​Why and how to leverage Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy for B2B companies?

 
Account-based marketing (ABM) is flourishing, according to the most recent ABM statistics. By 2027, it is expected that global ABM will reach 1.6 billion dollars. Today 94.2% of respondents have an active ABM program which is 77% more compared to 2019. And 64% of programs have adopted ABM within the last five years, and have since grown rapidly in sophistication, with 68% using automation. Research clearly shows that a well-executed ABM strategy can generate a significant lift for B2B marketing efforts. A study from the Altera Group found that 97% of B2B marketers report that ABM drives higher ROI than other marketing activities.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a business marketing strategy that concentrates resources on a set of target accounts within a market. It uses personalized campaigns designed to engage each account, hinging the marketing message to the specific attributes and needs of the account.
ABM also takes a more holistic view of marketing, beyond just lead generation. Marketing to existing customer accounts to encourage upselling and cross-selling is one of the keys to getting the most value from your largest accounts. Precisely Account-based marketing allows you to weed out less-valuable companies early on and ensure Marketing and Sales are in complete alignment in return, your team can leap into the critical processes of engaging and delighting those accounts much faster.
Have you ever wondered why we need ABM, so here are some reasons?

• It keeps marketing and sales aligned.
• It maximizes your business’s relevance among high-value accounts.
• It will deliver consistent customer experiences.
• It will measure your return on investment.
• It streamlines the sales cycle.
• It will expand business through account relationships.

 
Webinars, Events, Email Campaigns, Paid Advertising, Web Personalization, and Direct Mails are some examples of how B2B marketers can use to develop account-based marketing programs. When talking with B2B marketing teams who have adopted a concerted approach to account-based marketing, a few benefits of the Account-based marketing (ABM) increasing approach for B2B companies that target larger accounts are as follows:

• Personalized Approach: Instead of a generic approach, marketers create personalized messaging for target accounts, taking what they know about their customers and tailoring the creative assets of their campaign to the customer’s specific attributes and needs.

 

• Sales & Marketing Alignment: ABM encourages marketing teams and sales organizations to work together, identifying target accounts, crafting customized campaigns for them, and working together to align and move individual accounts through the pipeline, both before and after the lead conversion.

 

• Shorter sales cycles: Major purchase decisions involve multiple stakeholders. This typically slows down the sales process, because it starts at a lower level in the organization and moves slowly towards the primary decision-maker. In ABM, the length of the cycle is shortened as all prospects are nurtured simultaneously.

 

•  More ROI: Account-based marketing is precise and measurable, providing the highest ROI of all B2B marketing tactics. 85% of marketers who measure ROI describe account-based marketing as delivering higher returns than any other marketing approach.

 

• Fewer wasted resources: Time and resources are narrowly focused on a small number of accounts that are most likely to close sales. This frees up resources that would previously have been wasted.

 
 
In this era when everything is online and mostly dependent upon Digital Marketing, many IT companies like Exogenous Technology feel that for success, ABM strategy is very important.  According to reports, 92% of B2B organizations said, “ABM is an extremely important part of their overall marketing efforts,”.
And It’s vital to continually follow the right steps, and test and optimize your campaigns, to ensure positive results. There are three main ways ABM can work between the two teams:

• One-to-one. A dedicated senior marketer will work with the account team to find the best strategy. 
• One-to-few. A marketer will work with 5-15 accounts, usually in the same industry and experiencing similar issues. 
• One-to-many. Working with a high number of carefully selected accounts. 

For high-value prospects, it may be better to use the one-to-one or one-to-few methods so the marketing team can personalize the campaign accordingly as per the Exogenous Technology experts. And yes, planning your ABM strategy is incredibly important to ensure your marketing is being targeted correctly, Sales and marketing teams are aware of what’s needed of them, and Campaigns are fully optimized before they go live.
I will detail some steps to follow when planning your Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy:  

• Discover and define your high-value accounts. 
• Map accounts and identify key internal players. 
• Define content and personalized messaging. 
• Determine optimal channels. 
• Execute targeted and coordinated campaigns. 
• Measure, learn, and optimize. 

Be sure to test, measure, and optimize your ABM marketing campaigns to ensure they are effective and that your results will continuously improve or you do that by pursuing some digital marketer. Be sure to analyse the results of individual campaigns as well as trends at the account level and in the aggregate to get a more accurate picture.