(REAL) ABM

Account based marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is the strategic approach to business marketing that emphasizes specific target accounts within a market and utilizes highly personalized campaigns in order to spark interest and generate engagement and then leads.

In short, it’s nothing new. This is what B2B marketers have been (or should have been) doing for years.

It kisses ‘goodbye’ to spray and pray marketing campaigns and forces marketing and sales teams to identify, agree and ‘sign off’ on who those key accounts are.

As a result, marketing teams get to focus and measure success on generating awareness and engagement on those specific accounts. Sales teams focus and measure opportunities and deals closed with those specific accounts. Every other MQL/SQL or deal closed becomes a “nice to have”.

Envy has worked with multiple clients on defining the strategy for and executing Account Based Marketing campaigns. We’ve seen clients move from generating plenty of irrelevant leads to highly targeted, nurtured and relevant opportunities from the specified target companies/accounts.

The BENEFITS of Account Based Marketing

Objectives

  • Increase touchpoints with decision makers and influencers
  • Increase number of sales meetings
  • Focus Sales & Marketing efforts on best fit companies
  • Smart/highly targeted use of marketing budget

Results

  • Higher sales velocity
  • More deals in pipeline
  • Increased lead to win conversion
  • Maximizing LTV/CAC

Benefits

  • Even more results oriented
  • Greater efficiency
  • Personalized content
  • Improved lead and customer experience
  • Improved Sales<>Marketing alignment

Key Success Factors for Your Account Based Marketing Campaign

  • Collaboration
    In order to maximize the efficiency of an Account Based Marketing campaign, teams from different departments, especially those from the marketing and sales must converge and act in accordance with a shared strategy. As a result, teams involved in the campaign are using the same data from different sources, thus, creating a data-driven ideal customer profile (ICP).
  • Coordination
    Seamless coordination between sales and marketing teams provide prospects and buyers with an ongoing, relevant experience throughout their journey. Furthermore, the lead’s current state in the buyer journey is known from every angle and every team, which allows for marketing adaptations.
  • Continuity
    Beyond the fact that the lead should feel immersed in their experience with the brand, account-based experiences should be growing, adapting, and continuous. When performed successfully, prospects will turn into strong brand supporters.
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Is Account Based Marketing Right for Your Organization?

As noted previously, organizations of all sizes use Account Based Marketing. As an ABM agency, we believe that it works well for B2B tech companies that fall into one or more of the following categories:

  • Companies that sell to large, key accounts (such as Fortune 500-1000s)
  • Companies that sell to accounts in specific industries, such as finance, tech, eCommerce, aerospace, agricultural, pharmaceutical etc.
  • Companies with a long sales cycle, typically 6 months and longer & multiple stakeholders
  • Companies with marketing & sales alignment deficiencies (they all have them ;))

If your organization falls into one or more of the above categories, you should seriously consider implementing Account Based Marketing.

By implementing an Account Based Marketing strategy, you can improve alignment between marketing and sales, personalize your content, generate more revenue, save time and resources, and improve customer experience.

Account Based Marketing vs. Lead Generation

Lead Generation

Focuses on lead quantity and marketing funnel

  • Buyer Personas
  • Target Market / vertical • Lead Score
  • MQLs
  • Attribution to source of lead

Account Based Marketing

Focuses on strengthening relationships as a core of the sales process

  • Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
  • Target Account List (Specific Companies)
  • Account Engagement Score
  • Marketing Qualified Accounts
  • Split attribution between touch points
  • Sales Pipeline “Target Account” Pipeline

The Great Account Based Marketing FAQ

ABM stands for account based marketing. It is a type of marketing where you choose a list of target accounts and show them content in multiple formats to lead them down the funnel.

Account based marketing is extremely important as it allows company to allocate funds to target specific companies that meet their ideal customer profile. Then they can target relevant and specific content at these companies to raise awareness and slowly bring them down the funnel to conversion.

Many people make the mistake of measuring their account based marketing campaigns on how many leads they get. But since ABM is all about targeting highly specific accounts, you already have their names and contact details. And when you know who your leads are, the name of the game is engagement with these leads – either through remarketing campaigns, email marketing or various ABM tools.

So what KPIs should you look for? First of all, try to determine how well engaged they are with your content. If you are sending them to your website you want to be monitoring their time on blog/time on site. If you’re sending out emails, you want to monitor the open and response rates. Something to keep in mind, KPIs will be quite different depending on which stage of the funnel you’re looking at, for example bottom of the funnel KPIs can be the time to close the deal, the length of the sales cycle, and the volume of the deal.

With well executed ABM campaigns you should expect to see shorter sales cycle and higher engagement.

We actually recommend to not only restrict to account based marketing. If the time is right, definitely devote a significant proportion of your budget to it BUT also run general awareness campaigns too. Why? Because then you expand your reach and awareness beyond these companies, building your audience for the future.

Sales <> Marketing Alignment. Without it your ABM campaigns are doomed to failure, so start working on that from day 1 and you will see your chances of success rise significantly.

Your ABM campaign shouldn’t be 1000s of companies big. ABM works best when you have a select number of accounts that you choose to target and you target well.

1. HubSpot 2. A tool like Lead Feeder 3. Preferably a tool like Influ2 4. LinkedIn Ads Those are your baseline and then the list could go on and on…..

The Great KPI Divide: Why ABM Demands Its Own Metrics
The Great KPI Divide: Why ABM Demands Its Own Metrics
How to Run an ABM Campaign That Actually Works
How to Run an ABM Campaign That Actually Works
ABM vs Conventional LeadGen: All B2B Marketers Need To Know
ABM vs Conventional LeadGen: All B2B Marketers Need To Know

If you’ve read all of the above and still have questions about Account Based Marketing services and how they can fit into your business, or you already know that your business needs to set up and implement an Account Based Marketing program, feel free to contact us.

We’re an Account Based Marketing agency that helps scores of B2B tech companies large and small successfully execute effective Account Based Marketing campaigns.