It works, ABM works!
B2B companies are increasingly turning to account-based marketing (ABM) as their go-to strategy. Many businesses are implementing it in some form or another, but not everyone appreciates how powerful it can be across the funnel. For B2B marketers, ABM complements the traditional, short-term marketing goal of generating leads with efforts aimed at driving long-term revenue growth which is a perfect strategy for scaling businesses.
In a nutshell, ABM is a strategy that directs marketing efforts toward engaging a select set of target accounts. Because personalization at the account level needs sales and marketing to be in sync on account-specific communications, ABM doesn’t just call for alignment between sales and marketing teams; it forces it. Thus it is driven by the Increased revenue in a shorter period of time.
ABM marketers work together with sales to identify key prospects, then build personalized programs and messaging to the buying team within target accounts. The idea is to find and interact with people who are already interested in your product or service. It allows organizations to target their ideal clients at scale when done effectively. But, specifically, how might ABM help your business scale successfully? Here are 5 ways how:
Increases Conversion And Reduces Cost
You can identify your most valuable leads using ABM, and instead of wasting time chasing low-quality (or worse, unqualified) leads, you can focus on them. And by focusing on your ideal clients, you increase the likelihood that they will convert.
ABM lowers the expenses of traditional kinds of advertising. It focuses solely on reaching out to high-value accounts and leads, rather than spending money on ads across all platforms.
Let’s imagine you’re the owner of a small design firm. You want to promote your services but don’t want to do so across all social media platforms. You may use ABM to narrow down the best platforms for reaching out to your target market.
At the very least, you’ll avoid wasting money on non-producing channels this way. You may also build an inbound marketing funnel to help you generate more leads.
Related: 2 Surefire Strategies that Increased My Conversions by 70%
Ensures Customer Retention
While gaining new clients is important, your main focus should be on customer retention. Keeping clients is less expensive than acquiring new ones.
Because your campaign has already created a relationship with your accounts, ABM makes it easier, increasing customer loyalty to your brand. Thus, you’re creating a relationship and a dedicated customer fan base with customized B2B marketing campaigns.
It keeps your current consumers engaged and feeling valued by personalizing communications to individual users. Buyers prefer tailored interactions, which ABM provides. Customers will understand and appreciate the effort that goes into serving targeted content and messaging that resonate.
Related: The Three-Step Guide to Better Customer Retention
Improves Roi
ABM collects leads who are already interested in your products and nurtures them over time through an email campaign. As a result, when compared to other types of digital marketing methods, ABM outperforms them.
Furthermore, it complements the account-based approach that sales teams have been using for years. Sales teams can better personalize their approach with marketing’s active participation. Targeting members of the buying committee with relevant marketing messaging tends to speed up the sales process, helping sales to achieve higher closure rates and close larger agreements more quickly.
Because sales views marketing as a valued ally on a strategic purpose, marketing benefits. Rather than delivering unqualified leads, marketing collaborates with sales on a predetermined list of prospects that both teams think are the most promising. In fact, 84 percent of companies who use ABM claim that it outperforms other marketing strategies in terms of ROI.
Expand Business Through Customers
Account-based marketing follows the adage “quality over quantity,” requiring you to devote significant time and resources to engaging and delighting a select group of high-value accounts rather than rushing to close deals with less-qualified leads who may not be the best fit for your company in the long run.
Because it costs more to acquire consumers than it does to retain them, spending the time to create these trusted connections with clients can help you grow your business by retaining those important customers for longer, which will benefit your bottom line.
Additionally, accounts will become loyal to your business over time as a consequence of personalized, intelligent, and consistent customer experiences – and loyal customers become your finest marketers, promoters, and brand champions.
In other words, through referrals, word-of-mouth marketing, testimonials, and other methods, your accounts will help you develop your business among their networks (e.g., partners, customers).
Smoothens Your Sales Cycle
This cycle is streamlined with account-based marketing because you save time and money by focusing your efforts on certain high-value target accounts, allowing you to spend more time on the stages of the cycle that have a beneficial influence on your bottom line:
1) Identify Target Accounts → 2) Present to Target Accounts → 3) Close Target Accounts → 4) Delight Accounts
ABM helps you stay efficient and streamlines your sales cycle. Rather than experimenting with different strategies to prospect and qualify a big pool of leads, ABM ensures that your target accounts are the right fit for your company, allowing you to immediately get to work on creating relationships.
Because of the marketing and sales alignment, consistent customer experiences, and personalization, ABM helps boost your chances of converting accounts and keeping them long term.
Scaling ABM requires some work but it truly works.
ABM can (and should) be implemented at a large scale to connect sales and marketing efforts and support customer success across the customer lifecycle. Thus, ABM helps you in getting your whole organization aligned around marketing programs that focus on revenue is essential for today’s B2B businesses.
