Account-based marketing (ABM) is based on data insights from targeted accounts. Marketing messages are then based on these insights. Combining marketing and sales resources results in better-targeted marketing messages and increase sales engagement.
It is the inversion of traditional B2B lead generation-based marketing and works extraordinarily well.
ABM is a marketing strategy that 80 percent of marketers use. Ninety-seven percent agree that ABM has a slightly higher ROI than other marketing strategies.
The problem is that many organizations are still not on the cutting edge of marketing technology. A move to ABM requires more than technology changes. This requires an organizational change. It is necessary to align sales and marketing teams.
ABM’s Sales and Marketing Roles
Account-based marketing requires that both sales and marketing teams play their respective roles. They are expected to work in sync and support one another.
These are the roles of each team involved in account-based marketing.
Sales Roles In Account-Based Marketing
Salespeople are those who know the accounts. They can identify the most significant reserves, those that require the most attention, and the best buyers. They are responsible for determining the target accounts. This is step one of account-based marketing.
Sales teams can provide accurate details about buyers and current customers, helping marketing create dynamic buyer personas. This is step two in ABM.
Marketing Roles In Account-Based Marketing
The sales data is now available to the marketing team to choose the content to send to their target audience via the appropriate channels and at the right time. Marketing will launch their social, email, website content, and advertising. Social engagement will be followed up by email campaigns, and sales will take other steps to help buyers through the sales process.
Marketing develops the multichannel strategy for targeted accounts. Sales and marketing then follow it. Sales resistance can sometimes be a problem in this area. ABM success is possible by involving sales in finalizing your marketing strategy.
Optimizing ABM Initiatives
It is essential to align and concentrate data resources, not only for developing multichannel strategies but also for measuring and optimizing them. Both teams must work together to identify key performance indicators.
ABM will show you that traditional marketing KPIs can be too broad or miss the mark. This could be due to many reasons. There are many reasons for this. One is that the sales cycle has changed. Sirius Decisions found a 24 percent increase in sales cycles in B2B companies using account-based advertising. Priorities are another change. There will be a shift in priorities. Instead of focusing on new lead generation, the focus will shift to motivating targeted leads.
The most important KPIs for your industry and company will determine the most important. Here are some ABM metrics that you can use.
Engagement rate – Your marketing automation platform will likely aggregate these data (clicks to adverts, social engagements, website visits, whitepaper downloads) to calculate an engagement score for each account.
Marketing-qualified accounts are a step up from marketing-qualified leads. MQAs provide a holistic view of an account’s activities.
In-funnel conversion rate – Instead of looking at the individual conversions of each contact at each stage, you track when the account converts. Email responses booked meetings, and customer account conversions are all achievable goals.
Account-Based Marketing: Making it work
Marketing and sales can work together to create richer buyer profiles and establish qualitative KPIs to show the impact of ABM initiatives. This allows for better-informed sales and marketing decisions.
Good communication between teams is critical to this aligned approach. How does it happen that two teams previously close can suddenly work well together?
Set up communication channels immediately and define their purpose.
Designate a small group or individual from each team to handle cross-team communication.
Create a system to share data.
Marketing must involve sales in more ways than just account identification. It should also develop buyer profiles. They should be part of strategic decisions.
Alignment can take place over time. Allowing the transition from being close teams to strategic partners can help reduce friction. Groups that can master inter-team communication have a lot of benefits. Account-based marketing is a powerful tool for revenue growth because it provides richer insights and synergized efforts.