Account-based marketing (ABM) is making a comeback. Learn why this approach is undergoing a resurgence, and the benefits of implementing ABM tactics to effectively align your sales and marketing teams and win new customers.
Account based marketing is not a new sales growth approach (ABM in Action was spotlighting its strengths back in 2017), but it’s one that is recently undergoing a renaissance among B2B marketers. ABM focuses on high-value accounts to deliver benefits for:
- Increased account engagement
- Higher win rate
- Larger average deal size
- Improved ROI
What does ABM look like in practice, and how is it effective? Let’s take a closer look at what account-based marketing is, why it’s effective, and the business benefits it can deliver.
What Is Account Based Marketing?
ABM is a marketing growth strategy that supports sales department and marketing department collaboration to identify high value accounts and create a focused, personalized buying experience to transform them into customers.
Building relationships with a highly targeted, very specific set of accounts requires a structured approach that typically evolves across four fundamental steps:
- Align sales + marketing teams in all aspects of program planning & execution.
- Create a target list that prioritizes the highest value accounts.
- Generate marketing programs that speak to targets across the entire funnel.
- Continuously measure, assess & adjust program performance to ensure it remains aligned with program goals.
Research and Markets is actively tracking ABM uptake and estimates it reached $202.3 million in the United States in 2020; that figure is predicted to achieve a compound annual growth rate of approximately 10% through 2027. It’s clear that leading brands believe ABM is here to stay.
Why Is Account Based Marketing Effective?
Significant business benefits can accrue from an effective ABM approach, including:
Marketing & sales alignment. Collaboration is what drives ABM:
“93% [of organizations] agree that a fully aligned sales and marketing team is vital to activating a successful account-based marketing strategy.” – Terminus, The 2021 State of Modern Marketing.
Alignment is also a benefit that can support growth throughout your organization. Transparency helps teams understand their roles and remain focused on shared goals. Seamless interactions create a consistency that delivers a better customer experience and makes supporting continuous improvement easier. Aberdeen Group research revealed that, “Highly aligned organizations achieved an average of 32% year-over-year revenue growth – while their less aligned competitors saw a 7% decrease in revenue.”
Streamlined sales cycle. ABM eliminates cumbersome, resource-intensive prospecting, connecting, and research sales processes. Focusing on high value, well known targets allows resources to be reserved for the more valuable processes of presenting, closing, and maintaining sales with only the most important accounts. ABM leverages “quality over quantity” to match your organization with its ideal targets.
Optimal visibility to high value accounts. A commitment to personalizing experiences for your high value accounts makes your organization more visible and relevant to them. Highly tailored content and interactions that emerge from an ABM approach create continuous opportunities to demonstrate why your services or products are needed to resolve business challenges.
That visibility pays off: a Harvard Business Review study found that, “…individual stakeholders who perceived supplier content to be tailored to their specific needs were 40% more willing to buy from that supplier than stakeholders who didn’t.”
Expand business through account relationships. ABM sustains longer and better customer relationships with prized accounts. Churn is expensive; preserving your best accounts reduces your need to invest in sourcing new clients. Your high value accounts also become evangelists for your brand: their loyalty turns them into a marketing engine that generates consistent value to attract other high value accounts.
Deliver consistent customer experiences. Organizational alignment becomes a platform that supports better, more consistent customer experiences. Your ability to craft content that caters directly to their needs and expectations creates a closer relationship, builds loyalty, and reduces potential frictions. Consistency is key to managing a highly valuable relationship.
More easily measure return on marketing investment. Many organizations struggle to accurately quantify the impact of their marketing programs:
“84% say that their organization needs guidance when it comes to understanding how well their marketing strategy is working.” – Terminus, The 2021 State of Modern Marketing.
That uncertainty makes it difficult to plot goals, understand value, and make necessary adjustments to stay on course. ABM makes it easier for you to measure program ROI.
By investing in fewer accounts, it becomes simpler to understand marketing impact. Transparency across domains makes tracking, assessment, and reporting less complex and more able to yield actionable insights that improve program focus and performance.
Improve ROI & Boost Customer Loyalty with Account Based Marketing
The unfamiliar approach of aligning sales and marketing teams to work toward common business goals makes ABM appear to be a difficult road. However, it’s a journey that is achievable and scalable. By enlisting the support of an experienced partner, you can more efficiently identify valuable accounts, reduce organizational frictions that slow growth, and demonstrate continuous improvement that creates a sustained impact.
At LSC Marketing Group, we connect leading organizations with solutions for sales enablement using an account-based marketing approach. We can help you unite your marketing and sales teams with insights and collaborative tools that build a seamless buying experience for your most valuable accounts.
Contact us today for a free consultation. Let’s begin a conversation about your business goals and we’ll share details about how ABM solutions can help you achieve them.