Keeping up with the latest and most fantastic marketing strategy can be exhausting. It seems like a never-ending cycle of strategies that will solve your marketing woes with false promises, a few button clicks, and a good chunk of your budget. But, account-based marketing is not one of those strategies.
Imagine a world where you can start the sales process by selling your highest-value accounts directly to the ones that best fit. Then, there is no wasted time working to market and sell to unqualified leads who’re not the right fit for your business. Meaning, you could move straight into the steps of engaging and delighting your target accounts.
Talk about efficiency, right?
With account-based marketing, all of this is possible. This process allows you to align your marketing and sales teams from the start to drive long-term business growth, delight customers, and drive revenue.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
ABM is a form of marketing that uses highly targeted, personalized campaigns to win over specific accounts.
ABM differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes all the different people – and different perspectives – of each account involved. As a result, account-based marketing turns the traditional in-house marketing funnel on its head.
Types of Account-Based Marketing
Although which one you should use depends on a variety of factors, there are one or two different types of account-based marketing to consider when planning your ABM strategy:
Strategic Account-Based Marketing: Some of the top accounts are likely to generate the most revenue for your company. If so, you will likely spend most of your time, energy, resources, and other valuable investments here.
For both departments, one or many marketers might be focused on a single account each for maximum output, ensuring account management is in step with sales and delivery teams. A strategic account-based marketer will plan, develop, execute, and optimize a marketing plan for a unit.
Account-Based Marketing Lite: In this type of account-based marketing, some of the core principles of ABM’s strategy are applied to some similar groups of accounts that may have similar challenges and opportunities. Since each set of accounts is similar, you are probably thinking from the perspective of a group, summing up each one.
Account-Based Programmatic Marketing: In the realm of account-based programmatic marketing, there is a fine line between personalization and scale. How far can you go before the goal is slim? In this ABM type, the target account clusters would be too large to work with.
With programmatic ABM, you’re more likely to include customized experiences through your company’s website or landing page, as well as unique content portals for shoppers with personalized content experiences. In addition, programmatic ABM allows you to implement better tools for IP targeted advertising and account mapping.
In account-based selling, there’s no one right way to connect and nurture your accounts – and that’s it. Instead, your outreach efforts should be targeted and personalized to the specific company you are selling to.
Here are some tips to get you started in your toolbox:
1. Identify Your Ideal Accounts
It is where the fun of account-based marketing comes in, especially if you love communicating with customers and want to work more productively with your sales team. Account-based marketing involves creating an ideal customer profile (ICP) to identify your target audience. When you build your ICP, you have a laser-focused target audience that you know everything about. But it is not the link you are analyzing; it is the account. In ICP, the customer is the account you want to work with. To determine your ICP, you need to be aware of your target accounts:
- Industry
- Company size
- Technique
- Revenue
- Place
- Section
- Employee liability
- Employee roles
By doing so, you improve the accuracy of your buyer persona(s), which ultimately broadens your reach.
2. Keep Marketing and Sales Aligned
Cross-team collaboration and better communication are beneficial to growth in any organization. In the context of account-based marketing, this transparency and alignment will ensure that your marketing and sales teams focus on common goals, adhere to a jointly agreed budget, and understand the specific roles of all internal stakeholders.
This alignment helps ensure that all communications, interactions, and content (and more) are consistent for the accounts you are working with. In addition, it means that no matter how long an account is with your company, members of your team can leave other people at any moment without hesitation – creating a seamless and delightful customer experience.
3. Find Your Target Accounts
You can search for your target businesses or check your database for companies that have already contacted you, either through your website or other marketing channels.
Also, look at your current customers. They already like you, and it’s a lot easier to convert than businesses that have no idea who they are.
4. Determine the Right Channels
Now that your content is ready, how will you present it? You can use many marketing channels, including email marketing, online advertising, social media, direct marketing, and even direct sales or personal presentations.
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