How to Use Account-Based Marketing to Drive Business Success

Account-based marketing (ABM) is increasingly becoming the most popular B2B marketing strategy with more than 90% of marketers claiming that it’s essential for marketing and sales alignment.  ABM is on the increase in organisations that want to stay ahead of their competitors by adopting this team-based strategy to attract, engage and convert the highest value accounts.  However, only 20% of businesses have benefited from a full programme while 60% plan to invest in the necessary technology to adopt ABM to align sales and marketing in the coming 12 months.

As a business owner, you’ll need a comprehensive strategy to identify, engage and measure target lists if you want ABM to benefit your business.  Luckily, technologies are available that allow organisations to automate and scale their efforts to target specific accounts and gain the following benefits:

  • Currently, ABM delivers the highest ROI of any B2B digital marketing strategy when used effectively.
  • The enhanced degree of personalisation and optimisation means that targeted customers are more likely to engage with content that’s specific to their personal tastes, interests and requirements.
  • ABM enables marketers to focus resources efficiently and create promotional campaigns optimised for specific accounts and produce positive results.
  • ABM analytics are so precise that it’s easy to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Six Steps to Creating your ABM Strategy

  1. Identify your targets (the high value accounts) by key factors including potential revenue, purchase potential and market influence.
  2. Find out what makes your targets tick by looking for key influencers and the main decision makers in each company. This will enable you to segment them (in the same way as you do in a person-based marketing strategy) and reach out to multiple stakeholders within any organisation.
  3. Create messages and content fine-tuned to the challenges that your target faces regularly so that it appears authoritative and trustworthy, providing specific valuable information for each target.
  4. Identify which platforms (social networks, online media, mobile, etc.) will enable you to connect and engage with your target accounts.
  5. Provide solutions to the challenges each target faces in the form of blogs, eBooks, white papers, etc. which contain useful insights and information that will result in engagement.
  6. Measure your marketing activity relating to target accounts to gain insight on which channels and what type of content gets the best results. Tailor your campaign and your content accordingly to ensure you’re using the right marketing strategies.  Continuous monitoring, assessment and adjustments should deliver the best results for your business.

If you’d like some help in setting up your ABM digital marketing strategy, why not get in touch and let us set you on the right road for success?

Richard Coen

With over 21 years of experience in Digital Marketing, 31 years in sales and 25 years in business development, Richard assists companies to develop key growth strategies on a local or international basis. He can assist marketers to achieve balance in their approach to key areas affected by the growth in digital marketing.