An Intro to Account Based Marketing: Part 1

The ABCs of ABM

One of the best things about our modern MarTech is its ability to fine-tune our marketing strategies to achieve our goals in business.

But where does all this fine-tuning lead to? We’d say the development of Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategies.

Let’s talk about our ability to target new accounts through ABM and why it’s the way of the future.

What is ABM?

In short, ABM is essentially a 1-1 marketing/sales strategy for B2B businesses — where traditional marketing is more generalized with who it targets, ABM targets specific businesses via team members.

For instance, where more traditional B2B marketing might target MarTech companies doing $20,000,000+ in sales annually, ABM would find a specific business that met that criteria and market to them, targeting key team members/decision makers.

To put it as simply as possible, ABM is about focusing your marketing and sales teams on specific accounts you wish to do business with, not general demographics.

Remember: As a multichannel approach to marketing, employing ABM as a successful strategy requires a continual, focused effort from all members of your team. This is not a “set it and forget it” methodology. Rather, this is a concerted effort to increase ROI and make the most of your marketing budget.

Why Use ABM

ABM is a more efficient use of your marketing budget. Despite the additional effort required to custom tailor marketing strategies to unique targets, a recent TOPO study suggests that an ABM strategy improves customer lifetime value by 80% and increases win rates by 86% over a more traditional approach.

Additionally, with a better understanding of target accounts, the customer experience is generally better, translating to higher retention rates.

There’s also the added benefit of shorter sales cycles — since this approach to marketing starts you further down the sales cycle, you spend less time testing the waters and waiting for responses.

How to Use ABM

ABM can be broken down into five essential steps: identification, profiling, creation, execution and reflection.

Identification

The most crucial point behind an ABM strategy is identifying specific accounts instead of casting a wide net at a generalized demographic. Target account selection is critical, so set your sights on high-value targets who may have a genuine need for your product.

Profiling

Pull information from wherever you can get it, whether it’s LinkedIn, a company’s blog or even their Twitter feed. Create a profile of who you believe the company to be on a brand level.

This is also the time to find out who the decision makers are. These are the people your team will be reaching out to.

Creation

Now that your team has identified and profiled your target accounts, create content that speaks to those target accounts as unique businesses while aligning your marketing materials with what you believe to be their core brand. Be sure to emphasize solutions to what you see as potential pinch points in their business.

Execution

This is why it’s so important to have your marketing and sales team on the same page. When you launch your campaign, it’s crucially important that your multichannel approach includes appropriate outreach by the right parties at the right times. Your marketing and sales teams need to be on the same page. Develop agreed upon timelines coinciding with your content and goals.

Reflect

Once your campaign is over and the dust settles, look back at your goals and see where you landed. What can you learn from the successes and shortcomings when employing an ABM strategy to your campaign? Use these insights to inform your campaign in the future.

How We’ve Used It

At Strata, ABM has been crucial to our marketing approach. We’ve successfully employed this strategy for the last several years, but have had notable recent success using ABM and other adaptive marketing approaches to contact decision makers for large accounts at home during COVID-19.

You can read more about our recent efforts here.

Looking to the Future

ABM is the way of the future, and why wouldn’t it be? As an exceedingly efficient strategy with higher ROI and a shorter sales cycles that leads to more valuable long-term relationships with clients, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes the industry standard.

Want to see how we can help you transition to an ABM strategy? Contact us to find out what tools we have available for you to get the ball rolling.