These days, customization permeates all of the marketing messages we see, from ads on social media to the mail we read when we open our inboxes or physical mailboxes. Customized marketing campaigns aren’t just for B2C businesses, however. B2B companies can create highly specialized campaigns that will boost the business generated from all of their accounts and maximize engagement with the biggest players among their clientele.
What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?
B2B marketing typically involves casting a very large net to capture the attention of as many targets as possible with wide-ranging campaigns. Account-based marketing, or ABM, gets granular — creating highly personalized campaigns tailored to target specific accounts. This includes existing clients as well as prospective clients.
When creating ABM campaigns, your sales and marketing teams will work together to identify prospective targets and design customized campaigns that will resonate with them. From email campaigns to thought leadership articles and beyond, each campaign involves identifying pain points and solutions specific to individual accounts or certain groups of targets.
Who Uses ABM?
In the past, ABM was frequently used by enterprise-level organizations, but this has changed over the years. Today, ABM is seen in B2B companies of all sizes and across different industries. In fact, in The 2018 State of Account-Based Marketing, Terminus found that 61% of B2B practitioners already had an ABM program in place, with 19% planning to implement one in the next year.
Companies who launch ABM strategies find that these campaigns are particularly well-suited to acquiring specific high-value accounts… and making the most of those accounts once they’ve been secured.
Why Should B2B Companies Adopt ABM?
As mentioned above, ABM campaigns are highly personalized in comparison to traditional marketing campaigns and they tend to cost more. However, today’s marketing technology has helped to bring down that cost, opening up large-scale ABM campaigning to a growing number of smaller B2B companies.
Should your company adopt ABM as a marketing strategy? Consider some of the ways you may benefit:
Better Use of Resources
ABM centers around carefully crafted personalized campaigns -- which may include events, email newsletters, social media ads, and more — that will appeal to specific accounts. When sales and marketing teams collaborate to develop and deliver this kind of messaging, the narrow focus means fewer resources are wasted on marketing to a wider audience.
Build Stronger Client Relationships
ABM marketing also strengthens the relationship you’ve built with your current client base. As the old sales adage says, it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to retain a current one. A recent study by Small Business Trends gets even more specific about why those relationships matter: the probability of selling to your current customers is 60 to 70 percent, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5 to 20 percent.
Improved Monitoring of Results
Tracking goals and measuring results is also easier in ABM — starting with identifying key prospects. Because you’re narrowing the marketing focus to a specific group of targets, it’s easier to determine if the campaign is a success.
Higher ROI
In a survey by ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance, 89% of respondents reported a higher ROI from ABM than their traditional marketing campaigns. That’s good to know, but also keep in mind that persistence matters — the survey respondents in question had their ABM program in place for two years or more.
The benefits of ABM for B2B companies is clear, but how do you actually carry it out? In Part 2 of this series , we look at specific B2B ABM strategies.
Want to learn more about account-based marketing? Contact us today!
Learn more about Account-Based Marketing strategies here: B2B ABM: Account-Based Marketing Strategies for B2B Companies
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