In today’s digital economy, capturing the attention of buyers is vastly different. Novel and evolving channels and technologies are changing how connections are established. However, an increasing number of b2b marketing firms and strategies have made it a struggle to stay relevant while catering to higher-than-ever buyer expectations.
Companies focusing on maximizing ROI need to keep their sight on high-value accounts while considering account and marketing penetration. It is essential to leverage strategies that bring together sales and marketing expertise to identify, engage, and finalize contracts with priority high-value accounts.
Account-Based Marketing [ABM] is a strategy where marketing and sales teams work in concert to target accounts best suited for them and turn them into customers, rather than casting a wide net. With an inundation of data, marketers and sales teams are always competing for potential customers’ attention.
Studies show that 92% of B2B marketers cite ABM as extremely important to their overall marketing efforts. It is not a novel idea, but it has recently made a comeback thanks to evolving technology and a changing landscape.
The many advantages of ABM
Increased ROI
60% of companies that use ABM saw a revenue increase of at least 10% within 12 months, while 1 in 5 companies experienced a revenue increase of 30% or more. ABM is a highly focused way of marketing. With its high degree of precision and personalization against general inbound and outbound strategies, measuring ROI becomes simpler. More comfortable to measure ROI.
Research shows that 87% of marketers that measure ROI say that ABM outperforms every other marketing investment. ITSMA further found that investing in ABM delivers either the same ROI, somewhat higher or significantly higher returns than other marketing initiatives.
Reduced waste and reduced risk
Scaling ABM marketing strategies equip B2B marketers to do more with less. Leveraging a robust ABM technology stack allows the existing account managers to target, engage, and convert a much larger number of leads at each account before another account manager is hired.
91% of companies using ABM could increase their average deal size, with 25% of respondents stating they grow being over 50% or larger.
It significantly reduces the level of risk involved. With ABM Marketing completely functional, even if one lead or contact is lost, another will come in.
Clients love it
It has been proven time and again that customers prefer personalized offers and campaigns. It is the reason email marketing is incredibly successful as against other forms of inbound and outbound marketing.
ABM flips the traditional marketing paradigm by targeting specific companies and organizations. For this conversion to be successful, ABM needs to be implemented, keeping in mind the target prospect’s requirements in the particular target account. The research, effort, and time required to get ABM up and running means that the clients will know the homework has been done well.
Research by the ABM Leadership Alliance shows that B2B marketers saw an increase in average annual contract value of 171% after implementing their ABM strategy.
Simplified Analytics
Analyzing the effectiveness of a campaign across different complex metrics is a drawn-out process. However, this helps understand the nuances and intricacies making it easy to conclude.
With ABM, a smaller set of targeted accounts need to be analyzed. Further, each account has well-planned campaigns with research that makes it easier to compute and compare end-of-quarter results to forecast goals.
Sales and Marketing Alignment
Sales teams have had to sift through the cacophony of leads marketing campaigns generate to find leads that might buy. ABM makes the business goal very straightforward: to close a single account. ABM requires both marketing and sales teams to work closely. It helps identify target accounts, map them, strategize, and align on sales initiatives.
This means that sales reps are less likely to be wasting time following up on uncertain leads. It leaves time and effort to nurture a qualified, targeted lead. Marketing and sales service teams working together will open the doors to powerful, predictive marketing and targeted advertising with a high conversion incidence.
The Final Word
Implementing an ABM strategy can help
- Improve marketing ROI
- Drive attributed revenue
- Generate a higher number of conversions and qualified leads
- Align sales with marketing
The trend has been that B2B marketers usually tend to target leads within a comprehensive scope. While this does appeal to a large number of companies, it doesn’t maximize ROI.
A prerequisite of Account-Based Marketing is the high degree of personalization. It has been an obstacle in the past, coupled with its cost. With the technology and access available today, personalization is made simple, easy, and affordable.
It makes it possible to scale ABM to various companies with marketers worldwide, implementing a robust strategy to drive higher value outcomes.
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