The ABCs of ABM, Account-Based Marketing that targets your strategic accounts
Do you work in a BtoB company and want to know more about account-based marketing? Then you've come to the right place!
What are the advantages of this marketing approach and how does it differ from inbound marketing? And how do you go about implementing it?
As an added bonus, we'll illustrate the method with a concrete example, and give you tips on how to equip yourself with the right tools.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
ABM: definition
Account-Based Marketing (ABM ) is an (unsurprisingly) strategic approach to BtoB marketing.
It aims to target and then convert key corporate accounts, deemed to be of high added value, through personalized campaigns. In short, the marketing effort is concentrated on the most important prospects and customers, using the levers of relationship marketing.
For which companies?
Particularly suited to large companies, ABM is an interesting strategy for any structure selling :
- 🏢 to other fairly large companies, or groups made up of subsidiaries, whose needs perfectly match its offer;
- 🔎 goods or services involving a long sales cycle, with a high cost or level of commitment from the buyer ;
- 🕴🕴🕴 involving many people in the decision-making process.
Companies adopting ABM waste less time trying to address all prospects, but spend more on developing high-potential customer accounts, for a more attractive return on investment and loyalty at the end of the day!
ABM techniques
Like other marketing strategies, ABM uses a number of techniques:
- social selling, to target and make contact with decision-makers or key contacts ;
- content marketing, i.e. the production and delivery of high-quality content to targeted prospects, to subtly demonstrate expertise and stay top of mind;
- marketing automation to automate campaigns and trigger targeted actions, the fruit of collaboration between sales and marketing teams and collected data;
- personalizing the customer experience.
What's the difference with Inbound Marketing?
Defined in this way, Account-Based Marketing seems to have a lot in common with Inbound Marketing, particularly in terms of raising prospects' awareness of your expertise and gradually and subtly encouraging them to buy.
But while inbound marketing aims to attract as many qualified visitors as possible to your company (on its websites, social networks or blogs), and convert them into leads and then customers, ABM is aimed at a select number of prospects.ABM is aimed at a selection of well-defined prospects, the most promising in terms of sales or impact on the company's reputation.
In short, with an ABM approach:
- target identification comes first,
- not personas, but accounts,
- and the funnel is reversed, as illustrated in this diagram:
ABM and inbound marketing complement each other, and in fact, companies that adopt account-based marketing are often those that have mastered inbound marketing and want to go further in BtoB targeting, lead nurturing and personalization, to build customer loyalty.
How to implement an ABM strategy?
There are 6 key stages in account-based management.
🎯 1 - Identification of strategic accounts (target accounts), using data from sales and marketing teams:
- type of customer company,
- SALES,
- high scoring,
- profile of most loyal customers or best buyers, etc.
🎯 2 - Mapping key contacts within the various accounts using organization charts or LinkedIn Sales Navigator (purchasing department, managers, etc.) to identify entry points and decision-makers.
🎯 3 - Setting up a monitoring system on social networks in particular, to keep up to date with your target accounts, detect needs and expectations, and improve your customer knowledge.
🎯 4 - Prospecting and making contact, particularly on social networks (social selling), often LinkedIn.
🎯 5 - Producing and sending content, such as :
- a white paper,
- a case study
- or a webinar dealing with an issue of interest to your target audience,
▶️ via emailing or any other channel where your target can be found,
▶️ offering a way to contact you in return (form for example).
🎯 6 - Monitoring campaign performance to improve the content of your ABM strategy, by defining a common KPI for sales and marketing teams, in smarketing mode.
Account-based marketing: a concrete example
Project yourself! 🔮 You're a communications agency specializing in HR marketing and employer brand development.
This very trendy subject of HR outreach and its impact on the company is of particular interest to large groups, your prime target, especially those facing shortages of candidates for certain positions.
Your account based marketing manager has identified several groups that have been recruiting for specific positions for a long time, and then, via LinkedIn, identified key contacts within the group, particularly in the HR department, but also in the marketing department, which is more sensitive to the subject of HR communication.
Your dedicated teams contact these companies via the professional social network, using an automated prospecting tool. As soon as they get a response, they introduce your agency and submit your white paper outlining the issues and risks surrounding employer branding.
Some time later, an invitation is sent to attend a webinar you're organizing on the subject, to further highlight your expertise and arouse the target audience's interest .
The webinar can be viewed live or replayed, subject to prior registration, and allows you to collect contact details so you can keep in touch and send out other content at a later date.
The advantages of ABM
You've seen the benefits of adopting an account-based marketing strategy. Here's a summary of the main benefits:
Building a strong relationship with the customer
Account-based marketing is based on in-depth, long-term customer knowledge, creating a privileged customer relationship based on personalization and trust.
A tool for both conversion and customer retention
It's logical, then, that this strategy should work just as well for prospecting and converting prospects into customers, as it does for long-term customer retention.
The time and quality invested in optimizing the customer experience naturally impacts the loyalty of your accounts.
A better return on investment
It certainly takes time and effort to research, update and monitor, but the accounts landed in this way have high potential and are more likely to pay off.
Because the marketing budget is under control and the conversion rate is higher, the ROI is better, even if it requires patience.
Alignment of sales and marketing teams
These teams need to work closely together to achieve the desired results.
By communicating better and sharing strategic data, they benefit from greater alignment and commitment. In short, they perform better!
Shortening the sales cycle
As we've seen, ABM is relevant to the sale of products or services with long sales cycles. By providing the right content, to the right people, at the right time, you help to facilitate and shorten the decision-making process.
KPI tracking
Finally, with clearly identified targets and focused marketing efforts, it's easier to track campaigns and their results.
Rely on ABM
By investing in the accounts with the greatest potential, you're betting your entire marketing budget and efforts on the "best horses", with less risk of failure.
Software specialized in sales intelligence (for lead scoring in particular) and marketing automation (like Hubspot) can help you detect these opportunities, follow them up, make contact and benefit from a profitable return on investment over time.
Convinced by the benefits of an ABM strategy? If you're just starting out, come back and share your experience with your peers!
Article translated from French