Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the highly targeted approach of named potential corporate customers in the B2B marketing and sales approach. Here you can read what is behind it.
With Account-Based Marketing (ABM), the costs are significantly lower due to the targeted targeting, and the conversion rates are often five times as high as with traditional B2B marketing. Special B2B marketing automation tools can support this.
ABM automates both online and classic offline channels and is aimed at both marketing and sales managers.
Sales and Marketing work hand in hand
The target group of many B2B companies is so narrow that traditional marketing for these companies in the past hardly seemed to make sense. Marketing often only played a supporting role here. Account managers and business developers with a strong sales DNA have always kept a list of target companies, so-called named target accounts.
Results-oriented CMOs and CSOs work together on a central list – for example, in CRM. This is where Account-Based Marketing comes in. All marketing measures are tailored to these companies and perfectly individualized for each account.
Change of Direction
ABM is often referred to as flipping the sales funnel (flip the funnel). What is meant here is that, unlike traditional marketing, a broad target group of people is not addressed, and the proper accounts are only filtered out afterward. Instead, the approach to the ABM is already targeted to named accounts. The measures then ideally lead to contact with several decision-makers in the buying committee.
Exactly defined Goals
As in any other area, marketing also benefits from the possibilities of digitization. What is meant here is not simply online marketing but the automation and personalization of large parts of marketing – certainly also in offline channels.
The main Steps in ABM include
· The selection of the target accounts (Account Selection),
· The intelligent personalization of the address as well
· The control of suitable marketing measures.
Martech and ABM markets are still very Heterogeneous
The Martech branch (Marketing Technology) has brought a whole range of innovative companies through the market maturity of artificial intelligence. Especially in the United States, some players have established themselves that support marketing and sales managers with various ABM approach when approaching customers. However, full-service providers are expensive, and the start is overly complex.
Therefore, developing a phased strategy for account-based marketing is advisable. This includes carefully examining which features promise the greatest benefits during implementation and starting with them. The following features should be introduced one after the other, and the effects should be checked and optimized.
Warning: not all US providers are compatible with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Use of machine learning for Account selection
Modern software providers for account-based marketing automatically collect many signals from freely available and commercial sources, which could be used as indicators of projects and purchase intentions at the target company. In addition to company data such as size in sales and employees, industry, or headquarters (Firmographics), data on the use of certain technologies can also be included in the target account (so-called Technographics), especially for providers from the IT industry.
The larger and better the amount of data available, the more targeted customers can be identified.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are used to evaluate many of these so-called intent signals. In addition to prioritization, other target accounts can be suggested by searching for statistical twins.
Individualization on a Large scale
The personalization is ideally based on data about the company, the role of the individual in the buying committee, and the status along the customer journey. For example, an IT service provider could convince the CIO with technical arguments and the buyer with commercial and data protection officers with the appropriate arguments.
A complimentary service could now be the right offer if the potential customer with service is still in a contractual relationship with a competitor.
On a few Accounts, but across all Channels
Online and offline channels can be controlled: The website is dynamically adapted to visitors. If it cannot be identified via a cookie, the IP address can provide information about the company.
Online advertisement is played IP-based, geo-based, or via retargeting.
Even individualized post mailings are experiencing a renaissance. Good ABM tools connect to the relevant CRMs and the social networks used in sales, such as LinkedIn. This means that the sales department can also access the information, contact the potential customer at the appropriate time, and make him the customer.
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