ABM

Guide to Account-Based Marketing in B2B Organizations

Shiyam Sunder
|
Jan 25, 2023
Guide to Account-Based Marketing in B2B Organizations

Contents

A personalized marketing campaign has special advantages. B2B organizations have started to realize the benefits this customization can offer. This is the reason they are increasingly adopting ABM for SAAS.

Surveys reveal that nearly 91% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands who personalize marketing campaigns and offer relevant recommendations leveraging the possibilities of B2B ABM.

Businesses that use personalization witness a ROI ratio of a whopping 20:1.

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Account-based marketing works on this personalized marketing principle. This article gives you a deeper insight into ABM, its various stages, and, more importantly, steps to launch a pilot ABM campaign.

What is account-based marketing (ABM)?

Account-based marketing is a strategy that aligns the sales and marketing teams with a view to offering customized buying experiences for a set of specifically identified prospect accounts. 

These accounts have a higher chance of being converted into customers and, therefore, need more attention. The coordinated efforts of the marketing and sales teams help address the needs of the specific accounts.

Various outbound marketing techniques are used to engage the select audience in ABM. It is considered a very important revenue-generating strategy for B2B SAAS. Marketers believed that nearly 73% of their company’s revenue was the result of implementing ABM strategy.

Some methods adopted to reach the prospects are direct mail, customized white papers, case studies, tailored events, and phone calls. 

The results of the SiriusDecisions survey are presented below. It reveals that companies achieved better engagement, win rates, higher deals, and most importantly higher ROI with ABM.

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Account-based marketing vs. inbound marketing

Both account-based marketing and inbound marketing are ways to nurture and retain customers, but with some differences. 

Inbound marketing is a lead-generation strategy that uses various channels to reach potential customers. Here, the target is a wide customer base and not specific accounts, and includes a variety of techniques, such as content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, and more.

The flipped funnel represented below shows that  ABM program with specific targeting helps save costs through wise spending.

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We present the differentiation between the two based on audience, marketing funnel, strategies, messages, and metrics followed in each.

Based on target audience

  • ABM is a targeted and personalized marketing approach that focuses on specific, high-value accounts or prospects. It involves a coordinated effort to engage with specific decision-makers within targeted accounts and provide them with personalized content and experiences.
  • Inbound marketing is typically targeted at a broader audience and aims to attract and convert a diverse group of potential customers.

Based on marketing funnel

  • The account-based marketing funnel is an inverted pyramid of the regular funnel that starts with selecting accounts, which continues to nurturing and conversion. 
  • In inbound marketing, the key focus is on creating awareness among prospects. Unlike ABM, the funnel starts with awareness, where the number of prospective customers is large.

Based on strategies used

  • The methodologies used in ABM are personalized, like direct emails, in-person contacts, targeted ads, virtual events, and corporate gifting. These are very specific and are tailored to suit a particular target audience.
  • Inbound marketing uses content-based techniques to reach its audience. They are involved in SEO content that can attract more traffic. Content may be communicated through blog posts, webinars, events, and websites.

Based on metrics

  • ABM is directed at specific accounts where the campaign open rate, click-through rate, and engagement rate are performance indicators. It will be easier to identify the technique that works well as the approach is highly personalized.
  • Conversions, lead generation, and revenue are metrics for inbound marketing. The number of prospects who have read your blog post or attended an event acts as a guide to analyze the performance of your campaign.

Based on modes of messaging 

  • The prospects in ABM receive personalized messages. The method of messaging depends on what works best for each prospect. 
  • Inbound marketing messages are generated for a larger audience. If the content appeals to a prospect, they may show interest, after which the business nurtures the journey to make them a customer. 

How does ABM work?

Account-based marketing in B2B organizations follows a series of steps.

1. Identify the high-value accounts

This step involves the identification of selected accounts that have the potential to bring in more revenue. A lot of research goes into this process since this step is vital for the success of the steps that follow. 

  • The efforts of the marketing team should be directed at determining target accounts that bring the most MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue).
  • The salespeople are the ones in close contact with the leads, so they will be able to identify key leads better. 

As per the survey by SiriusDecisions, identifying the right account can improve your business productivity greatly.

2. Research these specific accounts

  • Extensive research of the selected accounts would channelize your marketing efforts based on their pain points and preferences. 
  • Delving deeper, you can understand more about the buyer persona, their stage in customer lifecycle, decision-making authority, etc. 

Buyer persona identification includes gathering information about:

  • Buyer’s goals
  • Geographical location
  • Personal and professional details
  • Values and fears

The type of questions you could explore to understand your buyer are listed in the image below. 

Your ABM strategy will depend on the answers to these questions. 

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3. Creation and implementation of personalized marketing campaigns

  • When you know more about your prospects, personalizing campaigns becomes easier. You can address their concerns and convert them into customers effortlessly. 
  • With the data collected in the research stage, ABM helps create targeted campaigns. Personalized content reaches the audience easier because the clients can relate to it.

For example in the attached image, Basecamp, a project management software sends a reminder message to a customer whose free trial offer has expired.

In this personalized message, the brand is requesting feedback from the customer to know what they liked about the brand during the trial. 

The message also offers support information for the customer to get in touch with. There is a mention of carry forward of unused data that plays an important role in this campaign. 

The customer is motivated to renew the subscription through this personalized approach.

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4. Analytics of the campaign

During the analytics stage, you assess the performance of your campaign. 

To help keep track of progress, your analytics should reveal the following:

  • Do your leads show more engagement after personalized campaigns?
  • Does the campaign help in movement in the funnel?
  • Were you able to generate high revenues through these accounts?

The ABM analytics dashboard below displays the status of the audience in terms of total opportunities won (in monetary terms), opportunity close rate, and average revenue per closed opportunity.

It also points out specific accounts that are not engaging with your content, which necessitates investigation into the reasons for non-engagement. 

The  account overview dashboard below indicates the analytics of the ABM campaign. It shows the increase in percentages of contacts earned, emails sent, etc. as compared to previous months.

  • It mentions each contact with their role in the customer organization.
  • Email opening is observed through this dashboard which indicates the level of engagement.
  • This analytics is for a particular month and the same can be obtained every month for effective analysis.
  • Reasons for lack of engagement can be analyzed with the help of campaign analytics.

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Stages of account-based marketing 

An ABM strategy is divided into various stages for easy implementation. 

Categorizing each activity to fit into these stages enables the optimization of the plan.

It also assists the sales and marketing teams by informing them about the tasks they are entrusted with. 

The following are the six stages of account-based marketing. 

1. Defining the accounts

Identify and define your key accounts through substantial research. Defining the accounts is essential to structure your campaign. 

ABM deals with certain target accounts that can help improve your revenue. The right choice of high-value accounts is imperative for the success of the campaign.

Aspects to consider for defining the accounts would be:

  • Maximum monthly returns.
  • Market prominence of the target.
  • Probability of repeat purchases.

Your content and marketing campaign will only be tailored to this defined section of prospects. 

Collect as much  information about the accounts so as to decide if they are the right choice to proceed with ABM. 

Your research will provide more information about their buying stage that you can target to achieve more sales. 

2. Defining the key players of accounts

Identification of the point of contact in the prospect’s organization is crucial. Communication with decision-makers is more important as they will be the ones who finalize the deal. 

During the sales process, slack arises due to a lack of decision-making from the target account.

In B2B, there are many members in the team, and not all are decision-makers. A sale may be suspended for the reason of approaching the wrong person. 

When you chart out all relevant information about key accounts before your pilot campaign, it is easier to scale account-based marketing. 

3. Defining your content 

Your content should be specific and address the challenges faced by the prospects. ABM is all about creating personalized campaigns that are valuable to the accounts. Content creation is based on research about the buying stage of the customer. 

By defining your content, you deliver what is most needed to the prospect at the right time. This assists in the decision-making process. 

For example, if the prospects are stuck with a lack of information about the product/service, your content should provide access to user guides or manuals. 

The demonstration stage of the sales process explains the product better to the buyer. This ensures that the buyer's apprehensions are cleared so they can decide to move down the funnel.

4. Defining your channels

You should optimize the channels that can bring in the best results. 

There are several channels available for communication with the buyers, but the choice depends on the buyer's persona. 

The channel suitable for a senior management official will not prove to be effective for the team members. 

So you should select the channel based on the key player you have identified in stage 2. 

Use of omnichannel is recommended as it can bring in an engagement rate which is 250% higher than while using a single channel.

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Email communication, in-person meetings, phone calls, etc., are some of the channels you can choose.

5. Execute the campaigns

The coordinated efforts of the sales and marketing teams in ABM help in the better execution of the campaigns.

Execution of the campaign should be streamlined across all channels. 

The campaign carries great importance as it caters to the needs of the buyer at a particular stage in the buying journey.

If the definition of the right person, content, and channel is clear, the execution of the campaign becomes easier.

6. Measure the effectiveness

Your plans will be successful only if they are measured for effectiveness periodically. 

Analyze the results in relation to individual targeted accounts. 

  • Could the ABM campaign elicit the desired response from the accounts? 
  • Whether there has been any improvement in revenues?

Answers to these questions will help you identify the effectiveness of ABM. Analyzing also leads to the learning process that lets you understand if there are any flaws in the campaign. 

It also enables you to find ways to make it more effective. Improvements can be added to optimize the plan based on the learnings. 

An optimized ABM is the result of thoughtful analysis and can help achieve business goals. 

What are the benefits of using ABM?

Learning the benefits of using ABM will assist you in adopting it for your organization. Some of the main benefits are listed below.

Higher return on investment

Businesses work toward earning revenues that justify their investment. Among all marketing strategies, ABM is considered the best to gain higher returns. 

With ABM, targeting is precise, which makes the process measurable and quite effective. It also ensures less wastage of resources, and quicker conversions, which helps earn more return on investments. 

Better experience for customers

Due to the nature of personalized campaigns, ABM gives a better customer experience. If the campaign is created for a large audience, it may not create the desired impact in some specific accounts. 

But if the same information is tailored to suit the needs of a particular organization, the reach is better.

When a customer-specific campaign is conducted, they feel more connected with the organization, which will lead to better conversions.

Aligns marketing and sales

Collaboration between the sales and marketing teams is highly beneficial for any organization. Both teams should focus on the same goals and divert their activities to address the concerns of the prospects.

This becomes more important in account-based marketing. Here, the teams work with the same target accounts. There can be a sustained increase in growth when the teams align with each other. This ultimately results in a better experience for the customer.

Improve recognition of your business

As your approach in ABM is personalized, you are much closer to the accounts, and therefore your recognition increases. When target accounts feel closer to your business, they will be inclined to you when making a purchase.

The prospects have their specific concerns addressed, which makes them highly satisfied. This helps in retaining customers. 

When the prospects know you are the right choice, they will repeatedly purchase from you and spread the word among others through their reviews. This also helps your business tide over competition easily. 

The sales cycle can be shortened

The sales cycle in ABM can be shortened since the sales and marketing teams are aligned. We have seen that the sales funnel of an organization following ABM is the reverse of the traditional marketing method. 

So, the sales cycle here is more focused and streamlined. This helps in quick movement from one stage to another. Efforts are targeted toward specific accounts, and this saves a lot of time. Nurturing leads is easier, and the conversion process is also quick with ABM.

Business expansion

With account-based marketing, creating a loyal customer base is easier. A satisfied customer becomes your brand ambassador. The process of creating a satisfied customer base is quite difficult. But this is made possible with ABM, as your campaign is very specific and fulfills the needs of the customer.

ABM helps in expanding your business by bringing in more customers. The reviews and feedback from your existing customers play an important role in creating interest in new customers. 

Time and resource savings

Since account-based marketing is very specific, you can save a lot of time. Instead of wasting time nurturing leads who may not convert, your business is engaged in a productive process. All your resources divert their efforts toward these accounts only.

Time and resource savings are beneficial to the organization as it can be used to identify more ideal profiles.

Tips for effective implementation of ABM

The following are some of the strategies that prove effective in the implementation of B2B ABM.

Data analysis for specific targeting

Lack of accurate data about the target accounts is a challenge for sales and marketing teams.

High-quality data improves the chances of targeting accounts and prospects that are best suited for the company.

Types of data used:

  • Firmographic data
  • Behavioral data
  • Intent data
  • Engagement data
  • Look-alike models

For example, intent data that provides insight into a web user’s purchase intent, is increasingly being used by B2B companies. According to Demand Gen Report Survey, nearly 85% of respondents are leveraging intent data for marketing campaigns. 

Aligning sales and marketing teams

Coordination of sales and marketing teams is significant in ABM SAAS. Both teams should work for the same accounts and align their activities to provide solutions to their challenges. 

The synchronized working of the teams can offer a seamless customer experience. This is achieved through:

  • Establishing shared goals.
  • Assigning roles and responsibilities.
  • Data-driven approach for measuring performance.
  • Cross-team collaboration tools.
  • Consistent communication.
  • Team-based rewards.
  • Strategizing teams as one unit.

87% of marketers believe that marketing and sales alignment is crucial for growth of the business.

Each salesperson may be handling a different target account. 

The marketing team can handle more than one salesperson, which means many target accounts. 

Create specific sales regions

Assigning sales reps to specific regions can enhance the chances of closing deals. 

  • Sales reps have good experience in the territory which acts as an advantage for engaging the audience.
  • The campaigns can be designed specific to the market that the salesperson is handling. 
  • You can understand the quality of different territories in terms of sales cycle, churn rate, etc., from sales reps as they have exclusive data on these.

According to Harvard Business Review, you could achieve an increase of 2-7% in revenues by creating specific sales regions.

The leaderboard below indicates the top performing sales reps of a business. Assigning sales regions that can bring maximum revenue to specific top performing sales reps would be advantageous to the business.

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Use the retargeting strategy

Retargeting strategy can bring about an increase of 10% in conversion rates across industries.

  • Account-based marketing can follow a retargeting strategy to create engagement with target accounts. 
  • The strategy seeks to redirect prospects to your business’s content when they visit any other related site. 
  • Your brand remains in focus and whenever a need arises, the targets are reminded of your brand rather than the competitors. 

The average click-through rates for retargeted ads is 0.7% whereas it is only 0.07% for display ads.

In this ad, SiriusXM, an audio entertainment company, retargeted contacts who had already interacted with their tweets. 

They reaped extraordinary results of 8.9M trend impressions. The brand witnessed the highest single day campaign landing page visits throughout the stream period.

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Account plans

To plan your content, you should ascertain the target accounts through account plans.

Account planning process involves:

  • Prepare an account overview
  • Ascertain the objectives of accounts
  • Identify possible solutions
  • Roadmap for achieving solutions
  • Evaluate the chance for success of the plan
  • Implement the plan
  • Review the account plan

The challenge faced by each account and the corresponding solution you propose to offer should be clearly mapped.

For each account, content consumed at different hierarchy levels vary. 

A typical account plan template would be:

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Use video content

  • A direct video message sent to a prospect can have more impact. Brand building can be easier this way. 
  • Videos create interest, and the open rates are considered more. It is like a one-to-one communication since the content is tailored. 

For example, in this Dropbox Intro Video with less than 180 sec duration video, the brand was able to generate a mammoth 10,000,000 sign ups. 

This shows the power of video content in audience engagement.

The customized content for account-based marketing reaches the prospect exactly at the stage they need. These explain the solutions that your brand is ready to offer. 

Use testimonials as inputs

Testimonials of key accounts in the sales drive act as input in your ABM strategy. They explain, in better terms, the requirements of the targets. 

These real-life examples are imperative for the success of your ABM.

Highlighting vital feedback such as these can bring about dramatic changes in the reach of your campaign.. 

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  • A case study or a brochure tailored to address the feedback will help the B2B accounts clear their doubts. 
  • It also indicates the efforts that your brand takes toward customer satisfaction. 

Use social data

Social data is useful to develop a better understanding of the target accounts, analyze trends, assess performance, improve customer relations, measure ROI, and develop better content.

More than 50% of marketers are using social data to understand their target accounts.

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Social data also reveals any change in the management role, shift in roles of the key decision-maker, or any new venture by the target account. This helps restructure the campaign addresses to this account.

Since ABM is all about personalized campaigns, understanding the customer through various means plays a key role. 

Engage contact associated with target accounts

One of the important and simple strategies to implement is attracting contacts that are close to target accounts. 

These prospects are aware about your brand but will need more information to move down the funnel. 

Identify where these contacts are expecting solutions from and tap these areas. Present yourself as their possible solution. 

Choose the most relevant channels only, as promoting through multiple channels may not produce the desired results. 

This may be industry events where the contacts will be available for an in-person approach. Targeted ads can also work as you can direct them back to your site’s content through these ads. 

Identify target accounts through other employees

  • There may be contacts that have a high potential to convert into customers. But since your sales team is not in contact with these accounts, you may not proceed with them.
  • This strategy can prove to be useful for your account-based marketing campaign. Extract target information from these employees also. When you delve deeper, you might discover some valuable leads.

C-level campaign

Communication from the C-level in your organization to the C-level in the buyer organization can prove to be effective. The communication is very specific, and since the same levels meet, decision-making is easier.

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  • The steps in targeting the C-Suite of the buyer account is represented above.
  • This one-to-one campaign with the C-suite avoids delays in decision-making. 
  • Deals are easily closed since the right person is approached at the right time.
  • This SAAS B2B ABM strategy, when followed for each target account, can help in overall improvement in sales.

How to run your first ABM campaign?

Account-based marketing gains relevance when your brand is able to provide the best experience to the accounts.

This is called ABX or Account-Based Experience. ABX is a marketing strategy that uses relevant insights to coordinate the sales and marketing teams with an aim to provide the best experience to the B2B account. Some of the components of ABX are:

  • Creating personalized customer experience.
  • Delivering the most relevant data.
  • Testing different landing pages with the same content.
  • Creating personalized email nurture flows.

ABX strives to travel with the customer in their lifecycle and support their needs at every stage of their journey.

Campaign planning and alignment

  • The first stage in running your pilot ABX is planning. It is a targeted effort toward select accounts that the business has identified as key revenue contributors.
  • You may follow the one-to-one or one-to-few approach to reach the target accounts. This type of classification assists in structuring the campaign and assigning team roles. 
  • One-to-one may be suitable for a high-value account that needs more personal interaction to finalize the deal. Custom e-books, webinars, targeted ads, personalized gifting, customized campaign brochures, etc., are some of the campaign strategies to be planned.
  • One-to-few strategy can be followed for accounts that can be segmented using a common identifier. It may be location, industry type, vertical, or use case. Here, a common campaign can serve the purpose of all accounts clubbed together. 

Campaign planning follows the 4-1 rule. This means that in every account, there should be 4 prospects that you can communicate with, and one among the four must be a decision-maker. 

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The buyers are then segmented based on 5 personas and cover people like VP, HRBP, CEOs, Head of Finance, Head of Compliance, VP sales, etc. Each of their priorities, challenges, and solutions expected are analyzed. All this information is mapped together to commence the campaign.

The campaign is spread out over 3 weeks, where each week accomplishes certain critical tasks. The key contents of the campaign are:

  • Identify the ideal customer profile.
  • Make a list of targeted accounts.
  • Make a list of key stakeholders.
  • Assess the goals of the business. 
  • Develop personalized campaigns.
  • Create an ABM plan.
  • Create a draft LinkedIn ad.
  • Set up campaigns for re-engagement of audience.
  • Set up email marketing tool.
  • Work on lead scoring model.
  • Segment target personas.
  • Run LinkedIn ads.

The sales and marketing teams work in alignment to execute the plan efficiently. Campaign planning assists in streamlining your activities and gives a proper definition to your approach. Since the plan is segregated week-wise, it is easy to cover all the aspects without missing out on any.

Persona mapping

  • A persona represents your ideal customer profile that is based on data obtained through research of various profiles. Understanding the buyer’s persona will help you address their concerns efficiently. 
  • It helps in the preparation of marketing and sales strategies. A persona landscape is created where points of contact in the target accounts are identified. 

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  • Buyers can be primary buyers, secondary buyers, and influencers. Under this classification, a further sub-division based on the various senior roles and their designation in the organization is created. 
  • Their roles, KPIs, information sources, pain points, fears, and initiatives are also defined. 

For example:

Persona: Head of CRM 

Titles: VP of CRM, VP of Database Marketing, and VP of retention

Role: Influencer

KPIs: Retention rate and CPA 

Pain points: Data management, performance, and efficiency.

Fears: Becoming less relevant, losing their budget to digital, privacy issues, etc.

When all the information related to a persona is mapped, it becomes easier to chart the strategies. 

Mapping personas benefits ABM greatly. Here are few reasons: 

  • It enables the development of personalized strategies that give a tailored experience.
  • Customer churn is easily addressed by identifying the right persona.
  • With persona mapping, inclusive product decisions are made possible. This can attract more audience.
  • Product positioning is improved with proper persona mapping. This helps combat competition.

With persona mapping, you know the buyer’s stage in the sales funnel. If the journey of the buyer is clogged, it is easier to identify since you know the buyer’s needs now. 

Persona mapping makes content creation easy. When addressed to a specific account after analyzing the persona, your content will be able to offer the best solution for the account. It is also easy to fix roles in your organization depending on the people they should reach out to.

Content mapping

Content mapping is the representation of the content strategy of a company that corresponds to its buyer persona. 

  • Persona mapping forms the foundation for content mapping. All content created is based on the buyer persona, stage of the customer journey, etc. 
  • Content mapping helps in providing valuable data that enriches the customer journey. For each customer, a separate database is maintained. 
  • This contains information about the stage of the funnel the customer is in. It may be Top of the Funnel (TOFU), Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) or Middle of the Funnel (MOFU). 

TOFU is the awareness stage, MOFU is the consideration stage and BOFU is the decision stage.

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The figure above represents different stages of sales funnel and the right type of content that should be communicated at each of the stages.

Nearly 87% of brands feel that prospective customers can be guided to the next stage in the funnel with the right content.

Developing a content map will include the following:

  • Develop buyer persona

This, as we have seen in the previous step, is the identification of the characteristics of the target. It is based on demographics, job titles, industry, goals, values, purchasing habits, influences, and challenges. 

  • Customer journey identification

Customers follow stages like awareness, consideration, and purchase decisions. You should identify what the buyer does at each of these stages. Customer experience in each stage will help deliver content appropriately.

  • Define the content that works

Content for each stage should be categorically defined. If the content you provide hits the buyer at the incorrect stage, it will not serve any purpose. For example, we know that awareness is a stage in the customer journey. Here, the customer needs educational material and buying guides to inform them about the brand.

This will take them to the consecutive steps without any hurdles. Your aim should be to provide information and allow time for the buyer to consider and arrive at a decision. 

  • Creating catalog of existing content

All aspects related to the content you create should be documented as a catalog. This can help as a reference. 

  • Map content to the customer journey

Develop your content map relevant to the customer journey. Content mapping helps in the movement of the prospect down the funnel. 

  • Monitor gaps in the content map

Examine your content map corresponding to the funnel to find any mismatches or exclusions. Identifying the gap in the content map enables quicker response. You can easily find out which phase of the customer journey is left out and include them in the map.

Develop a 30-day plan for first-time ABM

Structuring a 30-day plan will be the pilot launch of ABM to give the right experience to the business buyer account. The structure of the ABM plan can be segregated into 6 steps that are elaborated below.

Step 1: Set up goals

The most important goals of a business are:

  • Generation of leads

Lead generation is the process of capturing the interest of prospects and nurturing them to make them long-term customers. Leads can be generated through cold calling, emails, blog posts, live events, webinars, etc. 

The first task of the team here is to identify the target audience. Once this is done, you can create captivating content to engage them and convert them into customers. 

Lead identification is backed by research. This ensures you follow up with a lead who has an interest in the brand. The lead generation process supports the efforts of the marketing and sales teams in building the pipeline. 

  • Sales pipeline improvement

The sales pipeline gives you insights into the phase of the customer journey and how close you are to conversions. The pipeline is important as your marketing strategies are based on the movement along this. There should be a smooth flow in the pipeline to ensure better conversions. 

If there is any objection from the prospect, they may get stuck at any stage. The sales team has to identify the issues faced by the prospect account and take corrective measures. 

You should decide on the ideal pipeline based on the sales stages you have planned. These sales stages must be in conjunction with the buyer’s stage so that movement along the pipeline is possible. 

To manage your pipeline, you should analyze the number of deals you need at every stage. Not all deals are closed, so it is essential that you select the number of deals accordingly. 

In each of the sales stages, you should have a strategy to move the deal to the closing stage. These help in increasing the speed at which prospects move along the pipeline. You can add deals once the existing ones have started to move toward closing.

  • Upselling and cross-selling

Cross-selling is the process of selling complementary products or services along with the primary product. This is an easy and attainable way of increasing revenues. When a prospect prefers to buy a product, it indicates that they trust your brand. Cross-selling a complementary product along would elicit an immediate response since the buyer already knows about your brand. 

Upselling is not about adding a complementary product but adding upgrades to the existing product. Buying a higher version of a product by spending a little more would not affect the budget and, at the same time, would be a tempting offer for the buyer.

Step 2: Selecting the right accounts for account-based marketing

Deciding on the right customer profile is essential. It depends on the industry, company size, revenue capacity, location, kind of tools and software used, maturity level of the company, and an intention to buy.

When you can segment accounts based on these criteria, it is easy to create a campaign for a set of accounts. Selecting the right accounts assures that your marketing efforts do not go in vain. 

When you know the requirements of the accounts, it is easier to devise the right methodology to shorten the sales cycle.

Step 3: One-to-many awareness campaign

One-to-many campaigns are addressed at a group of accounts that are classified on common grounds. To identify similar accounts, the use of automated tools is advised. You can run awareness campaigns on LinkedIn, Google, webinar, demo ads, and emails.

This is done to create awareness of your product. The prospect segment may contain accounts that are not aware of your brand. Your campaign has to consider their interests and create a plan to make them understand. More information about the product and details on how it can address the pain points of the buyer will create an engagement with the brand. 

Step 4: One-to-few campaign

The one-to-few campaign is industry-specific and tries to identify accounts that are ready to continue the journey. Case studies, webinars, targeted blogs, emails based on industry, specific ads on LinkedIn, etc.

Those accounts that engage with your campaign will proceed further and close the sales.

Step 5: One-to-one campaign

This campaign is very specific and personalized. The number of accounts here is limited since the reach is personal. Deeper insights about the brand are obtained here through research of their online activity.

Gifting, use case and solutions, demo ads, company based marketing collaterals are some ways to do a one-to-one campaign. 

Step 6: Measuring metrics

Metrics analyze the success of your ABM strategy. The money spent as compared to revenues earned, number of accounts reached, accounts engaged, and unique visitors obtained are indicators of the success of your strategy.

Metrics help identify any errors so as to make changes in the campaign accordingly.

Implementation of the plan

The implementation of the campaign starts 30 days before the actual start date. The tasks involved before the pilot campaign begins are:

  • Account finalization.
  • Budget allocation.
  • Integration of marketing activities.
  • Content creation.
  • Landing page and CRM integration.
  • Revisiting content.
  • Finalizing emails.
  • Finalizing ad banners.
  • Final checking for integration of tools.
  • Finalizing awareness of content assets.

After these are done, the campaign goes live. Once the campaign runs for 60 days, an analysis is done to check its performance. Performing testing will let you analyze the accounts that still need a push to move down the funnel. 

Sophisticated ABX software selection

ABX can be given an upgraded experience with sophisticated ABX software. There are various tools available that can help you achieve this. Target the right tool, create engagement, and activate and measure the performance. 

TripleDart can assist you in the selection of sophisticated ABX software. Connect today!

How can ABM bring in B2B customers? 

B2B customers have reported an increase in return on investment using the B2B ABM strategy. This strategy helps in bringing in long-term customers. Since the focus of the campaign is to target the pain points of the prospect, it makes a lot of difference in the buyer’s journey. Here, the buyer is not an individual but a business account. The expectations are thus well-defined. 

Through ABM, your sales and marketing teams analyze their expectations before charting out the plan. This results in the satisfaction of the buyer, who comes again for repeat purchases. So, we see that when ABM for SaaS businesses is properly planned and executed, it can create a long-term customer base for your organization. 

TripleDart specializes in providing  the right experience to business buyer accounts with a structured ABM campaign. 

Now that you’ve explored account-based marketing in detail, you know all the benefits associated with implementing it.  A strategic pilot ABM campaign can analyze the efficiency of the plan.

As a reliable and established B2B ABM agency, TripleDart can help augment your ARR growth through our best approach to ABM marketing. With extensive research and use of sophisticated technologies, we help boost organic conversions.

Book a call today to know more!

Shiyam Sunder
Co- Founder | Tripledart - Growth Startups
Shiyam Sunder

Shiyam Sunder

Co- Founder | Tripledart - Growth Startups

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