Top 7 Effective ABM Strategy and How to create them?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategy
INTRODUCTION:
Account-Based Marketing is all the rage recently. But how do we know if our business can benefit Account-based marketing? To answer this question, we have to devise the ABM strategy. This will validate our assumptions and provide a list of to-dos for Account-Based Marketing.
Purchasing a piece of technology or account-based marketing tool does not mean your organization is ready to Implement ABM strategy and methodology.
There's a process that goes into planning ABM Strategy and ABM itself.
According to a research conducted by FOUNDRY, this year, 93% of respondents cited that their ABM efforts have been extremely or very successful, which is up from 84% last year.
In fact, if you purchase any technology before developing the strategy, you might be going down the wrong path. Moreover, for a successful Account-Based Marketing campaign, you need to consider the following.
- Collaboration and compatibility from various departments such as product team, marketing team, sales team, etc. And,
- Account-Based Marketing is focused on select accounts, but it requires extra efforts from many departments of an organization.
When you combine the following it adds up to a huge expense for a very few accounts. This means if the worst happened and you generated no leads, your organization just spent a lot of money on a failed venture.
In order to mitigate this, it is advised to follow these two rules:
- Implement a full-fledged ABM Strategy before you begin ABM plans and ABM Strategy.
- Account-centric approach should be an addition to your existing lead generation strategy.
In this article, we will look at planning an ABM Strategy.
How to create ABM strategy in 7 steps?
Accounting-based marketing data presented under the ITSMA benchmark study shows that only 17% of marketers have mature ABM marketing strategies.
ABM has a huge conversation ratio but it requires a significant amount of planning. On paper setting up ABM strategy is very straightforward. You start by asking a question and based on the answer you plan your ABM strategy.
1. Assess Your Business Model's ABM Readiness
ABM can be a powerful tool for businesses that want to generate leads, accelerate sales cycles, and increase customer retention. However, it's important to make sure that your business model is ready for ABM.
Before getting into ABM, it's necessary to evaluate whether your business model aligns with this strategy. ABM is most effective for companies with a longer sales cycle, high-value products or services, and a clear understanding of their target audience.
You can implement Account-Based Marketing if one of the following conditions is true for your business model.
a.The sales cycle is long and complex
Due to the cost or level of commitment required by the buyer and often involves multiple stakeholders.
b.Strategic Sales and Marketing Focus
Your sales and marketing team wants to make a greater impact with a more strategic focus.
c.Precisely Identified Accounts
Your high-value customers who generate the most revenue for your business have distinct characteristics OR You have identified accounts with distinct characteristics that have the potential to generate more revenue.
d.Broad Target Audience
There is a market of organizations whose needs are clearly addressed by your solution.
e.Expanding services Horizon
Your organization’s goals include expanding into a new segment, territory, or vertical, or going after your competitor’s customers.
f.Range of Products
Your organization offers several products or services and has set goals to grow customer lifetime value through upselling and cross-sell.
If your business model can encompass ABM, there are a few foundations and best practices that you should address. This video below considers you are running an organization, and helps you get started with ABM.
2. Assemble Organisation Wide ABM Team
Team up, define goals and strategy
Before you begin planning your first ABM campaign, you’ll need to assemble a core team and dedicate them as a strategic initiative.
ABM success heavily relies on cross-functional collaboration. Form a dedicated ABM team that includes members from sales, marketing, and customer success. This team of stakeholders across the organization will vary depending on your organizational needs, but at the minimum, it should have participation from leaders of sales, and marketing.
Now that you have a team, define goals and objectives to be achieved through ABM. This will encourage pooling in of strategies and metrics monitoring as we go forward.
22.1% of salespeople said the biggest benefit of sales and marketing teams being more aligned was it helped them close more deals.
3. Identify Target Accounts
Once you are staffed up and everyone agrees upon the goals, it’s time to select top target accounts to achieve your goals.Identifying the right target accounts is the foundation of any ABM strategy.
It’s recommended you have the ideal customer profile, or ICP, pre-defined. If you don’t have the ICP documented, you can leverage technology to define and identify these best suitable accounts with a high possibility to buy. Consider factors like company size, industry, past interactions, and revenue potential.
If you haven’t already, you’ll also need to define your buyer personas. While ABM is focused on accounts rather than leads, each account is still made up of individuals with diverse roles and priorities.
While identifying target accounts, your ABM team must work with momentous alignment.Leverage your sales and marketing teams' expertise to pinpoint accounts that have the highest potential for conversion.
4. Create Engaging Content
Content is the basic component of any campaign, but with ABM, you must ensure your content and messages must reach both far and wide within a single account.
Personalization is key in ABM. Right content for ABM strategy is personalized, relevant, and planned that resonates with problems of the audience.
56% of marketers tailor content to address prospects’ specific challenges and needs.
This content could include blog posts, infographics, case studies, and e-books, case studies, whitepapers, and webinars that speak directly to their needs.
There are tricks to creating such content at scale for different buyer personas, verticals, company sizes, deal sizes, or stages of the sales cycle.
5. Engage Across Channels
This is it, this stage is about putting ABM into action. You listen, learn and send the right message across to your buyers.
Unfortunately, there is no one channel or device that the contacts in your account use to interact with you. To reach your target accounts, you need to engage with them across a variety of channels.
You should be well equipped and available across multiple channels to truly penetrate and engage the key influencers within the account.This could include email, social media, paid advertising, and direct outreach.
The channels you choose will depend on your target accounts and where they are most active.
6. Measure, Analyze and Optimize
Like any other business strategy, it is essential to accurately measure the effectiveness of the ABM strategy and optimize when needed.This will help you identify what's working and what's not, so you can optimize your campaigns accordingly.
You can use a variety of metrics to measure the success of your ABM campaigns, such as website traffic, leads generated, and sales closed.It can get complex here, but a good ABM trategy always starts with setting goals and analyzing the movement towards these goals.
7. Select the Right Technology
Technology is always a must-have for SMBs to effectively implement powerful ABM methodology at scale. Utilizing the best suitable technology will keep all the teams in-sync and informed.
This may include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, marketing automation tools, and ABM-specific platforms. Choose tools that integrate seamlessly and empower your team to execute your ABM strategy effectively.
Intandemly offers a customized tool for ABM which encompasses all the stages and all the teams' requirements.Check out this one platform..
Book a demo session with us and start winning accounts.
7 Proven ABM Strategies:
1. Account Segmentation Based on Usage Patterns:
Effective ABM starts with segmentation, and one powerful way to segment your target accounts is based on their usage patterns. This ABM strategy involves categorizing your accounts into different groups depending on how they interact with your service or product.
By segmenting accounts based on usage patterns, you can craft tailored messaging and campaigns for each group. For instance, accounts that use extensively may receive messages about advanced features or optimization tips, while those with minimal usage may receive messages encouraging them to explore additional functionalities.
According to a study by Pendo, companies that effectively segment their user base and tailor messaging experience a 10% increase in user adoption rates.
Slack, a popular team collaboration,segments its users into different categories, such as free users, small teams, and large enterprises. They then customize their outreach and product features for each segment to drive user engagement and upsell opportunities.
2. Intent-Based Content Targeting:
Intent data is like a crystal ball for B2B marketers. It helps you understand when your target accounts are actively looking for solutions like yours. By monitoring online behavior, such as website visits, content downloads, and keyword searches, you can detect signals of buying intent.
When you use intent data in your ABM strategy, you can reach out to potential customers at the perfect moment. It's like catching a wave at just the right time to ride it to success.Deliver relevant content and engage with them at the right moment to capitalize on their interest.
This timely engagement increases the chances of your message resonating with the prospect and converting them into a customer.
According to Foundry,95% of marketers use more than one intent data source.
3. ABM for Customer Expansion:
ABM is often associated with acquiring new customers, but it can be equally effective for expanding relationships with your existing customer base. This ABM strategy involves identifying upsell and cross-sell opportunities within your current customer accounts.
The key here is to understand the evolving needs of your customers and offer additional products or services that align with their goals. By leveraging this ABM strategy you can create personalized campaigns for each account, demonstrating how these additional offerings can provide value and further enhance their business outcomes.
According to research by Invesp, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5-20%.
4. Personalized Onboarding and Training:
Personlaization is one of the first proven ABM Strategy. Offer highly personalized onboarding experiences for new customers. Understand their specific use cases and pain points, and provide customized training materials and support to ensure a smooth adoption of your service or product.
According to Econsultancy,93% of companies experience a lift in conversion rates from personalization.
Dropbox Business, a file-sharing and collaboration, personalized its onboarding process by asking new business customers about their goals and challenges during setup. It then offers tailored resources and training to help users achieve their specific objectives.
5. ABM for Churn Reduction:
Churn reduction is a critical concern for any subscription-based business. ABM can play a pivotal role in preventing customer churn by identifying accounts that show signs of decreased engagement or dissatisfaction and taking proactive measures to retain them.
In this ABM strategy, it involves closely monitoring your existing customer base, looking for red flags like declining usage, decreased engagement,unanswered support tickets, or decreased interactions. Once at-risk accounts are identified, personalized outreach can be initiated to address their concerns, offer additional support, or introduce them to new features that might rekindle their interest.
Zendesk, a customer service SaaS, uses ABM to prevent churn by monitoring customer support ticket trends. If a customer shows a sudden increase in support requests, Zendesk proactively reaches out with targeted solutions and resources to resolve the issues and retain the customer.
6. ABM for Retargeting:
ABM strategy for retargeting is about re-engaging with target accounts that have interacted with your brand but didn't convert initially. It's similar to giving someone a friendly nudge or a second chance to consider your offering. By using retargeting campaigns in your ABM strategy, you can bring these accounts back into your sales funnel and guide them toward conversion.
Often, potential customers need more than one interaction with your brand to make a decision. Retargeting ensures that your message stays fresh in their minds, increasing the likelihood of them taking action.
Retargeting involves re-engaging with target accounts that have previously visited your website or interacted with your content but didn't convert. ABM retargeting campaigns aim to bring these accounts back into the conversion funnel.
Terminus, an ABM platform, used retargeting to re-engage target accounts. This led to a 26% increase in engagement and a 36% increase in opportunities created.
7. Advocacy Marketing:
Advocacy marketing is all about leveraging your happiest and most satisfied customers to become your brand advocates. These advocates can help you expand your reach, build trust, and attract new business. Think of it as turning your customers into your biggest fans and promoters.
In B2B ABM, advocacy marketing plays a crucial role. Your existing customers have first-hand experience with your product or service, making their recommendations incredibly powerful. Advocacy marketing identifies and nurtures advocates within your existing customer base.
When you encourage and support them in spreading the word about your offering, you tap into a valuable resource for generating new leads and closing deals
Salesforce established the "Salesforce MVP Program" to encourage advocacy among its customers. Advocates contributed to a 60% increase in leads generated.
QUICK TIPS FOR SMOOTH IMPLEMENTATION OF PROCESS
- Be specific: Don't try to target everyone. Instead, focus on a small number of high-value target accounts.
- Be personalized: Your messaging should be tailored to the specific needs and interests of each target account.
- Be consistent:ABM is a long-term game. Don't expect to see results overnight. Instead, focus on building relationships and providing value to your target accounts over time.
By implementing above mentioned strategies along with the quick tips provided throughout this post, you'll be well-equipped to create a powerful ABM strategy that drives meaningful engagement with your most valuable accounts.
Conclusion
Creating an effective ABM strategy requires careful planning and execution. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can lay a strong foundation for success. To begin by identifying your target accounts and understanding their unique needs and challenges.
From there, develop personalized content and experiences that will resonate with each account individually. Implementing proven strategies such as account mapping, persona development, and cross-functional collaboration will further enhance your ABM strategy efforts. And don't forget to leverage technology to automate processes and measure results accurately.
As you go-on on your ABM journey, keep in mind that it is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process of refinement and optimization. Continuously monitor the performance of your campaigns, gather feedback from both sales teams and target accounts, and adapt your approach accordingly.
So go forth armed with knowledge; conquer new markets; forge lasting relationships; make every interaction count. Your targeted approach through ABM will undoubtedly set you apart from the competition while ensuring growth for years to come.
Remember: Account-Based Marketing isn't just about numbers or conversions—it's about building meaningful connections that leave a lasting impression on both prospects and customers alike.
If you're considering implementing an ABM strategy, follow the seven steps above to get started.