Why Account Based Marketing is So Effective

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a highly targeted and customized marketing effort. Each potential client has its own set of unique needs. Regardless of how you elect to identify your target accounts, ABM provides you the tools and ability to understand and cater to their unique needs – it’s like having your own marketing “superpowers”! Using ABM methods, you can tailor your campaigns to target and satisfy the needs of each of your individual accounts. You can pinpoint your marketing efforts specifically to your clients, providing them with superior value. Sometimes small adjustments to your marketing approach can make a big impact. So, while ABM doesn’t actually give you the ability to fly or move mountains, it’s sure to help you satisfy many of your client’s needs – and that may leave them feeling like you may have had superpowers after all.

Not only does ABM help you easily identify your client’s needs, but it can also be highly effective in generating trust with potential clients.

By providing compelling content directed to the needs and wants of both current and potential customer accounts, you’re far more likely to generate high quality leads to feed to your sales teams – just watch! ABM has the potential to make a positive impact on conversion rates and customer retention. Start feeding your sales team leads of this caliber and they’ll work their magic to close sales and make customers even happier.

Because ABM helps you direct your marketing approach specifically to your target accounts, it provides you the framework you need to generate proven marketing plans tailor-made for each of your customer segments. And so the cycle goes: use these plans to target your marketing efforts and satisfy the needs of your clients, keep your existing clients happy, continue to generate high-quality leads, increase conversion, continue to develop refined and improved marketing plans – and repeat. In short, ABM is a highly effective marketing approach and has a lot to offer your business.

Here we’ll break down the above key takeaways to reinforce why account-based marketing is so effective. Within in each section, we’ll call out important points that can serve as reminders when building and executing your own ABM plan. We’ll start saying it now: provide the right content to your accounts, at the right time, through the right channel.

Highly Targeted

As we mentioned, account-based marketing is highly targeted – it allows your messaging and strategy to be extremely specific. You’re able to leverage proven case studies and use those results towards marketing your product or service to the needs of the account(s) you’re targeting. What else? ABM also provides a clear picture of your return on investment (ROI) because you know exactly which account the returns are flowing in from. You can then clearly identify the driver of those results and returns and focus your efforts on what’s generating results for your business. It’s easier to dissect and analyze a smaller set of results of vs. a broad range of data.

This strategic approach provides your clients with high-value. When following an ABM approach you commit to offering account-level personalization through customized content and materials.

With this information addressing their individual needs, they are more likely to engage with your content.

At the end of the day, this approach allows you to run campaigns efficiently and reduce waste.

ABM contributes to the elimination of inefficient marketing practices for your business. Once you’ve gotten the hang of ABM, say goodbye to the days of casting a wide net and completely missing the mark, wasting valuable time and money. When you market to an audience whose wants and needs differ from what you can accommodate, but you don’t communicate this through the appropriate means or channel, you’re putting your business in a difficult situation with a much lower rate of success.

For example, if you’re trying to partner with your local coffee shop, grandeur examples of a national campaign may not resonate with their more localized goals. So provide content and examples that directly apply to their market and industry. By developing a targeted and specific marketing approach you can instead position yourself to immediately satisfy the needs of your clients, communicate your ability to do so clearly and efficiently, and build trust right away.

High-Quality Leads

When considering ABM, it’s important to note while a targeted approach may result in paying a higher premium for your advertising placements, your leads will be high quality, which may prove to be well worth it for your business. High-quality leads are more likely to result in a closed sale. Be sure to measure the success of your campaigns by how many leads you close, not by how many leads you drive – there’s a difference! Try not to get distracted by activity – activity is good, but closing deals are better.

High-quality leads allow you to build trust and rapport early on in the sales process. You’re speaking directly to the account’s unique pain points and problems. By focusing on high-quality leads and marketing specifically to their account needs, you are able to reduce uncertainty. They now view you as the expert and see your results and successes in their space. Providing your accounts with relevant information further solidifies their loyalty to your brand.

Proven Plans That Get Results

As a marketer, ABM allows you to deploy proven plans that get results for clients in a given space. You can be result driven with an account based marketing plan and align your sales and marketing teams. Because ABM’s primary focus is on individual accounts and how best to target them, it contributes to the alignment of your sales and marketing teams and allows them to be on the same page.

You’re able to consider which channels best reach your audience based on their industry or needs. A mantra of account-based marketing is providing the right content, at the right time. Having a customer-centric approach ensures you’re not interrupting your clients with campaign content, but rather providing them a convenient opportunity to engage with your brand. An ABM approach requires you to take a close look at key business issues and make strides towards alleviating them.

If you commit to these plans, you can achieve the ROI and the results you’re striving for.

Okay, so now you should fully understand the concepts behind marketing and how and why it can be so effective. Don’t be surprised if your accounts start thinking you can read minds (hey, maybe you do have that marketing superpower after all…). As consumers, we’ve become accustomed to receiving an abundance of unrelated, unnecessary pieces of marketing at all points of contact. With ABM, that model is being flipped upside down. The outreach efforts are (again) at the right place and the right time. Not interrupting, but helping, benefiting, compelling, and selling.