Account-based marketing, or ABM, is one of the most important strategies for a business today. Today, more than 94% of businesses have an active ABM program.
If you don’t use it, you may be missing out on a high volume of sales.
Marketing strategies have evolved over time. From door-to-door cold calls to targeted email campaigns, both time and technology drive these changes. What are some of the newest and best ways to increase lead generation?
ABM is a sales strategy designed to help businesses narrow their focus on high-potential accounts.
Different from Inbound Marketing, with ABM, sales and marketing teams work together to create targeted messages for each potential account.
Learning about and implementing ABM strategies will give us more success in reaching our target audience. In this article, we will address the following topics:
Continue reading to learn about using ABM strategies to your advantage!
What Is Account-Based Marketing?
ABM is a marketing strategy concentrated on creating very personalized content for targeted clients. The strategies employed help address the target clients’ pain points and questions and introduce solutions.
When you reach out directly to an organization with solutions to common problems, you develop relationships. These conversations lead to long-time business relationships.
When you have companies that you have worked with in the past, you have an established relationship. You’ve likely solved a crucial problem or addressed a particular need. This is the best target for AMB.
ABM is about personalizing your content, focusing on specific targets, and blowing a whistle to get their attention.
A shift in how your marketing works reduces the overall time of the sales cycle and results in a greater ROI.
With ABM lead generation, content can be interactive, targeted, and designed to deepen the relationship with each potential client.
Three different kinds of ABM are common: one-to-one, targeting a conversation with only one organization, one-to-few, campaigning to a broader audience with similar needs, and also one-to-many, general campaigns designed to reach a broader range of companies.
Why You Should Use ABM in Your Lead Generation Strategy
There are many reasons to implement AMB in your lead generation strategy. For one, ABM will help you get and retain clients.
If you can market in a way that instills confidence in your product or service, you are well on your way to reaching some of the benefits of ABM.
With the help of a well-developed ABM strategy, you can take advantage of the many benefits of ABM.
Also, you’ll be able to use these strategies to develop relationships with potential and existing customers.
ABM Aligns Your Sales and Marketing Teams
In a typical business, the marketing team develops the leads. The sales team closes the deal.
With ABM lead generation, the sales team and the marketing team work as one. Leads are developed and researched. From there, solutions are created that work for the leads.
ABM can involve all departments in your business, encouraging collaboration across the board. Get the product development team and customer service team involved.
The more the merrier here, because tailoring marketing strategies to individual clients means more deals and a unified business message.
ABM Increases Your Sales
At first glance, it might seem that ABM is counterintuitive. It costs more money. It uses more time and more resources.
However, the time and resources spent lead to better close rates, larger deals, and faster transactions.
In other words, increased marketing ROI, improved engagement, and a shorter sales cycle.
AMB outperforms traditional sales strategies. 60% of businesses that employed ABM for at least one year saw increased revenue.
How You Can Add Account-Based Marketing to Your Lead Generation Initiatives
ABM is not a new concept. It is easier than ever to implement with the introduction of purpose-built technologies, helping businesses make better use of their time through marketing automation.
What’s more, ABM is scalable, allowing marketing and sales groups to target the right accounts. When ABM is used the right way, your business is more efficient.
Here are some ways you can add ABM to your lead generation initiatives!
Identify Your Target Clients
Who is your ideal client? Can you name 10, 20, 50, 100 of your ideal clients?
If not, gather your sales team and your marketing team. Make a list of target clients.
Imagine if you could pick the ideal client out of a catalog. Who would that client be? Take a good hard look at your network. Identify your top prospects. Look at your long-term clients to see if you have nurtured or neglected your relationships.
Tailor your ABM strategies to these potential clients and to long-term clients. Taking the time to do this on the front end will save you money and effort in the long run.
Use Your Network
ABM doesn’t necessarily work with cold calls. Instead, you should be working your network.
Think referrals from existing clients, people you meet at industry events, long-time clients, and dream clients.
In other words, use who you know without spinning your wheels to find all new potential leads. Starting with what you have may actually generate more leads.
Set Dates to Make Content Relevant
Getting organized is so important when it comes to marketing strategies. You want to stay relevant and add value with each outreach. Maximizing your investment is even more important when it comes to ABM.
Use your marketing and sales teams to create a calendar. Use your target client list to identify important times of the year.
Develop your content around your calendar. If you think and organize in advance, you provide content that is interesting, engaging, and valuable.
Think about it this way. You spend the time and money to advertise your brand. A potential target sees the advertisement and soon thereafter gets an email from you about a webinar.
If you can then follow up after the webinar with a personal phone call you have tripled the impact of your initial advertisement.
Be Specific
ABM requires you to target content to each potential client. Of course, it is unrealistic to reinvent the wheel when it comes to each prospect.
Focus on creating content that is most relevant for each potential client. Devote a portion of the content, like 20%, that can be customized for each individual prospect.
Using email is an easy way to implement this strategy. An email can feel very much like one-to-one communication, even if that same email — with a few tweaks — is going to multiple leads.
Our email marketing guide will show you how to create an effective campaign.
Touch Your Target
Constant communication and engagement are important aspects of any marketing strategy. With AMB, you should make it all about the potential client.
What are the target’s challenges? The target’s needs? Address these and give information about how to make them disappear. Gaining trust upfront will result in more long-term connections.
Use Technology
With ABM lead generation, technology is your friend, not your foe. Take advantage of programs and software designed to automate as much of the process as possible.
These are the types of automated technology that can help in implementing ABM strategies:
- Automation tools for social media: these help your brand manage social media pages, engage, publish content, interact directly with clients and measure various metrics.
- CRM automation tools: these help your brand organize and score leads, track communication with clients and provide insight into the behavior of your clients.
You can also pair tools like Digital Marketing and Content Marketing with ABM technology. The quicker you automate even a portion of your marketing strategies, the faster you will experience the benefits of automation.
This includes higher productivity and deeper relationships with clients across the board.
Now that you’ve been bombarded with information about ABM lead generation strategies, you should these strategies to the test. You should be able to reach your target buyer in a more efficient way.
Don’t forget the why, trying to engage high-potential accounts with a highly personalized message and offer.
Pick a few strategies based on your business model. Don’t try them all at once. Keep a few in your arsenal to use for when you need them the most.
A good format, that can bring even more business opportunities for you is the interactive content. See how you can merge interactivity and ABM here!
