Time is money, and for busy B2B brands juggling multiple accounts, time cannot be wasted.
So how can your B2B company prioritize accounts that matter the most to your business and increase profit? By using account-based marketing.
Account-based marketing, or key account marketing as it is also known, is a B2B strategy where sales and marketing identify a business prospect that will be handled and communicated to as a single market. It’s a strategy that prioritizes sales and marketing efforts to key relevant accounts rather than a broad market.
Why Account-Based Marketing?
While account-based marketing (ABM) may not work as well for small enterprises, this strategy is highly effective for big businesses working with multiple accounts.
Account-based marketing for B2B allows companies to conserve their efforts by concentrating on customers with a higher ROI who are more likely to convert. It prioritizes relevant accounts over a broad range of businesses that offer a lower return and potentially more investment to convert.
Additional benefits include:
Collaboration Between Sales and Marketing
In general, marketing and sales work independently of each other, which can lead to miscommunication, inconsistency and average results. Account-based marketing encourages marketing and sales to collaborate, combine efforts and, as a result, generate more business. Both sales and marketing are aligned on an account-based strategy, rather than individual and potentially divergent strategies.
Better Customer Experience
By tailoring your marketing efforts to one account at a time, your company can deliver a more consistent, higher-quality customer experience across all marketing channels. This will enhance customer trust and lead to higher conversions and fewer lost accounts. Your business can engage key prospect stakeholders earlier and in multiple channels to improve results.
Being Seen as an Industry Influencer
Account-based marketing personalizes all marketing materials for each of your accounts. By personalizing and customizing all content, communication and campaigns, your company can offer specific products, advice and services that solve the needs of the customer. This will in turn encourage your customers to see your business as an authority or influencer in your industry.
Improved Efficiency
Since the sales process begins with selling to your most suitable and highest-value customers, an ABM strategy will allow your teams to work more efficiently. By concentrating on accounts that are more likely to produce immediate results, your company will conserve time and resources. Sales and marketing alignment behind a prospect-based strategy means that work can produce results faster.
Increased ROI
As mentioned above, ABM delivers a positive ROI. In 2021, 87% of B2B marketers reported that their ABM efforts exceeded their other marketing investments, and 91% of companies reported an increase in their average deal size, with 25% reporting a high increase of 50%.
What Is an Account-Based Marketing Strategy?
While every business and prospect is different, core, foundational strategies exist for any ABM efforts. As you consider how to implement an ABM strategy, consider the following steps.
Create Your ABM Team
Sales and marketing must work hand-in-hand to see optimal success in ABM. Therefore, you will need to recruit from both sales and marketing to develop a cohesive ABM task force.
If your company is just starting ABM for the first time, create a team with just one marketer and one salesperson that is dedicated to your target accounts. They can begin by spotting potential challenges and developing ideas before executing your ABM strategy. Once you have a successful strategy, it can be implemented with other teams and new accounts.
Define Your Target Audience
Identify the companies you want to work with and tailor your marketing efforts specifically to their needs. Since your teams will be spending a lot of time and energy on these accounts, make sure they have the potential for a high return. Do your research and develop a plan before investing in an account.
Some ways to spot your ideal accounts include looking into ones like your current clientele, selecting prospects according to specific criteria such as size, revenue or location, researching who your competitors are working with, and networking.
Generate Content
Now that you’ve identified your target audience, you will need to create personalized content to convince the prospect to engage with your brand. The more that content can speak to the individual needs and expectations of the target account, the better. For example, if you’re targeting a leader in robotics and automation, you could send a past case study explaining how your business helped a similar company.
Analyze Your Results
After implementing your ABM strategy, make sure to analyze your results to ensure your efforts are paying off. Look at metrics such as engagement rates, open rates, click-through rates, conversions, cross-sells, upsells, annual contract values, customer lifetime, value and win rates.
Use this data to refine and adjust your strategy. If you see better results by offering a demo rather than case studies, then prioritize a demo in future campaigns. Perhaps you can offer a free trial of the product with the demo. Lean into what works with each iteration of your ABM strategy.
GO2 Partners Is Here for Your ABM Needs
GO2 Partners' team of marketing experts works diligently to help enterprises identify their target customers, design personalized marketing campaigns, and report on results.
What sets GO2 Partners apart is our commitment to the entire customer journey. From creating responsive, intuitive web design to personalized marketing and packaging, we’re dedicated to ensuring every aspect is optimized for your audience.
By choosing to work with us, you’re choosing a complete marketing solution — one that evolves with your business and keeps you ahead of the game. Contact us today to learn more.
