Why account-based marketing is the future of B2B

Account-based marketing or ABM has quickly become one of the most valuable and lasting trends to enter the marketing sphere. Rather than trying to capture a large audience and then filter low quality leads out, ABM goes straight for the kill: identifying high-value customers from the very beginning and creating campaigns designed to convert them.

Optimally personalised, targeted and effective, it’s easy to see why marketing managers are turning to this as a method and renewed approach to get ahead of the competition. 

Why is ABM is so effective?

Powerful personalisation

The marketing industry is more cluttered than ever. People are bombarded with a thousand different messages every day.

The secret to ABM is to create something that is niche and reads as though it’s been crafted distinctly for your audience’s needs that they can’t help but engage with the content and your company. Doing that across an audience of hundreds of thousands, however, is where the friction lies: personalising for a crowd sometimes seems impossible.

ABM makes it easier and more effective by singling down the crowd to just one person. If you want to land the big fish, you have to use the right bait.

Easier attribution

With potentially millions of dollars being used to fund a year’s worth of campaigns, it’s understandable that businesses want to analyse and understand their marketing strategy’s effectiveness. Unfortunately, due to the very nature and diverse application of marketing activities, it can be hard to figure out hard figures on ROI.

ABM makes it easier. By targeting a single business at a time, marketers no longer need to focus on click-through-rates, impressions, or other common metrics that don’t offer concrete proof of ROI.

Instead, you can prove ROI on an ABM campaign by digging into the specifics of success: did the contact engage with the content? Did they get in touch with the company? Did they end up spending money? If so, how much? If not, why? Hard to track for a crowd, far easier for just a single point of contact.

Shorter sales cycle

When sales team members need to spend hours simply separating the good prospects from the bad, it’s easier to see where the inefficiencies lie.

ABM does away with those inefficiencies by removing the separation process entirely: any ABM-based contact the sales team receives has already been pre-defined (and pre-agreed) to be a solid prospect, allowing them to spend more time doing what they’re really here to do: selling.

Unification at last

Lastly, ABM improves the quality and quantity of the leads that marketing hands over to sales, acknowledging and bridging the age-old tension between the two departments.

Under traditional methods, there’s always an argument: sales don’t close deals because marketing doesn’t hand them good enough leads, while marketing says the leads they send are great but the best ones are being ignored or not sold to correctly.

ABM ensures everybody is speaking the same language: one contact, already determined as high quality, with everybody working towards closing that one, single deal. Everybody is focused, and everybody is working in the same direction.

Not convinced?

You don’t need to just take out word for it: there’s been a number of studies performed that show the efficacy of account-based marketing.

Here’s what major research groups and marketing companies have to say:

Marketo

About 85% of marketers said ABM provided significant benefits to retain and expand existing client relationships.

Alterra Group

97% of marketers surveyed said ABM had higher ROI than other marketing activities.

SiriusDecisions

More than 90% of marketers believe that ABM is essential to B2B marketing.

Terminus

More than 60% of companies plan to implement an ABM program within the next year.

And that’s just a handful of the findings from the big leagues – there are plenty more instances of small SMEs completely turning their business around as a result of using ABM to supplement their existing marketing strategies.

Account-based marketing has proven it isn’t just another trendy way to think about your customers: it offers a brand new system of operating that turns the brand funnel on its head – with tangible results for those who adopt it.

For more information about account-based marketing and how it can supplement your current marketing strategies, get in touch with the team at Pounce today.

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