Account-Based Marketing (ABM) reigns supreme as a B2B marketing strategy that keeps evolving and changing the marketing world. Given that technological advances have been served to us on a silver platter, let us stop spamming mass cold emails and start focusing on building relationships with our clients with personalized advertising and outreach.
Out of all strategies, why account-based marketing? Let’s take a look at these statistics. ITSMA reported that 87% and 91% of B2B marketers’ ABM initiatives exceeded other strategies and investments in terms of ROI and saw an increase of average deal size, respectively. With ABM, companies also saw a 208% and 70% increase in revenue and opportunities created. This could be you; let’s take a look at how you can be part of these percentages by following the best and latest ABM practices:
1. The Use of Low-cost Videos to Build Yourself an Authentic Image
Mass cold emails are inefficient and dated; try a more personal and engaging way of communication through videos. There’s no need to do a big production; pick up your phone and record a 5-minute video about your company and what you can do for them. Spice it up by incorporating their logo and name; this shows that you are building a relationship with them. Through low-cost videos, you present yourself to be more authentic and personal to your clients. This format can also be easily delivered through email or video mailers.
2. Put Your Efforts and Focus into Collective Buying
Invest your resources into creating a smooth and efficient experience to aid group-buying instead of small, fragmented interactions of individual purchases. Your company can expect higher conversion rates by empowering your sales and marketing team. Create a smooth and efficient buying process through gathering data across email, social media, websites, and events. Group purchases require collaboration from an entire team with people from varied roles and priorities, causing the decision-making process to be longer and more complex. Your responsibility is to ease the buying process and avoid group buying dysfunction.
3. ABM Goes Omnichannel, but Choose the Best Ones
Before COVID-19, ABM was dependent upon on one-on-one meetings and tradeshows interactions to build and establish relationships. However, the pandemic and automation have replaced in-person events with AI and personalized content to fill the lack of engagement and interaction. A critical part of marketing success comes from creating deep connections with your clients through various communication channels and engagement, which can be done by utilizing omnichannel marketing. ABM has evolved to become more data-driven, personalized, and relationship-focused; you must be able to reach and meet the needs of your clients wherever they are. Become present and relevant in the lives of your customers. Though, beware of integrating more channels as it becomes more complicated. 77% of B2B customers describe their purchases to be complex or difficult, according to a recent Gartner Study. Ensure that your company strikes a balance as you introduce more channels.
4. Incorporating the Sales Team to Drive ABM
Through ABM, the marketing and sales team are effectively linked together where ABM is marketing, and the buying process is sales. ABM will reduce 50% of your sales teams’ time wasted on unproductive prospective client searches. When your sales team is aligned with your marketing team, they will know the targeted prospective clients and help facilitate close ABM campaigns, a tremendous asset to have. A critical KPI focuses on volume, which is when your clients reach out to you and purchase your service/product, making sales an essential part of ABM.
With ABM, you build more than just success; you build relationships with customers and encourage a holistic marketing approach. Your role in ABM is to create a positive experience that eases the process of buying for your customers, not making it a more challenging task. ABM is all about letting your clients know who you are and how you can add value to their products and services through your offerings. It is a highly dynamic space, so experiment and get creative with different strategies and elements.