Account-Based Marketing (ABM) targets your most profitable customers to get more sales quickly. It’s the most reasonable methodology to engage with those companies where potential sales are the highest. Sounds a little boring like that, doesn’t it? When actually ABM is 1-to-1 marketing on steroids.
It goes something like this. Account-based marketing works only when you target the right accounts. You strengthen relationships with buyers and influencers within those accounts. You nurture, nurture, nurture until your targeted accounts understand fully that you have the solution for their needs. You can solve their pain points and you’ll be around to support them throughout the life of what you expect will be a long term relationship.
And data plays such an important role in the ABM methodology. It’s the most competitive tool any company can use. So, what role does data management have in an account-based marketing initiative? Read on.
The foundation of ABM is contacting your perfect prospects and customers individually. You’re not just targeting verticals or market segments. You want specifics and that’s where the data management comes in.
Meet your prospects where they are
No one ever has a perfect ABM contact list handed to them. There is some work involved. And there should be. You’re changing the marketing and sales dynamic of your company and you need to get it right.
Off the top, you know who your solid prospects and customers are. They should be included automatically. Just make sure the account and contact information is accurate and complete for all purchasers and influencers for each customer.
You’ll then want to start expanding out to capture the data trail left by others who have engaged with your company. Digital captures of online activity such as website visits and time spent each visit as well as those with high lead scores from previous campaigns are great secondary additions to your ABM list.
If your list is not as robust as you would like, you might try running a few more traditional campaigns segmented by revenue, industry or location. You will probably encounter anonymous users engaging with your online tools but don’t be in a hurry to discard them. You can attempt to capture their data via data activation. Simply lead them via an ad to a customised landing page where they will undoubtedly fill out the form and submit their info. Voila. They are no longer strangers and you have more vital data for your ABM initiatives.
Get your data in order
ABM campaigns run only on pristine account and contact data. It will also make a huge difference if you have a marketing automation tool to store accurate data and manage campaigns. You’ll also need to engage with Sales to sync contact information to head off any kind of campaign failures which can easily occur if your data is inconsistent.
The more customer data and feedback are shared between Sales and Marketing, the better the opportunities to create one-go-one campaigns and content to nurture and grow their accounts. Solutions to pain points aren’t cookie cutter answers and the better your company understands what is critical to accounts, the quicker you’ll be able to deliver and become a trusted go-to source.
Enrich and mine your data
Marketing and Sales activities are cyclical. It’s the nature of the beast. New campaigns will be created in informed cycles based on account activity so it’s critical to re-visit stored information. Everything from bounced emails to account contact changes to sales information needs to be reflected in your data.
You should also do some data mining to update your accounts with some of the following elements:
Campaign performance
Contact engagement
Number of contacts and accounts
Account segments based on commonalities
Social media preferences
Third-party data related to targeted accounts
Refined customer profiling
This may be viewed as a tedious task but you’ll change your mind when solid leads start showing up and ROI figures upgrade too. First party, flawless data is the most valuable thing your company can possess so give it the respect it deserves.
With ABM, you’ll have to know prospects and customers inside and out. Fortunately there is data to be captured on a regular basis to make your ABM initiatives increasingly stronger. You’ll get greater satisfaction and sales because your work is data based and targeted toward your perfect sales opportunities. Only smart data will work. Keep mining the contacts on your list, listen to their pain points and deliver the solutions that will move their businesses further. You’ll have many viable leads and healthy sales because you had the savvy to pay attention to the data at your fingertips.
How to drive profit from Account-Based Marketing
The main reason why ABM has caught the imagination of the marketing community is simple: it’s proven to deliver results. With it comes the ability to deliver more meaningful and relevant messages that are tailored to a precise audience. But then you already knew that. What you possibly don’t know so well are the key factors behind a successful ABM programme, or the main pitfalls to avoid. At least until you opened this ebook…