Account Based Marketing has accelerated the pipeline of many B2B organizations in previously unheard-of ways. ABM is a proven way to increase sales and revenue for B2B organizations.
It can be difficult, especially for departments with only one or two people, as they already face many demands for their marketing output. It can be overwhelming to balance the ABM rigors, plan, and choose the right path for your business.
This article will help people considering ABM for their marketing strategy understand the basic concepts and choose low-hanging fruits to start the process.
ABM is a strategic framework that starts with the strategy, not the execution
You should approach your marketing work from a strategy-based perspective and know the importance planning plays in generating positive results. Your internal stakeholders might need to be made aware of this importance.
When discussing ABM with your team, it is essential to have a prepared answer for the question “Why can’t the campaign start this week?” or a variation of that question. It is necessary to match the personas and account lists with the messaging.
Your campaign will only be as successful as the message you use. Your message revolves around pain points that resonate. You can only create relevant pain points by customizing them for groups of personas within groups of accounts. Do the same pains apply to IT managers of e-commerce companies with ten employees and IT managers of ecommerce companies with 1,000 employees?
In this example, where two factors are identical but one is different, the answer will likely be no. You need to create a list of target accounts that are similar in their desire for your product/service. ABM is the sniper if old-fashioned database advertising is a machine gun. Spend time on scope and bullet that will do the job.
Please excuse my labored metaphor.
You can reach out to your audience with these tools
You will need to use MarTech to effectively track the activity of a specific account and market to it. ABM is recommended with an adequately maintained Marketing automation or CRM system.
It is important to note that your CRM/MAT will need to store data to help you understand which accounts engage with you. You can also plan campaigns according to the health of a statement or its lifecycle. For example, start an email nurturing campaign 6-12 months before contract renewal.
HubSpot is the CRM and MAT we prefer to use to help our clients.
Use intent tools to see what your target account is doing online. Rollworks is the tool that we have had the best success with. You can get a good idea from the intent tool which companies are looking for similar solutions or services to yours. This tool is most useful when your ABM is focused on enterprise clients, such as retail banks.
You will need to select the best advertising solution for your audience. Finding a better solution for ABM than Linkedin and Microsoft Display Network is hard. While their ads may not be as powerful as Paid Search, the ability to target people based on the self-cleaning data of LinkedIn profiles is unmatched by the competition.
Consider the lifecycle of a customer from beginning to end… and then start again
ABM is not over when a lead becomes a customer. Once a prospect converts to a customer, you can track new data. You should consider marketing when you are a SaaS provider. Reactivation campaigns are necessary if a client goes from five active licenses to three dormant users and one empty seat.
NPS and Customer Satisfaction Surveys can provide great metrics to help you get a feel for a client and tell the sales team what they need to do.
Do you now understand why a CRM Database is so essential? This information must be stored and kept clean.