Lead generation up to conversion is a lengthy process and requires time, resources, and of course, money. It may take anywhere from around a month to a year to convert a lead.
Marketers usually target a large number of audience based on their buyer persona and other factors and narrow down the list to the best fits and prospects which may potentially provide the highest value.
Usually, this is how a typical marketing and sales process functions:
➔ Spreads awareness among a widely targeted audience
➔ Generates leads
➔ Narrows the leads list based on their behavior
➔ Identifies potential customers
➔ Targets these selected prospects
➔ Converts prospects into customers
Now, imagine if we could cut down this process by more than a half? That is, what if we could target the selected prospects directly without going through the entire process every time?
It would save a lot of time, money, and our resources too, wouldn’t it?
ABM or Account-based marketing is a marketing strategy that helps you exactly do this, i.e. targeting the best fits and highest value accounts directly.
But before we define ABM, let’s look at some industry stats and understand why account-based marketing is trending today.
– According to ITSMA, about 85% of marketers who measure ROI describe account-based marketing as delivering higher returns than any other marketing approach.
– Research from the Altera Group found that 97% of marketers achieved a higher ROI by incorporating ABM than with any other marketing initiative.
– 67% of brands leverage account-based marketing: HUBSPOT.
Many other statistics have stated that ABM is the first and the best choice of most marketers today.
So what exactly is ABM and what are its benefits?
Account-Based Marketing is a marketing strategy that helps you first identify accounts that provide the highest value to your business. The decision-makers in these accounts are then targeted with marketing strategies specific to their needs and persona.
Hubspot defines ABM as, “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 a focused B2B marketing strategy that not only targets the best fit accounts and turns them into customers but also helps in-
Aligning Sales and Marketing team
Alignment of sales and marketing teams has always been a challenge due to the disputes between the two. This is mainly because marketers do not get the right insights on prospects or the sales team is not given quality leads from marketers.
ABM makes the marketing and sales team work together on mutually decided accounts and budgets which keeps each of them accountable and focused on one goal.
Efficient use of time, money, and resources
Compared to the usual marketing strategies which require marketing teams to focus their time and efforts spent on narrowing down prospects from a huge pool of leads is cut down by more than half due to ABM.
Alignment of sales and marketing due to ABM helps these teams focus their efforts on mutually decided key accounts to drive the most revenue. This helps each team to focus all their resources, time, and eventually, funds in accounts that have the highest probability of doing business with your company.
Being more relevant to the target accounts
A major advantage of account-based marketing is its ability to make a personalized approach. Such an approach gives a deeper understanding of your clients’ behavior and work process which helps us engage with your clients addressing their needs and concerns. Such tailored services make your business the most relevant and an ideal option for your target accounts.
Measuring business ROI
Compared to other marketing strategies, ABM is superior with its precise, targeted, and personalized approach which makes it easier to measure the ROI for each account you invest your resources in.
This helps in reducing time and money on accounts that are not performing. Building lasting relationships with the best performing accounts making sure they work with us for a longer time.
Condensing the sales process
ABM helps identify the unqualified prospects early on in the sales process helping them save time which is usually spent on such accounts.
Thus spending time experimenting with different methods and qualifying accounts from a large database of leads, ABM helps directly target the most qualified leads and prospects cutting down half the work generally done by a sales team.
This shortens the sales process and allows marketers to focus their efforts on quality
accounts.
Growing business and cultivating relationships
With ABM’s ability to understand the needs and concerns of the target audience efficiently, it helps marketers target the accounts with content which best suits them.
When such content draws your clients to you while they are looking for what they want, they learn to trust you. By taking the time to build these trusting relationships even after the accounts have been bought from you, retaining them becomes easier helping you expand your business.
Such consistent efforts to create a compelling experience for these accounts turn them into your loyal customers. And as it is said, your best marketers are your loyal customers.
To reap these benefits of ABM, an organization must first secure sales and marketing alignment. Following which, this newly aligned team must
– Identify target accounts together
– Create a way forward plan for each account
– Create enthralling content
– Execute the plan
And then, keep analyzing and improving based on the new insights.
ABM is the most effective strategy when implemented with a well trained and dedicated sales & marketing team, along with compelling content and creatively planned strategies. If you’re too looking forward to enhancing your operations with the numerous upsides of ABM, here’s where you can start.
