What is Account-Based Marketing?

Acronyms and buzzwords seem to be all the craze these days in marketing. SEM, SEO, CRO, PPC . . . It can get overwhelming very fast – especially when they all sound similar. It doesn’t help that the moment you’re done learning one, three more seem to pop up overnight. One of the recent “trending” acronyms is ABM – Account-Based Marketing.

If you feel like your digital marketing approach already can’t fit one more new customer acquisition tactic, don’t worry. We have you covered on all the what’s and why’s behind this rising star of digital lead generation.

What is Account-Based Marketing, anyway?

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a marketing strategy that targets a specific set of customer accounts. Rather than generalizing your marketing efforts to a larger audience, you personalize your focus onto a few high-promise, high-value accounts. Triblio calls it a “multichannel, multistep approach to revenue growth under a unified funnel that brings together multiple teams like sales, marketing, and client success.”

Simply put, it’s the same multi-platform digital strategy you may already have in place for customer acquisition. But by pulling in the sales team earlier on and identifying key single accounts you’d like to win, ABM better focuses all efforts on just those with unique digital strategies. ABM allows you to reach, attract, and engage those prospects several times throughout their customer journey, without inefficient marketing spend on irrelevant prospects.

Does ABM actually work?

A recent study found that 86 percent of marketing and business development executives and firms use ABM as part of their marketing mix. And 97 percent of marketers said they had a higher ROI from ABM than other marketing campaigns. The more precise level of targeting and control helps create a decrease in bad leads because you know the only prospects being engaged are ones you consider high-value. 

ABM works because the concept has appeal to the prospects being targeted, as well. Your current digital strategy no doubt has unique messaging based on certain audiences or placement in the customer journey, especially with remarketing. It’s because we’ve long known that prospects respond better to messaging and touchpoints that feel personalized to them, versus broad and irrelevant ads that speak only to the masses. As the world becomes increasingly digital and automation more prevalent, coming across as human becomes harder – which makes it all the more important. ABM lets you focus messaging one-at-a-time on the individual accounts or people. It doesn’t get more personal than that.

Why should I use ABM?

The vast majority of the world has gone digital – from how people search for solutions to how they learn new things or make buying decisions. That means your prospective customers require a new approach to marketing efforts. They’ve gotten used to the digital noise, and need a more tailored approach in order to drive engagement and make an impact. If you’re still hoping to blanket a message across vast audiences at once, you’re lagging behind and losing leads. The ABM approach joins the marketing and sales teams together in order to correctly engage prospects and more efficiently turn them into customers. It’s always harder to say no to something that was meant just for you. And when you’re narrowing your marketing spend to a precise audience versus a wide net, you can be more agile with where those ad dollars go and more efficient with what they produce.

How do I know ABM is relevant to me?

So your company is already using some great tactics. You’re utilizing SEM, SEO, and seem to be generating pretty good leads. Why change what already works? 

Change is the foundation of the marketing industry. What’s helping you hit your KPIs today may not help you tomorrow. It is our job as marketers to make sure we are prepared to change with the times all the time.

We’re not saying that by utilizing ABM you must give up your previous digital strategies. Account-based marketing “shouldn’t take the place of your industry-level marketing practices. You should necessarily use ABM as a supplement to your larger digital strategy” (Hubspot). ABM will help close high-value prospects that your company has pinpointed as must-targets. Broader digital strategies like paid search and awareness-building display and video will help fill the funnel with other prospective customers that ABM wouldn’t be reaching. Together, it’s a win-win for driving revenue growth and increasing quality leads while remaining efficient with your marketing dollars.

All of the strategies you were using before? They still work. Integrating them with ABM just enhances the process. Who doesn’t love the sound of that?

Interested in learning how ABM might work for your company? Let’s talk.