Account based Marketing Strategies or ABM strategies allow your team to target specific accounts with the right messaging. Using account based marketing can help your team boost conversion rates. This is a good strategy for B2B marketing, especially for high value campaigns.
Creating a successful Account Based Marketing strategy requires careful planning and a clear roadmap. You need to ensure that you have a clear definition of your audience, a strategy that will deliver personalized communications to each individual, and a data analysis framework. You also need to make sure that your ABM strategy is integrated with other channels. If you don’t, you could miss out on valuable leads and opportunities.
Strategies Used for Account Based Marketing:
- Account size and purchase stage
Developing a successful Account size and purchase stage ABM strategy requires a major shift in mindset from generating many leads to working with fewer accounts. In addition, the strategy needs to deliver timely campaigns and offer consistent customer experiences.
To develop an effective ABM strategy, marketing and sales leaders should identify the most suitable target accounts. This list can be used to develop campaigns and offer targeted content.
Account Based Marketing technology can help you measure the likelihood that these accounts will close a deal. Having a clear picture of the accounts on your list can help you increase your close rate. In the past, salespeople were often overwhelmed by the number of leads they had to work with. ABM helps cut down on resource waste by only engaging the most likely buyers.
ABM campaigns should also have a clear goal: increasing revenue from these accounts. If you haven’t already done so, consider developing an ideal customer profile. A customer profile will provide an insight into the best fit accounts for your product or service.
Marketing should also provide support to these accounts through the sales process. Having a unified approach to connecting with your target accounts will result in a quicker pipeline and more collateral.
ABM strategies should also include tactics such as targeted messaging, channels and technology. Marketing and sales leaders should also make sure to align on an ABM team building strategy. This requires a strong commitment to a clear communication process.
While ABM may be new to most marketers, it’s no small feat to implement. It requires a commitment from everyone on the team. While there are a few common approaches to ABM, no two strategies are the same.
- Personalization, a key part of successful ABM strategy
Personalized marketing is a key part of any successful ABM strategy. It can boost your chances of closing a deal and create a more positive customer experience. It’s important to take a thoughtful approach to personalization, however. It’s not always possible to tailor each message for each customer, so a more strategic approach can lead to better results.
Personalization of ABM means creating relevant touchpoints throughout the customer journey. It can include a variety of techniques and tools, including personalized emails, chat boxes, and more. Personalization can be used to create an experience that’s more relevant to the target account, and it can be measured by engagement metrics such as form fills and conversion rates.
The 4 steps of personalized marketing are:
- Create an experience
Personalization can be used to create an experience that’s more relevant to the target account, and it can be measured by engagement metrics such as form fills and conversion rates.
- Identifying the ideal customer profile
This includes the ideal customer’s role within the company, their industry, the size of their company, and their revenue. You also need to understand your target accounts’ pain points, interests, and needs. Identifying these needs and challenges will help you craft relevant content for your messaging.
- Incorporated into your ABM tech stack
This can include simple tools such as website personalization or complex systems like marketing automation. It can also be incorporated into your email campaign strategy. If you’re using HubSpot CRM, you can segment your email campaigns based on the roles and interests of your target audience.
- Build relationships with target accounts
The strategy can be used in conjunction with various channels, including direct mail and LinkedIn. ABM can also be used to create personalized experiences in events. You can create personalized follow-up messages after events.
- MultiChannel attribution
Using a multichannel attribution is an important part of a successful Account Based Marketing strategy. It provides a comprehensive view of your conversions and helps you to allocate your marketing budget. It also clarifies your customers’ journeys. This gives you more insights into their behavior and helps you to develop high-value KPIs.
- Understand your target audience
In order to implement a successful ABM strategy, you need to first understand your target audience. Then you need to set goals across your sales and marketing teams. In this way, you can see how your efforts are working and where you need to improve. In the end, you need to be able to compare ROI.
- Make sure your data is compliant
In other words, you need to be able to know exactly which contact information belongs to which account. This can help you create the right content for the right people. It can also help you to create the best campaign. It can also help you to gain confidence in your contacts’ behavior.
- Build your content
Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, it is time to build your content. You can do this by conducting surveys. These surveys can give you data to compare to your multi-channel analytics. You can also use the information provided by customer surveys to fill in the gaps in your offline attribution. This is important because most of your customer journeys span a variety of marketing channels. It is important to know which of these touchpoints are the most important and which aren’t.
- Selecting a model
When you are planning your multi-channel attribution strategy, you will want to understand the different attribution models and their advantages and disadvantages. By knowing this, you can make the right decision when selecting a model.
- Reporting framework and tools
Developing a successful ABM strategy requires a lot of data and intelligence. The right tools can make the process easier.
One of the most important ABM tools is measurement. It can help you determine whether your program is delivering the ROI you expect. Some great tools include Terminus, Bizible, Engagio and Brightfunnel.
- Analyze your target accounts
The first step to creating an ABM program is to identify and analyze your target accounts. Your marketing and sales teams should work together to develop ideal customer profiles. You may want to consider setting up a search alert on LinkedIn for accounts with an ideal profile. You can also use a tool like ZoomInfo to find out if you have out-of-date customer information. Some tools like LeadGnome can help you update your customer information.
- Timely campaigns and product information
The ABM strategy should also deliver timely campaigns and product information. A good ABM program will have a long-lasting effect on your accounts. You should also ensure that the marketing and sales teams work together to nurture and actualize the ABM strategy.
- Robust reporting framework and tools
Using the right tools can help you measure and analyze your data in a timely manner. The right tools can also help you visualize the results of your ABM strategy. The key is to start small and add tools gradually.
The best way to do this is to make a list of your top accounts and research them in earnest. Then, create an account plan that can be stored in a CRM or Slack. It’s also a good idea to have a routine plan reviewed to make sure you’re properly financing your ABM campaign.
- Developing a pipeline acceleration strategy
This strategy requires a collaboration between your sales and marketing team. Ideally, these teams should work closely to set goals and develop a strong communication strategy to ensure success. However, it is also important to recognize that some tasks will require a little extra effort to achieve your goals.
- Identifying your target accounts
Target accounts are accounts that fit your company’s ideal profile, as well as your ideal revenue targets. These accounts are the focus of your ABM strategy, and they’re where your marketing efforts should be focused.
- Identify qualified leads using a lead scoring system
The more activities your contacts engage in, the higher their score will be. This score can help you understand the performance of your pipeline acceleration campaign and drive your ROI to maximize its potential.
- ABM-specific martech platform
You should also consider using an ABM-specific martech platform to increase granularity of reporting. This will allow you to accelerate your ABM engine and get more results. In addition, these systems can also automate more of your ABM activity at scale.
Conclusion
ABM strategies are highly scalable, but they require careful targeting. For example, if your company hasn’t published any online content about its product, you might want to start publishing targeted content on relevant websites. Pipeline acceleration can be used to accelerate the sales process by shortening the time it takes to close deals and reducing points of contact. Shorter sales cycles also make it easier to assess your marketing channels. Marketing and sales leaders should also make sure to align on an ABM team building strategy.
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