Marketing plans that need to target a specific audience can be looked at quite negatively. Being seen as too difficult or complicated. However, when executed correctly, a great account-based marketing plan can be the most effective strategy available.
Account-based marketing (ABM) has been considered one of the most effective B2B marketing strategies at the moment.
In this post, we’ll look into everything ABM, and how you can write your own effective account-based marketing plan.
Here are the top tips for making the best ABM marketing strategy:
1. Define your targets
ABM focuses heavily on making engagement with target accounts – eventually increasing awareness of your business, for the relevant accounts.
The first step, then, is to define who these target accounts are. Perhaps consider revenue, location, and size all around your niche. Obviously, this varies for every single company – but it’s crucial when starting to create your ABM marketing strategy.
Once you have clear targets, you’ll be able to recognize who you can appeal to first, and raise awareness or your business.
2. Get the tools
You might already be aware of this little fact – marketing does require tools. This is great news for ABM marketing strategists, as it makes it much easier to track lead, engage the right accounts, and see customer data in detail.
The best tools to use for ABM marketing are:
- CRM platform – This will ensure that you can record and track every single customer view, account opportunity, and every single lead.
- CMS – Where you host your website and content.
- Social media – Strip it down to the basics and find the best accounts for you and your business on social med. This is where people look for everything. Not to mention, social media is a crucial part of marketing, now.
3. Set your goals
Every marketing plan should have goals set – it’s how you can stay motivated, track your progress and make your plan suitable.
What would you like your ABM campaign to achieve? ABM goals differ slightly from traditional marketing strategies, as they target account relationships.
This means that your ABM goals will be something along the lines of:
- Increase in contact
- Revenue expansion within accounts
- Quality account generation
Setting goals are the best way to make sure your marketing campaign works the best it can.
4. Align your marketing and sales
You might not realize, but your marketing and sales teams should really be working together – there’s constantly a crossover between the two.
Both of these teams should be working together to work together to not only set your goals and target accounts but making sure the strategy is executed correctly.
The best way to ensure that marketing and sales are aligned and working together is to hold meetings. Once you do this, you’ll get the best results.
5. Consider using an ABM pilot
Using a pilot is many businesses got- for ABM. An ABM pilot will help you establish realistic goals, give you the right resources, outlines activities, and gives you timescales and outcomes.
ABM pilots are a great way to ease you into launching a full account-based marketing program. We’d say it’s one of the most helpful tips into creating an entire campaign.
6. Make sure that you have relevant content
Considering that you are focusing on a specific target account, your strategy must be really personal. This means that the content you post much resonate with your target – including their challenges and achievements. If you don’t have a professional writer in your staff, consider consulting companies like WoWGrade.net, to get a better understanding of the content you might need for your campaigns.
Every marketing campaign will include aspects like videos, guides, eBooks, landing pages, etc. – you have to make sure that your content is relevant to them.
This ensures that the target accounts will interact and engage with them. This is why research and insight into key accounts are absolutely crucial.
7. What is your market approach?
You have to look into your own organization to define what the best marketing approach will be.
So, take a look at your analytics, and your progress with marketing and sales. Look at your current strategy and your target accounts. Basically, research into your own market approach.
Your market approach might just target individuals on a one-to-one level, or it may be a more vertical or inbound marketing approach. This usually depends on how long your marketing strategy has been running for.
Make sure you’re tracking your progress as you go along too, changing up your strategy as your company grows and changes.
8. Review and report
It’s absolutely essential that you monitor your progress. ABM can only prove to be an effective marketing strategy when you review and report regularly.
Make sure that you are tracking the audience growth, customer perception, value of marketing sales, retention, sales cycle length, and customer engagement.
Knowing where you are excelling and where you need to improve will ultimately make any campaign run smoother.
Also, compare your results from an ABM marketing strategy, to a non-ABM approach. This will give you an indication into whether or not you have chosen the right strategy, or what you need to change.
Conclusion
When executed right, an ABM marketing strategy can benefit you and your company massively.
It can drive significant, high-value opportunities to your business, and shorten those B2B cycles that everyone aims to reduce. In fact, 92% of B2B marketers have said that ABM is hugely or essential to overall marketing efforts.
So, try it out today and reap the benefits of ABM marketing. It might just change your business for the better.
Have you read the ABM Playbook? Download and read the definitive guide to nailing your account-based marketing strategy. No fluff, just good stuff.
