image credit: Tashatuvango/shutterstock.com
Account-based marketing (ABM) is defined as a focus on a company’s sales and marketing resources to target specific accounts in their market. This strategy is highly personalized to each account. Today, more marketers have started adopting this into their business strategy—and the results have us excited for the future of ABM. Here are three key benefits of account-based marketing that your company should know.
1. Account-based marketing allows you to focus on higher-value accounts
Let’s face it, marketing companies can have an array of different leads, customers, and accounts to keep track of—and meeting the specific wants and needs of all of them is not a simple task. However, when you take a deeper look into your existing accounts, you begin to see that some have a greater value to your company than others.
For example, you may have leads in your company’s CRM that are nowhere near sales-ready or haven’t engaged much with your company at all. With an ABM strategy, you’re able to prioritize specific accounts that have the highest overall value—such as generating the most ROI—without mixing in un-nurtured leads. As a result, you’ll no longer be spending precious time trying to implement a sales strategy to leads and accounts who are not at that stage in their buyer journey yet.
2. ROI and Goal-Setting becomes more clear with account-based marketing
Speaking of generating ROI, another benefit of ABM is having a clearer view of your company’s return on investment. It’s far easier to measure ROI when you have a more targeted and personalized account—even more than with a traditional Inbound strategy. Now, this isn’t to say Inbound can’t play a key role in account-based marketing; these two concepts follow similar ideas, such as a customer-centric approach rather than going the “cold-call” route.
In addition to greater ROI, your company will also have less difficulty setting actionable (and realistic) goals for your marketing campaigns. An ABM approach keeps your goals focused on a single account, rather than a broad-reaching objective across multiple accounts.
3. Give your marketing and sales teams proper alignment!
Remember, ABM is centered on the customer experience. This isn’t exactly easy to work on if your marketing and sales teams are misaligned. That’s why it’s important to ensure that both teams understand who your target account is, which channels to use as touchpoints, and how to plan out the right messaging. If marketing and sales are simply ping-ponging their messages back and forth, you’re essentially running in circles with your target account. Aligning marketing and sales with an ABM approach allows you to reach an account at the right stage of their lifecycle. For a refresher on the four stages of the account-based marketing lifecycle, here’s a quick breakdown:
- Identify: aligning marketing and sales around your company's ideal buyer profile.
- Expand: connecting with those in the account who have an impact on a final purchase.
- Engage: engaging with your audience through social media channels, emails, marketing campaigns, and other touchpoints.
- Advocate: driving more good-fit leads and customers as a result of the work you’ve done with your target accounts.
With these benefits in mind, your company has a clearer look at how account-based marketing works and how to get started. For more marketing insights, be sure to visit our blog. Thinkdm2 is a New Jersey digital marketing and branding agency that specializes in the professional services and technology industries.
