For a long time, marketers were primarily focused on capturing as many leads as possible for the business.
But it is no longer the same, it no longer matters how many visitors they bring to their website. It is now all about the engagement they drive, and personalization is the key to generating engagement.
Although mass marketing is popular, there is a shift from a one-to-many to a one-to-one approach.
As a result, account-based marketing was born, in which B2B marketers focus their efforts in closer alignment with sales, resulting in the closing of more deals with target accounts.
Account-Based Marketing
Account-Based Marketing is a B2B marketing technique that aims to run a marketing campaign that focuses on high-value prospects in a personalized manner.
It is a strategic approach to marketing in which the resources are focused on engaging a specific group of target accounts, resulting in shorter sales cycles and higher revenue.
Because of personalization and the creation of account-specific content, ABM not only requires but also pushes sales and marketing teams to align.
For B2B marketing and sales teams, identifying and targeting key accounts has been a solid practice.
This is critical for B2B marketing because it allows them to make the most efficient use of their time, energy, and resources by focusing on accounts that are most likely to buy from them.
What makes account-based marketing stand out today is that technological advancements have provided marketing teams with the tools they need to perform account-based marketing at scale.
The main idea is to develop a new sales and marketing structure that focuses on developing relationships with highly specific and targeted accounts.
There are many fundamentals to consider such as account planning and mapping, sales and marketing alignment, and KPIs.
The process of doing Account-Based Marketing is as follows:
- Identify the Accounts
The first step of ABM is to identify the main accounts from a list of all accounts they have. This is a critical phase because it determines the next course of action.
The key accounts can be chosen based on a variety of factors such as revenue, region, demographics, industry, and so on.
- Create the marketing plan for the selected account
This process focuses on developing a systematic marketing approach in order to create a highly personalized marketing plan for specific and targeted accounts.
- Market and expand
This process involves delivering a highly personalized plan to the account and putting it into action. The key is to create content that will address the pain points of the specific accounts that they are targeting.
This step is a combination of identifying the account needs and implementing the same.
- Measure the results
The final step in the ABM process is to evaluate the results of the marketing strategy implied in the process and improve over time.
Why should B2B Marketers adopt Account-Based Marketing?
Here are some main reasons why should B2B marketers adopt ABM:
- Better alignment between sales and marketing
Because ABM focuses on accounts rather than leads, it requires sales and marketing teams to work together at every stage of the process.
Target accounts will suffer if marketing and sales teams trip over each other rather than allowing each other the space they need to properly engage with key decision-makers.
When sales and marketing teams work together to achieve a unified goal, the never-ending debate over lead quantity and quality comes to an end.
- Better customer experience
Rather than flooding the market with content that attracts a specific group of audiences, B2B marketers can go deep and conduct research on the target account, providing them with contextualized content at each stage of the customer’s journey.
- Optimal use of resources
ABM is a zero-waste marketing technique because its marketing activities are so targeted that resource waste is minimal.
It lets businesses focus their time, energy, and resources on specific accounts that are most likely to buy from them, allowing them to make the most efficient use of their time, energy, and resources.
- Higher Return on Investment
An account-based marketing technique is specific and measurable, with the best return on investment of any B2B marketing strategy available.
ABM allows marketers to engage all stakeholders involved in the purchase decision with personalized content, resulting in a shorter sales cycle and higher ROI.
Conclusion
Today’s B2B marketer is an innovator, constantly coming up with new ways to engage with potential customers and grow their business.
Technology has given B2B marketers the tools to perform techniques like ABM for highly targeted sales and marketing campaigns, which performs better than generic marketing strategies.
It is no longer relevant to focus only on tracking website visits and generating a large number of leads. Instead, B2B marketers should focus more on tracking engagement with specific accounts that are most likely to buy from them.
Account-Based Marketing brings relevancy while also increasing the likelihood of closing more deals with potential customers.
The combination of unique content with a direct approach that is targeted to specific target accounts makes ABM stand out from other marketing strategies.
