A growing number of B2B companies are embracing account-based marketing (ABM) as part of their overall marketing strategy.

What is ABM?

In its simplest form, ABM is a marketing strategy that directs resources to engage a specific set of target accounts.

B2B marketers frequently cast large nets with their marketing campaigns in hopes of appealing to as many companies as possible.

ABM is an alternative B2B strategy that concentrates sales and marketing resources on a clearly defined set of target accounts within a market.

ABM also employs personalised campaigns designed to resonate with each account.

This perfectly complements the traditional and short-term marketing goal of generating leads by driving long-term revenue growth from key accounts.

Why are companies choosing ABM?

Marketers are continuously facing pressure to directly impact revenue growth.

This a core reason that the ABM approach is seeing significant uptake.

ABM focuses you on relationships in your highest opportunity and highest-value accounts, giving you the best ROI.

By combining efforts and resources, marketing and sales can more effectively engage and convert accounts.

In fact, they gain the luxury of slowing down to develop a thoughtful approach that boosts the odds of driving engagement.

3 strategies for success

1. Effectively reach buyers early

The buzzword in marketing strategy was “inbound”.

Businesses simply provided education on the issue the product solves.

The prospective clients then exchanged their contact information for it, which was nurtured until they reached the ready-to-buy phase.

While inbound marketing can be effective, research shows that the most successful ABM marketers don’t wait for leads to take the bait.

Instead, they try to contact several decision-makers at a target account before any interest is shown.

Why?

They now wait until later in the buying cycle before filling out any forms. Many try to avoid being caught altogether.

When a strategy is no longer effective, it’s time to try something new.

However, in this case, the “something new” is something old—calling people.

In the past, it was not uncommon to call individuals who had not raised their hands to try to start a conversation.

The difference now, however, is that there’s no need to make “cold” calls where sales have no idea whether someone is seeking a solution like the one your company offers.

Instead, you can use tools like Marketo, which marry buyer intent data with customer profiling, to gain a holistic view of the client’s interests.

Once sales identify these accounts, they can research the decision-makers within those organisations and reach out to them.

2. Sales and marketing alignment

Good businesses have always aspired to align the efforts of sales and marketing.

That’s because this practice drives results.

When sales and marketing teams are working in harmony, companies are 67 per cent more likely to close deals, plus they grow on average by 32 per cent.

That compares to a 7 per cent decline for businesses where the two departments travel different paths.

To implement ABM effectively, sales and marketing leaders need to agree on strategies, goals, target accounts, lead routing, metrics and the data required to populate your CRM system.

After all, ABM is a “land and expand” strategy.

3. Work on qualified accounts

The strongest companies have always passed qualified leads to their reps rather than having them waste time on those that are unqualified.

Those that succeed at ABM, however, go a step further.

They insist that salespeople work on qualified accounts.

In other words, if just one person at a company reaches a qualified lead score, it’s not enough to pursue the business.

Instead, account score is the evaluation criteria.

What does this mean for you?

While ABM is one of the newer sales and marketing strategies, resellers need to approach it with guidelines that have been essential to sales and marketing for many years.

Despite buyers doing much of their research online, you can still gain an advantage by leveraging AMB.

For more information on how to capitalise on account-based marketing, contact our team at team@synnexcloud.com.au