What Is Account Based Marketing? ABM Benefits For B2B Businesses

What Is Account Based Marketing?

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Digital Marketing related terms are booming after the global pandemic on Google and on various other search engines. Account based marketing is one of them that is trending on Google Trends worldwide with 170%+ growth in 2020. It is one of the most favorable marketing methods for B2B businesses. Because ABM sells very limited products and services to very specific clients.

So let’s discuss this in detail,

What is Account Based Marketing?

According to Hubspot, Account-based Marketing (ABM) is a focused growth strategy in which Marketing and Sales collaborate to create personalized buying experiences for a mutually-identified set of high-value accounts.

It is very much effective for B2B companies of any size and is most effective for B2B companies of any size who focus on high-value accounts.

It works well for b2b businesses mainly in the software industry where the customers are not the direct customers, they’re the decision makers of the organizations/businesses.

Let’s understand with an example,

There are 2 companies, X and Y. X is a multinational company struggling with their current HR software so they’re looking for an alternative.

And, a Y company idenfied that problem and made a software to solve a similar problem. Now they want to sell it. So they analyze the market and understand who’s having the similar problem and then found that X company is looking for a similar software. So they pitched their product to the management team and head HR about their product and sold it.

This marketing technique makes the process much easier for marketers and salespeople because they get the filtered data for the further communication or we can say there focus on very specific audience with high value accounts, that saves time and resources and utilizes there effort in nurturing them to make them delight. In other words, each account is treated as its own market.

Types of Account Based Marketing

Types Of Account Based Marketing

Strategic ABM (One To One) – Creating and executing highly customized marketing plans for individual accounts.

It’s primary objective is to change the perception, forge strong relationships, and identify opportunities. This type of account focuses on 70% existing clients and 30% new clients.

ABM Lite (One To Few) – Creating and executing lightly customized marketing plans for clusters of accounts with similar issues and needs.

It’s primary objective is to build relationships and identify different opportunities. This type of account focuses on 56% existing clients and 44% new clients.

Programmatic ABM (One To Many) – Leveraging technology to tailor marketing campaigns for specific named accounts at scale.

It’s primary objective is to generate leads. This type of account focuses on 51% existing clients and 49% new clients.

Benefits Of Account Based Marketing

#1: Close Deals Faster With Personalisation

Account based marketing is very targeted and personalized and accurate as compared with inbound and outbound marketing strategies. Clients also like it because everyone loves to get personalized recommendations and offers.

#2: Strong Alignment Between Sales & Marketing

In the ABM, the sales and marketing team work very closely to identify the potential client and to map them out, and align on sales initiatives to onboard the clients.

Note: According to Forrester Research, organizations with aligned sales and marketing teams see an average of 32% annual revenue growth, while less aligned companies see a 7% decline in growth.

#3: Data Driven Decisions To Align Your Sales & Marketing Efforts

Account Based Marketing improves the communication between sales and marketing team. It provides the framework for sales and marketing to shorten the sales cycle and maximize upsell/cross-selling opportunities by identifying key B2b stakeholders.

#4: Get Maximum ROI On Your Marketing Efforts

Maximum ROI on the marketing efforts are always a challenge for marketers. ABM is very cost-effective and it saves a lot of money in the long term and helps to make a strong connection between you and the clients.

#5: Efficient Use Of Marketing Resources

ABM structures the marketing efforts on key accounts to drive the most revenue. With such a narrow focus, their initiatives optimize your most valuable resources: time and money. By integrating your sales and marketing efforts, you can focus your marketing team on working directly with sales to target and develop content for key accounts and build a successful communication channel with sales.

Account Based Marketing vs Inbound Marketing

Account based marketing is a highly targeted marketing approach while inbound marketing helps to attract more prospects to their business.

Account based marketing allows you to delite high value accounts with a focused approach. While inbound marketing is the methodology which lets you attract through the creation of valuable and highly seo optimized content.

Account based marketing success measures with the quality of target account while the inbound marketing success measures with the quality of leads generated.

Account based marketing works with an ideal customer profile while inbound marketing works with buyer persona.

Account based marketing objective is to land and expand means to engage with the decision makers and build on that relationship to bring the new sales opportunities in the future, while inbound marketings objective is to get the new business.

Softwares Used In Account Based Marketing

Here’s a list of some tools which are used in the marketer for account based marketing,

  1. Hubspot Marketing Hub
  2. Marketo
  3. Leandata
  4. Terminus ABS Platform
  5. Engagio
  6. Zymplify
  7. Bound
  8. Madison Logic
  9. ActiveDemand
  10. DemandBase, and many more.

I hope this information helped you to understand about account based marketing. I’m having a bonus for you. While doing research on the internet about account based marketing. I got an Infographics made by LinkedIn on The ABCs of ABM, that’s very detailed please have a look,

Account Based Marketing Infographics