What is account based marketing (ABM), is it a reality or a new buzzword?
If you’re familiar with B2B marketing, you probably heard of it, it’s basically strategy implemented by few bigger companies that are targeting few of big accounts. This level of marketing is usually used in enterprise level businesses or sales organizations. It works as an idea that most of B2B decisions of buying something are not being made by just one person but more as a group of people. But what is B2B? Its actually business to business selling. If a company that you own is more focused on selling services or products to other companies you are using B2B model. So, the question you might ask is, why do you need to focus your marketing resources on a specific group of customers with account based strategy? For the simple reason, because marketing teams are selecting accounts which are of higher value which means that they can have potential to bring more profit and revenue, making them influential on market.
Over half of businesses said they have account based marketing in place, but only 20% of those companies have full accounting based marketing program. What’s even more interesting, 47% said that they don’t have required talent to run ABM, and 60% of companies are saying they will start investing in accounting based marketing system. At the first sight, it’s hard to see whether ABM is really start of something big or just a hype. Let’s say you are running a multi billion dollar business, and you are negotiating various contracts with many vendors for computer hardware, supplies and software. Then, you are introduced to few more services from your favorite vendors that could help you updating your system and equipment specially tailored by your demands. If that services are matching your needs in business world, you can choose to get in a contract with that specific vendor.
So how is all of this actually developed?
Account based marketing requires gathering various data, and develops relationships with targeted companies. First team of marketers have to see which ones are top accounts and then rank them by measuring how much each of them can increase business. The questions vary from, how can those accounts provide value to company, and what are the costs? When the decision for targeted account is made, researchers of market identify what are the needs of account and their past decisions. There are many benefits of using account based marketing. One of them is clear and better ROI. If your ABM strategy is effective it will clearly drive business results. It also reduces wasting of resources, because ABM work as targeting system. You are deciding which accounts can be qualified and then going for them.
If you think account based marketing will benefit your business too, there are some key steps that you should consider taking. First, you have to define and discover accounts with highest value, then you map those accounts and understand their structure, and run coordinated or targeted campaigns. If you are looking for something new to try with your business, you should try using it. The choice of vendors is really big and of them will lift up your conversions. Doesn’t matter what kind of strategy you’re planning to use on, ABM should be a tool in your plans for near future.
