Account-Based Marketing for Beginners

Account-based marketing, often abbreviated to ABM, is on the rise in the digital marketing world to offer better overall client engagement.

It is a marketing strategy that consists of the company identifying their largest and, essentially, most important, clients and targeting them with information and resources. Because these specific customers and accounts offer the most potential profit. Account-based marketing and personalized marketing are similar in the sense that they both involve targeted sales methods, and have been proven to have a beneficial impact on sales for businesses that engage in them. There are many reasons why a business would want to take advantage of ABM, and many ways to do just that.

Reasons to Engage in ABM

The main reason a company would want to implement account-based marketing is to increase profit. According to a study by the Altera group, a whopping 97% percent of businesses who used ABM saw an increase in their return on investment, as opposed to other marketing strategies that didn’t result in as high of an ROI. A higher return on investment results in more money for the company. ABM also concentrates resources, money, and employee attention on where they are needed most, instead of spreading them thin and risking using them where they will not be effective.

However, account-based marketing is not for everyone. It works best for larger businesses that have at least one thousand clients since it is more likely that a company of this size will have the resources to separately devote to important clients. Small businesses may need to give each of their clients equal attention, since they may all be as equally important and bring in around the same amount of money. If you decide that ABM is the right choice for your company, the first step is identifying those important clients.

Picking the Right Clients

Account-based marketing won’t have the promised effect if the right accounts are not picked. In ABM, employees must remember they are marketing to an entire organization instead of an individual person. To pick the right accounts, first look at the ones that bring in the most revenue per month, as well as the size of the company and the kind of business they are in.

Other factors to take into consideration are the amount of competition the companies have, and if they will be a strong and stable investment, and if they have good profit margins. This step is the most important because all of the account-based marketing relies on the accounts that are chosen. It requires thorough data collection and research on all the business’s clients so the right clients are chosen.

Create and Spread Personalized Messages

ABM is all about appealing to the client and creating personalized, targeted material that makes sense for the chosen accounts. If the client has been with you for a long time, your personalized message may hint at loyalty and special discounts for long-time relationships. Depending on the industry the company is in, you may also want to mention things that your company can do for the client that will help them. Personalization proves that you care about your clients and that you can help them in many ways.

However, advertising does nothing if it can’t be viewed by a wide range of people. Making sure to utilize many different channels to spread the word about your business is crucial to ABM. For example, if your largest account spends most of their time on Facebook, but the ads that were personalized for them on Facebook. Other social media apps and search engines can further help your business in its adaptation of ABM.

Account-based marketing is a marketing strategy that can be very beneficial for businesses, especially larger ones, and involves personalized advertising to companies as a whole. The biggest thing to remember, however, is that the most profitable, most important accounts should be the ones that are focused on.