The key to keeping your business running smoothly and efficiently is to establish a well-thought-out marketing plan. The business scenario of today has gotten very competitive, especially because the market for many products has become saturated. This is why many business owners have been leaning towards ABM or account-based marketing to improve their business standards.
Have you been looking for better marketing techniques? Account-based marketing might just be the idea you’ve been looking for. In this article, we will discuss what ABM is, how it benefits your business, and if it’s for your particular type of business. Keep reading to find out more.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-based marketing, or in short, ABM, is a strategy that makes your marketing and sales team focus on creating ways to attract very specific high-value accounts. These high-value accounts are usually companies that are potential customers looking to buy from your business.
In this case, all the marketing you will be doing (which includes campaigns, emails, and content) will be personalized to gain the interest of particular accounts. As such, the buyer experience that you will be designing for these accounts will be unique. If your team isn’t familiar with this strategy, you can always seek help from an account based marketing services provider who will devise the plans for you, depending on what you need for your business.
Think of it like playing a claw game at your local arcade. There are claw machines that grab many random gifts at once and ones that grab one specific prize. Rather than spending your time and money getting a bunch of prizes (most of which won’t be to your liking), wouldn’t it better to invest in getting one particular prize that you know for sure you’ll be keeping?
Now apply this concept to your business. Wouldn’t it be better if you focused on marketing towards companies that you know will help your business grow rather than focusing on many companies at once? Long story short, this is how ABM works.
Benefits of Using ABM Strategy
Now that you’ve gotten a gist of account-based marketing, let’s look at how adapting this marketing strategy can improve sales and therefore the overall growth of your business.
A More Tailor-Made Approach
As we’ve mentioned earlier, account-based marketing is a very targeted strategy and will be different for each of your buyers. Instead of just using the usual marketing scheme to present your business to many companies, you just have to start by picking out groups of high-value accounts. Once that is done, you can start by conducting research into the accounts; find out what they’re looking for and show them what your organization can do to meet their needs.
Refines Your Sales
When a business uses generalized marketing campaigns, they usually try to appeal to the wider market so that they can attract potential buyers amongst the masses. This takes a lot of time for the business to gain some sales.
Account-based marketing strategies get directly in touch with the customers best catered to a business; this strategy works in a way to shorten and simplify the transaction. In this way, not only is your business saving time, but it’s also generating a refined and consistent sales flow. In other words, ABM reduces the length of your sales cycle.
Increased Profit
I’m sure you have heard of the term ROI. This is a measure of how much you get out of an investment that you made. Account-based marketing strategies increase your ROI value. This means that you will be able to make the most out of any investments that you will be making when implementing this strategy.
Instead of taking a wide-scale approach, which is otherwise very costly, you’ll be saving more money and resources by filtering out and finding specific accounts. In that sense, ABM is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies out there.
How Do You Know If ABM Is Right For You?
Before going straight into implementing account-based marketing, there are a few things you need to consider. Sometimes ABM won’t be suitable for the kind of business you are doing.
ABM is highly effective if you’re going to be marketing a larger deal to a few stakeholders who belong to the same company. If the deal that you’re trying to close isn’t that large, perhaps you should try other ways to attract sellers.
Next, you will have to consider the length of your sales cycles. I mentioned earlier that ABM works by reducing the time needed to complete a sales cycle. What if your sales cycles are short, to begin with? In this case, ABM is not needed; for example, if your sale cycles usually last for a day or two, the duration is too short for ABM to start working its magic. If your sales cycles happen to be longer, let’s say about a few months to a year, you need to consider implementing ABM to help your business grow.
Lastly, you need to make sure you have a well-established nurturing campaign set up. This is a campaign where you send timely emails to your target audience to keep them informed about any special offers or deals that you might have. Since ABM works by making direct contact with a few accounts, having good nurturing content will make it easier for your business to get started with using the strategy.
In Conclusion
All in all, using account-based marketing works out great for most businesses. It has proven to be very effective when it comes to maintaining the growth of your company. However, it should be noted that not all marketing strategies are suited for all businesses. So, before you get started, do make sure to see if your business is compatible with ABM.
Once that is done and you’re sure that ABM can be implemented, you can start by taking a few measures to get your team accustomed to it. And of course, if you’re not that experienced in ABM, there are service providers who can always help make a plan that’s best for your business. I hope this article was helpful. Good luck!