Understanding Account Based Marketing
What Account-Based Marketing is and why it’s gaining momentum
More than 90% of marketers believe Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a B2B must have in 2015. It started out as something only bigger corporations did to identify and target customers for high potential accounts, but now it is gaining momentum. ABM is a strategic approach to business marketing in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospects or customer accounts as markets of one. The first step a company must take to participate in ABM is have a list of target accounts. This way they can start to form the marketing strategy and their tactics based off a collective group of people.
What makes this technique so refreshing is that it uses modern marketing technology. With a combination of real-time ad buying and IP-based identification, ABM can be highly effective and targeted. Think of it this way: you want to sell to a B2B tech firm and they’re in the right part of the buying cycle, but you want to reach all decision-makers of that one company. ABM allows you to show ads to only that company’s employees with a small budget. You might only reach a small percentage of those people, but it’s the right people at the right time.
Analytics Angels is actually piloting this technique with one of our major clients. We can’t wait to see what happens and share results!
Learning to crawl, walk, then run with ABM
With Account-Based Marketing (ABM), it takes time to hone and get to know the behaviors of your target list. You will also need to shift your paradigm from targeting based off of buyer personas to building a target list of accounts. When it comes to B2B, you can make a pretty accurate guess about which accounts will close. Here are some ways to build that list:
- Evaluate your current customers and discover common attributes
- Leverage predictive analytics if you have those capabilities available
- Go to sales and just ask them for a list they want to target
There can be several lists but you can always start small and then build broader conversations about ABM programs from there, i.e. a named account list or a target segment (defined by attributes such as industry or revenue). Build marketing programs that target those accounts and move them through the funnel with some of these techniques, i.e. segmenting your target account list or reaching stakeholders at your target accounts.
Once you have your lists set up and you are starting to hone them, think about how you are going to measure results. Adjust your lists and segments depending on your results, if you can demonstrate success with a specific segment or list of named accounts, you can use what you have learned to target additional segments and replicate your efforts at scale.
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