August 6, 2020
Did you know that 87% of account-based marketers say that ABM initiatives outperform other marketing investments? Buyers want personalized content, and there’s an increasing expectation for it. When it comes to leads, if marketers are too focused on quantity and trying to attract and nurture many leads, quality ones can slip through the cracks due to a lack of relevant, personalized content.
During economic downturn and market uncertainty, account-based marketing can be a very effective strategy since building trust and retaining customers is critical.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
An account-based marketing (ABM) strategy is where sales and marketing identify high-value accounts to target with campaigns and communications personalized to each individual account’s needs.
This strategy is used to upsell or cross-sell to existing customers, and to educate and engage high-quality prospects better. Therefore, a large part of an ABM strategy is dependent on receiving quality leads from inbound marketing tactics. Then, instead of trying to nurture every lead, an ABM strategy prioritizes the most valuable and promising ones, with content such as personalized emails, targeted social media ads, webinars and events, and more one-on-one sales communications.
Why is ABM beneficial?
1. Bridge the gap between marketing and sales.
Account-based marketing requires internal alignment so the right accounts are targeted and content creation efforts are streamlined. When an ABM strategy is successfully set up, marketing and sales teams are able to communicate more clearly and always know the status of each target account.
Organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing teams experience 36% higher customer retention rates. That’s because outreach to those accounts becomes truly relevant and personalized since everyone is on the same page. And since everyone knows an account’s status, if a customer has a need but their contact isn’t available, any team member can jump in to help—providing a seamless customer experience.
2. Retain customers and build better relationships.
Customer retention and customer satisfaction are the top two metrics for measuring sales performance now, according to LinkedIn’s 2020 Sales Report. Account-based marketing is personal. It’s a great way to stay in communication with high-value accounts, provide relevant content, and collaborate about how you can help during this uncertain time. In fact, 80% of marketers say ABM improves customer lifetime values, and 86% say it improves win rates.
That’s because buyers want content that demonstrates a clear understanding of their business needs and relates to their specific role in the decision-making process. Everything else is just clutter. By creating personalized content relevant to their own challenges, you’ll speak to their best interests, showing genuine care—building that much needed trust which translates into customer loyalty.
3. Improve efficiencies and shorten sales cycles.
Do more with less. Focus your team’s efforts on accounts with a much higher chance for ROI. Don’t waste time and money marketing to poor-fit prospects and avoid annoying leads and customers with irrelevant content. It’s essential your communications and outreaches build trust, not lose it. Marketing and sales will have more time now to engage and delight valuable buyers with carefully crafted content and communications.
Shorten the sales cycle for large accounts with large deal sizes as well. For example, the sales cycle is often slowed down when accounts have multiple stakeholders. With ABM, all prospects are nurtured at the same time, which helps shorten the sales cycle.
4. Improve ROI and get clear analytics.
It’s easy to measure the ROI from an ABM campaign since the goal and objectives for each account and outreach is clear. Compared to other B2B marketing tactics, 85% of marketers say that ABM has provided the highest ROI of all.
Tracking metrics that matter is key to calculating ROI. Track and measure engagements so that you can adapt your strategy if necessary. This will also help you identify the best opportunities and prioritize outreach. To track the progress of different accounts, having tools such as HubSpot’s ABM Software can be really helpful. If you are already a HubSpot customer, all you have to do is simply activate the ABM tools. Tools like this are tied to your CRM, so you can set up marketing and sales workflows and see all account activity on one platform.
HubSpot's ABM dashboard provides a quick view of target account status to streamline workflows.
Implementing an account-based marketing strategy will help you turn target accounts into customers, solidify high-value existing relationships and ensure no opportunities are missed. Be helpful with your outreaches and stand out amongst the overwhelming amount of generic content customers receive. By personalizing communications, you’ll engage and delight the leads that matter.
