existing accounts
Conclusion
Even with these apparent advantages directly related to the ABM strategy, many organizations feel that the marketing and sales transition scale is too large or painful to guarantee execution. As an agency working with many clients, we have streamlined this transformation and deliver clear benefits like the above ones. We have also been able to get involved early enough to take partial ownership of the change management process. You can call us to know more about ABM strategies to grow your business. Call now!