Account Based Marketing is a strategy to increase your sales, which will help you determine who your potential customers are. Is it difficult for you to recognize your ideal audience? Don’t worry, with ABM you can solve this problem. You can hire a professional marketing agency specializing in ABM to work on your project and boost your business. Today, we are going to tell you everything you need to know to implement it in your business starting today.

What is Account Based Marketing or ABM?

To understand how to take advantage of it, we must first answer the question: What does ABM mean?

The Account Based Marketing is not just a buzzword, but is among the techniques to sell more efficient and aims:

•         Select potential customers for a business.
•         Determine the campaigns to attract them.
•         Engage with customers to sell products or services.

Thus, ABM marketing directs strategies to the right audience, resulting in more efficient sales processes.

What is the difference between Account Based Marketing and Inbound Marketing?

Although both digital marketing tools are able to complement each other and achieve excellent results, they have significant differences. It is important that you know them so that you can determine which is the best for you. The two main ones are:

•         Campaign type: while Inbound Marketing does massive campaigns, those of the Account-Based Marketing strategy are personalized.
•         Who is it for: The goal of Inbound is to reach as wide a market as possible. ABM is for potential customers of a business.

In summary, Account Based Marketing is more direct, targeting a specific audience; and Inbound consists of an attraction marketing that reaches a greater number of people, whether they are potential clients or not.

As we have said, these two strategies complement each other: Inbound builds the foundations for the ABM to be more focused, however, it is not mandatory to apply both.

What are the advantages of Account Based Marketing?

In addition to the main objective of ABM marketing (finding potential customers) this tool has other advantages for your business.

Benefits of Account Based Marketing:

Contributes to alignment between the marketing and sales teams

Without ABM, the marketing of a business focuses on creating campaigns to find customers, but without targeting a specific group. Thus, they end up attracting people who are not qualified.

The Marketing Based on accounts prevents this from happening as it finds the right customers to perfectly align the work between teams of marketing and sales and thus drive business results.

Improve Return on Investment

ROI, or Return on Investment, is a technique for determining how much a business earns from its investments. Why does the ABM help to improve this aspect?

When a business measures its Return on Investment, the profits it obtains from its investments are 10% higher. Also, they can have an increase when the ABM marketing strategy is implemented.

By having a personalized strategy, Account Based Marketing contributes to improving ROI. Thus, a growth of 10% or more can be obtained, depending on the case.

Avoid mistakes in prospecting for clients

The entrepreneur knows that wasting time looking for potential clients is not a good option, since time is a valuable resource. Therefore, you should avoid:

•         Focus on the right customers.
•         Losing economic resources in the implementation of wrong campaigns.

The ideal way to avoid this is by making a prospect that has value, using Account-Based Marketing.

Proper use of business resources

We have already mentioned two types of resources: money and time, both important to be successful when undertaking. With the implementation of the ABM strategy, the marketing team focuses on:

•         Efficiently focus the use of available resources.
•         Run campaigns that are specific and optimized.

How do you know if your company needs ABM marketing?

Now that you know what Account Based Marketing is, are you thinking of implementing this technique to sell more? So, you need to know in which situations it is recommended to do it:

Businesses with small groups of potential customers

Businesses with few clients that operate only in one geographic area can benefit greatly from Account Based Marketing, since, generally, traditional online marketing methods or face-to-face campaigns do not work so well.

For example, it is not very useful to do a massive campaign when you want to reach a few. This is resolved with the most appropriate marketing strategy, in this case, the ABM.

Businesses that have high value customers

When we talk about clients with high value, we mean those who are easy to retain and who, in addition, can recommend you to other people. Without a doubt, it is worth attracting them to your products or services.

To reduce expenses, when reaching these types of clients, it is important to use ABM Marketing.

5 steps to do Account Based Marketing correctly

If you have determined that your business needs to implement the Account Based Marketing technique, you just have to follow these steps:

Select the accounts

At ABM, the term ‘accounts’ refers to people who may be your customers or other businesses to whom you offer your products or services. The first step in implementing this type of marketing is choosing your accounts.

For that, you must analyze your business database and determine what the Ideal Customer Profile or ICP of your business is. Remember that the audience you want to reach has these characteristics:

•         More commitment to your business.
•         Know well what you do and what you sell.
•         He is able to recommend you, as he is satisfied with your service.

Discover the profiles of your ideal clients

Before creating campaigns targeting your ideal clients, make a list of the profiles you selected in the first step. Once created, verify that it adapts to what the ICP expects from your business.

To give them valuable content, make a list about your customers and their expectations.

Create the strategy to contact

At this point in the Account Based Marketing process you have to create the campaigns with which you will attract your potential customers. Strategies and offers must be completely customized according to your accounts.

The key to the success of this marketing technique is the personalization of your campaigns. Make sure you make efficient contact with your potential customer.

Capture customers

Interact with people who meet the profile of your ideal client and keep in touch with them. You decide where to carry out the campaign:

•         Website
•         Social networks
•         Google Ads
•         Other

The goal of the Account Based Marketing strategy is to educate your potential customers. This means sending personalized content to the account you have selected until the potential profile becomes a customer.

Measure the results of implementing ABM Marketing

How do you know if the ABM has had the desired effect? Simple, what you should do is measure the results of the processes, from the selection of the accounts to the recruitment campaigns.

The metrics are measured by the business impact of the implementation of Account Based Marketing. Discuss the following:

•         Sales opportunities that were generated thanks to the campaign;
•         Campaign closing rate;
•         Total number of people impacted.

Examples of Account Based Marketing or ABM marketing

When determining which are the best campaigns to positively impact your ideal clients, it is necessary to personalize each aspect. The tactics used depend on the business.

Now, we are going to show you some examples of Account Based Marketing:

Emails

The email marketing is a very popular and effective technique. Sending direct messages is a great option to contact your potential customers.

With an email it is possible to send interesting information to the profile of your ideal client, reinforcing the relationship to win the person.

Events

Holding events is a perfect opportunity to persuade ideal clients. Some of the most common activities when using the ABM are as follows:

•         Dinners
•         VIP events
•         Custom gifts

In case you decide on this example of ABM marketing it is necessary that you follow up the events. Thus, you will know the results and you will be able to evaluate if your business should continue with this type of activity.

Webinars

Also known as webinars, these seminars are live and it is valid to customize them to the ICP. That way, they are relevant to those who decide to attend.

Advertising pays

There are two types of advertisements that are usually applied in Account Based Marketing: paid advertisements in networks or PPC (pay per click), a type of digital advertising.

These are the most efficient ways to contact your ideal clients.

The Account Based Marketing strategy is a great option!

If your business is difficult to contact potential customers, ABM is ideal for you. With it you have the opportunity to target the right people when campaigning and, as a result, sell more.

Implementing Account Based Marketing is easy! You just have to make sure you take the right steps and start enjoying the benefits for your business.

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