It doesn’t matter if you’re a new business owner or a seasoned veteran. When it comes to marketing efforts, every business owner wants to see a greater return on their investment.
How do you actually accomplish this, though?
One of the best ways to see a significant ROI is to implement an account-based marketing strategy. In fact, 97 percent of marketers have said account-based marketing (or ABM) yielded a higher ROI than any other marketing campaign.
If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, ABM has to be a part of the equation.
Never heard of ABM before? Not sure how to implement this initiative into your marketing plan?
Read on to learn everything you need to know about account-based marketing.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-based marketing involves taking individual prospects or company accounts and treating them like their own separate markets.
How Does ABM Work?
ABM is all about changing the focus of your marketing strategy.
Rather than taking a broad approach and focus on a lot of different leads and individual consumers, you take a narrow approach and focus on appealing to the higher-ups within a very specific organization or company.
Each account that you focus on should have its own unique marketing strategy and messaged tailored just for it.
In order for ABM to be effective, you have to do a lot of research to find the accounts that are a good fit for your business. It takes a lot of work, especially when you’re first getting started. But, most business owners find that the extra effort absolutely pays off in the end.
Who Should Use ABM?
Lots of businesses rely on ABM, but it’s especially common among enterprise-level sales companies and business-to-business (B2B) companies — like these companies.
Benefits of Account-Based Marketing
There are lots of reasons to consider an account-based marketing initiative, including the following:
Clearer and Increased ROI
Account-based marketing can yield impressive returns on your investment. This is because, when you target specific enterprises with more resources, they are able to pay more upfront and sign larger contracts.
ABM creates a direct tie between marketing and closed deals and increased revenue. This makes it easier for businesses to see where their money is going and how their investments are paying off. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.
Fewer Wasted Resources
When you utilize ABM, you’re taking a very targeted approach.
Every marketing program is highly optimized and so much research goes into each account. This, in turn, allows marketing teams to use their resources efficiently and avoid wasting time and money on dead-end approaches.
Increased Engagement
Many businesses find that engagement with target accounts goes up when they take an ABM approach.
This increase in engagement has to do largely with the fact that ABM lets marketing professionals speak directly to their prospects and present them with a highly tailored message. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that they will receive a positive response.
Clear Goal Tracking and Measurement
Because ABM accounts are so targeted, it’s easy to track progress and set goals. You can look at aspects like email, advertisement, and events, and see which efforts are working and which ones are not.
Greater Retention and Expansion
Customer retention rates tend to go up with account-based marketing, too. This has to do, in part, with the increase in engagement.
The increase in customer retention with ABM accounts also contributes to the increase in revenue that many businesses see when they take this approach. After all, it’s easier to retain a customer than it is to try and acquire a new one.
Easier Sales Alignment
Finally, ABM makes it easier for businesses to align their sales and marketing strategy.
The mindset required when running an ABM initiative is similar to the mindset one needs to have when they’re working in sales, so it’s easy to bring the two areas together and find ways to generate more revenue.
How to Implement an Account-Based Marketing Strategy
Clearly, there are lots of reasons to consider implementing an account-based marketing strategy for your business. But, how do you actually do this?
Here are some steps you ought to follow if you’re interested in using ABM for your business:
Identify Your High-Value Accounts
The first step you need to take if you’re going to implement an ABM strategy is to identify your high-value accounts.
Go through all your accounts and consider their revenue potential. Think about other factors, too, like the likelihood that they’ll make repeat purchases and their influence on the market.
Identify Key Internal Players Within These Accounts
Once you’ve found your target accounts, look at how they’re structured. Figure out how the decisions are made at this company and who is in charge of making them.
Define Your Content and Personalize Your Message
Next, you’ll need to work on the message you’ll use to target each of these accounts.
Think about the challenges the business may be facing and how your business can help. Think, too, about the language you need to use to reach the decision-makers at each company and convince them that they ought to work with you.
Determine the Optimal Communication Channels
After this, you need to figure out the optimal channels for communicating with each account. Do you need to use email, mobile communication, social media? Be sure to meet them where they already are.
Execute Targeted Campaigns
Now, it’s time to execute your campaigns. Coordinate your campaigns across various channels and make sure your marketing and sales teams are all aligned.
Test, Measure, Learn from, and Optimize Your Campaigns
Finally, be sure to test your campaigns and measure their results. Learn from the results and work on optimizing your campaigns so that they are more targeted and more effective.
Be sure to focus on both the results of individual campaigns and trends on the account level and aggregate level.
Looking for More Marketing Information?
You now know plenty about account-based marketing, and you have some actionable tips on how you can implement this type of marketing strategy into your business plan.
Are you interested in learning about other marketing strategies, though? Do you want to become a marketing master?
If so, be sure to check out some of the articles on our website today.
This one on the most cost-effective ways to market your business is a great starting point for your research.