In B2B marketing, casting a wide net doesn’t always yield positive results. You may capture a few leads—that’s true. But if you’re looking for the big fish, the high-value clients that will propel your company forward, a different approach is needed. A more precise method called Account-Based Marketing (ABM) allows you to target and establish a relationship with individual companies, also called “accounts,” that make sense for your business.
ABM is about fewer high-value targets rather than many. Again, think of ABM as spear fishing versus net fishing. With ABM, you are trying to “catch” a few fish (high-value accounts), and you will be targeting them in a very specific and personalized way. Especially if you can build strong, long-term relationships with them, the rewards can be great in terms of steady revenue from these clients.
What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?
Essentially, ABM is account-level personalized marketing. It is not broad marketing campaigns that could speak to many companies, but rather focusing on a smaller number of specific businesses that match your ideal customer profile. You build extremely tailored content and campaigns to be able to engage and nurture those accounts through their unique buying process.
In other words, ABM is not a cookie-cutter marketing approach. ABM is about creating a custom experience for the specific decision-makers at the specific organizations that you want to win over. You can think of these customers like VIPs—because they are!
Why ABM Works So Well for B2B
B2B sales are more often than not long and complex sales cycles with multiple stakeholders and decision-makers. Just because you get one person committed at a target company does not mean the sale is guaranteed. You also have to get buy-in from many other stakeholders and decision-makers. Whether they are procurement, finance, or C-suite, the odds that multiple decision-makers are significantly involved in the sale are relatively high. That’s the beauty of ABM! It allows you to build custom messaging related to the specific needs of each stakeholder.
Here are some key reasons ABM should not be ignored as a tactic for B2B:
- Personalization at Scale: ABM allows you to create tailored experiences for each account. Rather than blasting generic emails or content, you can address the challenges and goals of specific businesses, making your outreach significantly more powerful.
- Better Sales and Marketing Alignment: ABM forces sales and marketing to work together closely. Because both teams are focused on engaging the same target accounts, there is less friction, and they can concentrate on reaching the same goals.
- Higher ROI: ABM allows you to spend your marketing dollars more wisely because you can laser in on high-value accounts. Rather than spreading your budget and trying to appeal to everybody, you are focusing on the highest-value accounts. According to recent research, companies that implement ABM see a higher ROI than companies that don’t use ABM.
- Stronger Relationships: ABM is about building partnerships. By supplying relevant, valuable content for each step of the buying process, trust starts to build. Stronger trust results in loyal customers who spend more.
Account-Based Marketing is a great technique if you’re looking to target a select group of high-value accounts. In the following sections, we’ll discuss how to implement an ABM strategy in your organization.
Step 1: Identify High-Value Accounts
The initial step to executing any ABM strategy is to identify the companies you want to target. These should be companies that can provide value to your business—high-dollar contracts, long-term partnerships with future contracts, or considerations of savings that we can’t quantify.
Factors to consider when identifying the high-value accounts include the size of the organization, sales, industry, and whether they align with your product or service. When designing your list, include your sales team to ensure you are targeting the account as intended.
Step 2: Research the Accounts
Once you have nailed down the accounts for your ABM strategy, the second step is necessary: you have to do your homework. You need to learn as much as possible about each targeted company—their pain points, company goals, industry trends, decision makers, etc. Understanding these factors can help you create content and messaging that is tailored to each account.
Research the account company on LinkedIn, trade publications, company websites, etc. The more you know about the company, the better you will be able to position your services as the account’s solution.
Step 3: Develop Customized Content
Now that you’ve completed your research, you are ready to create customized content specific to each account. This could take the form of blog posts, case studies, webinars, or even customized videos specific to the client, focused on their needs and challenges.
For example, if you’re working with a software company that is struggling with customer retention, you could create a case study that illustrates how a similar company used your product to support retention. The goal here is to not only comply but also to find ways to engage that are relevant, exciting, and problem-solving.
Step 4: Use Multiple Channels for Engagement
All good, ABM will not stick to a single marketing channel. The best “ABM” strategies will incorporate a multi-channel approach to engage target accounts wherever they appear through email, social media, webinars, and physical mail.
As an example, you might send a personalized email to the key decision-makers of a target account, then follow up with a LinkedIn connection, and finally invite them to a customized webinar. The goal is to create multiple touchpoints and keep your company top of mind as they work through their buying process.
Step 5: Monitor and Review
As with any marketing method, it is important to assess your results. You should measure significant metrics such as engagement metrics, meetings booked, and closed business, so you can understand the data and utilize this information to improve and maximize your ABM campaigns.
Conclusion
Account-based marketing provides one of the most precise approaches to B2B marketing and drives the acquisition and growth of valuable clients with relevant and valuable communications. Account-Based Marketing, while offering tremendous upside in terms of return on investment and long-term relationships with key clients, requires a stronger upfront process and collaboration between sales and marketing.
If you are tired of firing out into the abyss, it might be time to try account-based marketing. Focus your strategy on landing bigger clients that will propel your business growth.
Just like any marketing strategy, without using metrics to measure your results, you will be stuck guessing what worked and what didn’t. Track things like engagement
