The B2B sales process is a complex one. There’s lead generation, qualification, prospecting, pitching, demos, and more. Often, it involves several key decision makers from different areas, and closing a deal can take weeks or months to complete. It’s a lot, and even the most seasoned salesperson can find themselves frustrated during the process—and understandably so.
As a B2B company selling to a narrow market, it’s important to focus your marketing efforts on the companies that are most likely to be interested in your products and services. Today, wasting your resources, time, and budget to market to broad, unqualified leads isn’t always the best approach. Just think, if there was a strategy you could use to target the high-value companies that would be the best fit for your products and services, how would that change your sales game? The trajectory of your company?
Enter: account-based marketing (ABM) tactics.
In this blog, we’ll review what account-based marketing is and investigate how to determine if an ABM strategy is the right approach for your company.
What Does Account-Based Marketing Involve?
Account-based marketing involves identifying and obtaining targeted, high-value accounts. To achieve this, marketing and sales collaborate to create personalized campaigns tailored to every account.
Business that use account-based marketing strategies typically use them for reasons like:
- Having a narrow market their products or services appeal to
- The majority of their revenue (at least eighty percent) comes from the top twenty percent of their client or customer base
Is ABM Right for Your Company?
While ABM can definitely pay off if it’s right for you, it’s not an ideal strategy for all companies. To determine if this is the right approach for your company, ask the following questions:
1. Does the Majority of Our Revenue Come From the Top Twenty Percent of Our Customer Base?
If the answer here is an easy yes, then the return on investment (ROI) you could achieve by utilizing ABM is going to be more in your favor. If, on the other hand, most of your customers only contribute a small percentage of revenue to your business on average, consider trying other marketing tactics first.
2. Do We Have a Clear Picture of the Companies That Would Be Interested in Our Offerings?
If you have a list of ideal companies you’d like to do business with, ABM is a great strategy to put into play. When you know exactly what companies you want to go after, targeting them (and developing a personalized and successful campaign) is going to be that much easier.
3. Are We Confident We Can Reach Key Decision Makers within Our Target Companies?
Knowing who you want to target is one thing. Being able to actually reach key decision makers to market to them on an individual level is another. If you’re not 100 percent confident you can pull this off, you’ll be better off investing your marketing budget elsewhere. Remember: ABM doesn’t come cheap. It involves targeting, outreach, content creation, and more, so if you can’t confidently say you’ll be investing money and resources to target the right person, keep it moving.
4. Do We Have an Impactful and Interesting Message for These Key Decision Makers?
For your ABM efforts to be truly successful, you need to disrupt the decision makers you’re targeting with an impactful, interesting message that’s tailored to their needs and pain points. You have to grab their attention and make them want to learn more about your company and what you have to offer. If you can’t accomplish this or create a compelling campaign, your account-based marketing program won’t deliver worthwhile results or a positive ROI.
5. Are Sales and Marketing Aligned?
Account-based marketing requires alignment between these two teams. While marketing is responsible for defining targets and developing messaging and content, your sales team should focus on outreach, executing tactics, and obtaining feedback. If both teams aren’t tightly aligned and working towards the same goals, account-based marketing isn’t going to work.
The Most Popular ABM Tactic for B2B Companies
In the past, ABM used to involve tactics like direct mail marketing. Today, account-based marketing makes use of modern technology and social media platforms like LinkedIn to achieve results. Direct mail marketing may still be used as part of a larger strategy, but now, it’s often combined with digital marketing for a more comprehensive approach. LinkedIn enables you to target specific accounts, making identifying and reaching key decision makers easier than ever before. Features like InMail and matched audiences also help marketers deliver highly personalized and targeted ABM campaigns.
Get Started with Account-Based Marketing Tactics Today
Launching an account-based marketing program can feel intimidating at first, but it doesn’t have to. With the right partner on your side, getting started with ABM is a no-brainer and provides many clear benefits. Before getting started, ask the questions above and carefully consider your answers, as they’ll help you determine if ABM is truly the right approach for your company.
If you’re not sure how to get started with account-based marketing tactics, the Sagefrog team can help. We provide account-based marketing services and would love to help you secure your dream clients. Contact us today and let’s talk!
