Account based marketing reduces sales to its lowest terms through focusing on accounts, not just leads. Engagement is laser focused and results can be amazingly easy. Really, if you know the accounts where the greatest revenue potential sits, why not capitalise on that?
Account based marketing includes a buyer and influencer team at critical accounts so that your marketing and sales team can engage appropriately and with relevant offers. Literally, a one-to-one engagement strategy, account based marketing relies on personalisation, sales and marketing engagement to reach buyers and influencers within each account.
And while the results can be off the chart, there is a bit of work involved while ramping up to the ideal messaging and forms of communication within your most important accounts.
We think that account based marketing is a brilliant initiative. All you need are a couple of elements to push you into the higher revenue zone, the secret sauce when administering any ABM campaign: experimentation and iteration.
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Experimentation opens up more ABM opportunities
Account based marketing has a reputation for working only for large or enterprise size accounts because of the time and budget investments involved. But as ABM evolves in the marketplace and marketers are becoming more familiar with setting up an ABM strategy, they’re willing to take more chances by extending ABM to customers they may not have thought a good candidate before.
Experimentation is also a good solution for smaller businesses to try on for size before transitioning to the ABM model. Trying it out on one or two accounts will help prove the feasibility of account based marketing before making a big investment in scaling and targeting multiple accounts at once.
Some tips on ABM experimentation? Read on.
Select a target account(s)
Start by engaging marketing and sales reps to define the customer profiles with the most revenue potential. Then dig for information about the profile and keep digging until you arrive at a comprehensive view. Think in terms of successes as well as goals, objectives and pain points. Now apply your profile criteria to accounts that match your new profiling. Short list the potential candidates and get ready to identify the possible influencers.
o Determine the decision makers
Within each of your targeted accounts there will be key decision makers who will be involved in any purchasing decision. It’s a good idea to do some due diligence before any engagement attempts so they know that you are sincerely interested in helping them solve their pain points and business challenges when the opportunity comes to start your relationship.
Share personalised and relevant content
This is where some of your biggest time investment will come in. Generic or broad-brushed content just won’t be compelling when working an ABM strategy. Your communications need to be compelling, personalised and relevant in order to gain attention and encourage customers to learn more about your business solutions. White papers, direct marketing, webinars and other inbound marketing tactics will put you far ahead in the sales cycle if you commit to personalised and relevant content.
Communicate appropriately
With an ABM model you don’t have to bombard prospects with tons of messages. Account based marketing is based on quality, not quantity, so be sure to reach out only if you have something of value to say or to add to an ongoing dialogue with the customer.
Iteration increases your chance of ABM success
The second account based secret sauce ingredient is iteration—repeating your ABM efforts to achieve new revenue objectives. Sometimes iteration will take the shape of the ABM plan you have already instituted in your company. Other times iteration will mean trying new tactics with established accounts or even trying to penetrate accounts which have been out of bounds for you.
The key to iteration is expecting to get new results through persistence of your ABM plan and then being open to altering those plans for more appropriate contact with targeted accounts. If a plan is worth doing, it’s worth doing again and again with a few possible course corrections along the way to more revenue.
Account based marketing has some pretty fixed components—account identification, personalisation and sales and marketing engagement—as well as an organisational investment. However when you have dedicated ABM teams working for better customer loyalty and revenue, the investment is a sound one. If you just remember to add the secret sauce of account based marketing, there is always room for inventive tactics and repeat performances of successful methods to position you favourably for long-term success.
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…