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ABM – A Focused Way to Target Best Fit Accounts

The ultimate goal of every B2B organization is to implement the processes or strategies that offer a significant return on investment (ROI). ROI is directly proportional to the number of customers visiting your business and the volume of those customers getting converted into actual buyers. The first stage of ROI generation begins with planning & implementing effective sales and marketing strategies to attract customers to your B2B brand. Many B2B brands succeed till this first stage but failed to generate the expected ROI as they are not aware or not interested to implement the processes that engage those first-time visitors.
One of the focused marketing approaches to target best-fit accounts and turn them into customers is Account-based Marketing (ABM). It is a proven method of focusing on high-value customers and serving them better to generate higher ROI. This blog focuses on what ABM is, common problems that ABM can solve, and how to implement ABM to produce the best results.

What is Account-based Marketing (ABM)?

Account-based marketing is a marketing approach that focuses on targeted accounts and is jointly implemented by sales and marketing teams. This method is all about:
• Classify – classifying the most important accounts from your database
• Collect – collecting as much information as possible about those targeted accounts
• Apply – applying insights to solve the problems of
• Expertise – Utilizing your expertise in the area to craft personalized marketing methods In short, account-based marketing direct sales and marketing reps to engage specific targeted accounts, nurture them for the long-term association, and target key decision makers within those accounts. The main of ABM is to generate new business from specific target accounts or grow business from existing accounts or a combination of both. The flow of the traditional sales funnel is like – creating awareness, consideration, and purchase decision whereas ABM flips this agenda and makes this flow as account selection and nurturing long-term business. So, account-based marketing is not a tactic but a business strategy that incorporates buy-in across B2B businesses.

• How ABM Can Solve Common B2B Business Problems?

Many B2B businesses implement broad or generic marketing approach to generate great ROI. But as compared to the targeted approach, they failed to reach that expected ROI. The following are the common B2B marketing problems that can be solved by a successful ABM initiative:
  • Problem 1 – Waste of staff, time, and budget:
  • Account-based marketing effectively and efficiently focuses on time, staff, and budget investment in high-value accounts. It allows B2B marketers to run marketing programs that target on proper optimization of your resources.
  • Problem 2 - Clear ROI:
  • The main aim of account-based marketing is to prioritize ROI that results in comprehensible business results. As compared to other B2B marketing initiatives, ABM delivers the highest return on investment.
  • Problem 3 – Engagement Issue:
  • Account-based marketing is a personalized approach that focuses on marketing to targeted customers concerning their buying journey. This approach tends to be more likely to engage the best-fit accounts as the marketing approach is geared specifically towards their needs.
  • Problem 4 – Alignment of Sales and Marketing Teams:
  • One of the main problems of many B2B companies is the lack of proper synchronization between sales and marketing teams. Account-based marketing is one of the best ways to bring together sales and marketing teams on the same side. It runs plans that allow both sales and marketing mindsets to think about how to target best-fit accounts, how to bring them into the sales funnel, and how to nurture them for long-term business.
  • Problem 5 – Goal Tracking:
  • The proper implementation of account-based marketing makes it easier for you to track and analyze the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. You can easily measure the performance of targeted accounts and collect useful insights that you couldn’t collect with other marketing approaches.

• Six-steps Plan to Implement and Optimize Account-based Marketing Strategies:

To carefully choose high-value accounts, it is essential to have a successful foundation for your account-based marketing program. If you wish to experience the best results, you have to define the common goals that bind the sales and marketing team to deliver the personalized B2B campaigns. The following is the six-step plan is a proven way to implement and optimize account-based marketing strategies:
  • Step 1 – Identify your high-value Accounts:
  • To begin with the implementation of ABM, you need to collect all the intelligence data that help you identify and prioritize your high-value accounts. Apart from your in-house data, you can consider various factors like buying behavior, repeat purchase potential, market influence, profit margins, etc., to identify the best-fit accounts.
  • Step 2 – Discover Decision-makers:
  • B2B marketing is different than B2C. In B2C, businesses target individual buyers whereas in B2B businesses need to target decision-makers or key players. Once you identify your best-fit accounts, you need to figure out how these target accounts are structured, who is the decision-maker, and which factors influence their decisions.
  • Step 3 – Draft your Personalized Content Strategy:
  • Now you are ready with a set of targeted accounts. This is the stage where you have to think about how your content strategy hits the pain points of your best-fit accounts. You have to plan a personalized content strategy that addresses the significant business challenges faced by your targeted accounts. An effective content plan can impact buying journey of your targeted accounts.
  • Step 4 – Choose your Channels to Execute ABM:
  • Figure out the channels that your targeted accounts follow. You can combine their digital journey from mobile, web, emails, and social media. Start communicating with your audience on the channels they usually follow and leverage your various forms of content on the same. Figure out the most effective channels and work out to bring the best results from them.
  • Step 5 – Execute Targeted ABM Campaigns:
  • Now set your ROI goals and align common account-based marketing tasks with your sales and marketing teams. You can utilize modern technologies, tools, and software to coordinate and execute ABM campaigns at a greater scale.
  • Step 6 – Measure, Analyze, and Optimize the Results:
  • It is time to measure the results generated by your account-based marketing campaign. Make sure your results are effective and keep experimenting with your ABM strategies to improve the results on a higher scale. To get a more accurate picture of your ABM campaigns, analyze the results at the individual campaign level and alter your plans accordingly.

• Some Important Statistics about ABM:

Account-based marketing helps B2B businesses to generate ROI-focused lead generation. If you don’t believe it as a proven marketing methodology, check the following statistics:
  • ABM helped more than 95% of marketers to achieve higher ROI than any other marketing initiative.
  • More than 82% of marketers say account-based marketing outperforms other marketing strategies.
  • Companies that align sales and marketing teams using the right account-based marketing initiatives experienced 203% more revenue.

Conclusion:

This is the era of a fast-paced environment where every B2B business expects quick results. If you waste your time and resources on identifying potential customers, you would lose the competition and customers too. Account-based Marketing helps B2B marketers to identify, engage, and nurture the best-fit accounts by utilizing the right amount of resources, time, and budget. It is the best way to focus your marketing efforts on a specific targeted group instead of engaging a wider audience.
DemandCircle assists global B2B companies in implementing ROI-driven account-based marketing strategies for better results. We’re ready to help with best-fit account targeting, lead generation, and lead nurturing to grow your business quickly.

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