One of the aims of any successful marketing campaign is to reach your intended audience with the right messaging. This started with traditional marketing, referring to any marketing not online, including newspaper and radio. Then, as the world became more digital, the way we reached our target audiences evolved, introducing digital marketing, which was not only a more cost-effective solution but also a more direct way to connect with our audiences.
Account-Based Marketing or ABM as it is more often referred to allowed us to go one step further, placing content where it will attract engagement, bringing the customers to you. Focusing on quality over quantity of leads, ABM offers significant promise for marketing leaders in the B2B world, enabling marketing and sales teams to engage high-value customers with relevant content. However, ABM can be steeped in mystery and we want to set the record straight.
“Marketing is no longer a one-way street – you cannot simply shove promotions to your prospects. You need to engage in an active dialogue and ABM lets you do that with unparalleled precision.”
Shari Johnston, SVP of Marketing, Radius.
Account-based marketing is nothing new, it is just marketing. If you know what your perfect customer looks like, you can target them. ABM is, simply, a focused approach to B2B marketing in which marketing and sales teams work together to target best-fit accounts and turn them into customers.
The traditional B2B sales funnel takes a broad approach to lead generation, while the ABM approach flips this funnel on its head. Instead of starting with marketing channels in an attempt to generate leads, an ABM strategy begins with identifying and targeting best-fit accounts that have the biggest revenue potential for your business.
It’s all about knowing your audience, ABM requires an understanding of the motivations, frustrations, and needs of individual accounts. It’s vital to look at the current problems and technical challenges your key customers face and focus on how you can add value.
Overall, ABM provides many benefits; keeping marketing and sales aligned, maximizing your businesses’ relevance among high-value accounts, delivering consistent customer experience, measuring your ROI, and streamlining the sales cycle.
The long-term objective of B2B account-based marketing is to help teams with revenue growth at every stage of the funnel – acquisition, acceleration, retention, and expansion. The foundation of a successful ABM program is a list of carefully chosen accounts, then marketing and sales teams can work together to craft and deliver personalized campaigns through the right channels, producing the best result for you.
Simple.
