Account Based Data
Article | August 19, 2022
Account-based marketing (ABM) is becoming more popular as companies begin to realize that traditional funnel marketing does not produce the same results it used to in the B2B space. ABM gives the ability to personalize sales and marketing outreach on the account level, and technology helps us do it at scale. In this article, we uncover the best tactics you can implement in your ABM strategy to personalize your outreach for marketing, sales & service.
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Buyer Intent Data
Article | March 6, 2023
In 2021, 70% of marketers reported using an account-based marketing campaign. Since 2020, their numbers have gone up by 15%. One of the reasons ABM has become so popular is that it can greatly enhance customer loyalty and revenue by tailoring the buyer's journey for unique clients. ABM tactics can further enrich an ABM strategy.
In an interview with Media 7, Tim Kopp, CEO of Terminus, talked about the account-based marketing process.
“ABM flips the traditional approach of generating leads on its head. It doesn’t adhere to the idea that a full sales funnel will create a trickle-down effect leading to high conversion rates. Instead, ABM enables marketers to refine the criteria by which they identify buyers. While marketers might not have the same amount of leads, each lead is targeted and relevant — and thus more likely to convert.”
Account-based marketing is being implemented confidently by more and more B2B marketers. It is important to find ways to amplify its impact on your revenue through accurate targeting and conversions. Let us take a look at three effective ABM tactics that can help you enhance your account-based marketing strategy.
3 Effective ABM Tactics for B2B Marketers
Improve Your ABM Funnel's Performance
Account-based marketing funnel optimization may be one of the most effective ABM tactics to grow your business.
The following techniques can help you improve your funnel’s overall performance:
Audit Your Content Smartly
Check if your content is personalized according to your target accounts' personas and industry. Does it address the specific needs and pain points of your target accounts? Your content can help you narrow down your list of ideal customers.
Make Good Use of Intent Data
Dynamic ABM targeting is essential. Based on data from your CRM and other platforms, update your list of target accounts. Make sure you have a good idea of what your target audience is looking for. Are there issues with your company, products, or services that you provide? Always use this information to improve your list.
Approach Different Markets Confidently
Run multiple account-based marketing campaigns with varying degrees of customization and investment parallelly. Choose between ABM Lite (targeting a small number of accounts), Programmatic ABM (targeting many accounts), or Strategic ABM (targeting a single account) according to your business goals.
Optimize Engaged Accounts
No two engaged accounts can be in the same sales funnel stage. So, optimizing engaged accounts can be difficult. Start by tracking click-through rates, organic website traffic, email open rates, and any other digital interactions with your brand to see how effective your ads are. Your ads must be both informative and visually appealing. Reach engaged accounts through social media, email, and other suitable channels.
Unlock Opportunities
Lead generation strategies based on advertising retargeting allow your sales team to tap into accounts that have previously interacted with your ads with renewed vigour. By working with your sales team to develop an account engagement model that defines an "engaged account," you can streamline the lead generation strategies by limiting the number of accounts that your team is required to manage.
Increase Outreach
Your target account stakeholders' employees should be the focus of your outreach efforts. Target accounts can be contacted via direct mail or in-person meetings. As a result, new pipeline opportunities are now available. You can reach a larger audience by using one-on-one C-level campaigns like phone calls and demos.
Implement Marketing Automation
Artificial intelligence (AI) marketing can help you improve your B2B account-based marketing strategy. It gives you predictive insights and makes your communication more effective.
In your account-based marketing process, marketing automation can run email campaigns that can show you how people interact with your account.
CRM data is used by AI and big data to get information about people from different platforms. This information can help you make your content unique for more ABM targeting. Account-based marketing services give you the ability to run targeted marketing campaigns at scale. As an account-based marketing service, ABM automation aims to target firms with multi-person purchasing committees extensively by utilizing individualized content and engagement to influence their purchase decisions.
The immediate impact of using marketing automation in your B2B marketing strategy is a shorter sales cycle, a free marketing team, better sales and marketing team alignment, and stronger customer retention.
You can start off by creating your ICP. After that, you can set up your target account, integrate your account-based marketing strategy with marketing automation software and your CRM. Then you can create impressive campaigns, personalize content, and offer tailored engagement to your target accounts. You can access the performance of your ABM marketing strategy using marketing automation software’s dashboard and tweak your strategy to make the most of it.
Analyze and Improve Your Strategy
B2B account-based marketing requires regular testing of your ad wording, content, design, and channel aspects to see what works and what doesn't. You can improve the efficiency of your approach by keeping tabs on key performance indicators (KPIs). Instead of abandoning a tactic because it isn't working, improve it by tweaking it. Account-based marketing approaches can succeed only if you assess how they affect your strategy and continually improve its execution.
In an interview with Media 7, Abhi Yadav, Founder & CTO of Zylotech, talked about the importance of customer intelligence in marketing.
“Tracking every point of engagement is critical in delivering a holistic view of where buyers are actively engaged and what’s working.”
Developing an efficient B2B marketing strategy using the ABM approach requires a great deal of trial and error. Optimize your ABM approach by defining and measuring your KPIs. This B2B ABM marketing tactic is crucial to understanding how effectively you are engaging key accounts and moving them forward in the sales funnel.
Couchbase Generated $1.5 Million in Pipeline Opportunities Using ABM
Couchbase, a NoSQL database provider for enterprises, used a data-based ABM strategy to determine the interests of their target customers. They then combined real-world behavior with system-generated social personas of their customers, which helped them generate $1.5 million in pipeline opportunities.
Conclusion
These account-based marketing tactics can help you optimize your ABM marketing strategy. Concentrating on your funnel metrics and KPI and constantly improving your strategy can help you get the best results.
FAQ
What are funnel metrics?
Velocity (time spent in days by a prospect in each stage of the funnel), conversion rates (percentage of leads that move from stage to stage in the funnel), and volume (number of leads passing through any stage of the funnel) are funnel metrics. Improving them is a great B2B ABM marketing tactic.
What are the benefits of account-based marketing automation?
ABM automation is a great account-based marketing tactic. It allows you to set up a marketing process at once and then scale it across different campaigns. With the help of automation, tasks like media buying, modeling, upselling, and ad targeting are carried out efficiently.
How can you develop an effective ABM strategy?
Start by identifying key accounts. You can then map their decision-makers, create targeted campaigns to get their engagement, decide on the best channels to approach them, execute your marketing campaigns, and finally measure the results of your ABM strategy.
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Account Based Analytics
Article | August 3, 2022
Is ABM just Another Bullshit in Marketing* or a path to success? After some exciting years of establishing and experiencing ABM, I think, there is clearly a potential for both: a chance for a significant contribution to success, or just another bullshit.
There are many paths in both directions (succeed or bullshit) - below are some thoughts and personal observations - and I leave the decision with you!
ABM and the Relationship with Sales:There is no chance for ABM if you are not working in lockstep and partnership with sales. Anything else is just bullshit.
The Right Balance to Scale ABM,1:1 ABM vs. ABM at Scale:Both approaches have their reasons and value. As ABM at scale is often discussed, the key question is: what makes the approach account based? Applying ABM methods in a scaled environment is an enormous chance to put more customers into the center, especially if 1: few is seen as a scaled 1:1 (and not as a small 1: many). Account insights are used for better planning, personalization, messaging, and content development – the right balance is the key. The chance of scaling ABM to death is relatively high - then just don't call it ABM.
From Pipeline Only to Customer Loyalty:What is the expected outcome? This quarter’s pipeline? Or a long-term successful relationship with a loyal customer? How will you measure success in such a customer relationship? There are extensive lists of KPIs for ABM. Leads are normally not part of it - for a reason.
My view is: Finally, ABM has to contribute to the business, especially in the long-term. It is relatively easy to realize short-term success, but will your accounts be loyal customers over the years? Will they grow over time or only for a quarter? Defining joint goals for sales and ABM and committing as peers to customer lifecycle-related goals, not just single deals, reduces the risk of delivering bullshit.
Is Your Approach "Marketing for Accounts" or "Account Based"?
There is value in both in marketing for accounts and in account-based marketing. If you label it “ABM,” make it account-based. Ideally, you look at your data and insights and decide: is that enough to make it an ABM approach? If so, great! If not, fix your data. My company invested an enormous effort in fixing the data and developing an innovative view of our accounts.
Listen to Your Customers! That's something I do by myself, and I ask my team to do so, too.
Have you ever asked your customer (humans, people, executives - not data) how your ABM was received? Do they value what you do for them, and what exactly makes the difference between all the many newsletters and emails they receive? We measure everything we do, but we do not really measure what we don't do. What do you think about it?
*By the way, the "bullshit statement" was made by a sales leader in one of my first ABM presentations in front of his team. We have proven multiple times the opposite, but to be constantly successful, we have to challenge ourselves daily: Is that really ABM what I do? Can I prove it? What is the expected short-term and long-term outcome? What will my customer think about it? One has to reflect on these questions.
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Core ABM
Article | July 19, 2021
Account-based marketing is the ultimate personalization tool.
Instead of incurring unnecessary marketing expenses, an account-centric strategy segregates vital business accounts and markets directly. This means, by appealing to specific market leaders, who can benefit from what your company has to offer, you can make marketing efforts more tailored and effective.
ABM strategy is not new by any means. Still, it has gained widespread recognition over the past few years as it's evolved along with the progression of technology. An entirely tech-based, the marketing automation solutions have made account-based marketing more measurable and affordable for all-sized businesses. Thus, ABM automation gained pace.
Research from Marketo suggests that account-based marketing delivers a better return on investment than other various strategies for 97% of marketers.
Marketing automation plays a vital role in driving impressive results. It allows companies to target their outreach based on interests and actions. But what makes ABM automation win the rat race?
ABM Automation: AI is the Driver
The reason why ABM automation has recently emerged is the availability of AI. Initially, AI was used by ABM to propel the automatic selection of target accounts through predictive analytics. Also, it is driving intelligent marketing nurturing and other marketing responses based on how the targets respond, their needs, and so on.
If you're targeting 100 accounts as potential new corporate customers, those accounts will visit different pages of your site. Some will download white papers and respond to emails. You will get leads from the targeted companies through these activities, and thus you can knock at their door.
AI enables quick responding to a dynamically changing engagement in the ABM platform and delivers the best action. This is how automation with AI is emerging in ABM platforms.
You can take four steps to automate your ABM to drive leads and create a successful ABM automated platform.
4 Steps to Plan ABM Automation
Draw the Automation Cycle
To start with ABM automation, firstly, create a blueprint of the targeted business. In this, you should identify the complete process of lead generation. The trail looks like; subscriber, lead, MQLs, SQLs, and a client to target. In this process, you cannot communicate at each phase. When one clicks on the particular link of your website, you should have a system-generated mail to send.
Once you track the movement of the lead, quickly trigger the sales team to take the follow-ups. This saves the time of salespersons, and therefore ABM strategies are implemented wisely.
Integrate your ABM automation software and CRM
Before you build your account-based marketing campaigns, you'll have to integrate your ABM automation software and CRM.
Integrating marketing automation tools is vital in the automation process. If your ABM software doesn't interact with the email marketing software, you won't be able to automate the process. In addition, if it doesn't relate to your CRM, it will be difficult to know if leads converted into accounts and track the ROI of an account-based campaign. So, to integrate ABM automation, you'll have to research and keep ICP, content, target accounts, and CRM all in one place.
Tailor Your Content
Ensure you're sending the right message to the right target account. Creating customized landing pages looking at how people have recently interacted with your brand is a great way to execute automation. Using ABM tools, you can automatically message target accounts with relevant messages when they engage with you and help you build the connections that become conversions.
Create Dashboard to Assess Efforts
The last step to automate your ABM platform is to track and measure the efforts you have put in to see information at-a-glance.
You get information about your target accounts on your dashboard, such as open deals, company score, total pipeline, and the number of decision-makers identified. In addition, you should consider ongoing A/B tests when started with ABM automation. This is because you can see what messaging appeals to your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile).
ABM is a result-driven approach. ITSMA reports that 87% of marketers consider ABM as delivering the highest returns. But without automation, ABM becomes a strewn process. Marketing automation lets your team offer a personalized approach and immediate outreach with valuable content that pushes visitors to become regular clients. Thus, using ABM software tools — ideally the marketing automation tools — can help you automate and scale your strategy and adds value to your ABM efforts.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the account-based marketing tactics?
Account-based marketing uses hyper-personalized tactics to attract, engage, and convert high-value accounts. Similarly, it uses emails to contact existing customers and target consumers and social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and more to reach out to prospects.
Why is an account-based marketing strategy so important?
The importance of ABM lies in structuring marketing efforts and resources on key accounts to drive the most revenue. ABM maximizes the efficiency of your B2B marketing resources along with building the communication channel with sales to align with sales and marketing functions.
How to create the automated ABM strategy?
To create the automated ABM strategy, follow these steps:
Create your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Align your target accounts
Build campaigns
Integrate ABM, marketing automation software, and CRM
Personalize content
Engage
Set up a dashboard for assessment
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