Why Account-Based Marketing Is Important in 2020
What is account-based marketing?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach to designing and executing highly-targeted, personalised marketing programs and initiatives to drive business growth and impact with specific, named accounts. Treating each client or account as an individual and marketing to them accordingly is the primary difference between ABM and other styles of marketing.
In our account-based marketing guide, we’ll share what ABM is, why you should be using it, how you can establish it in your organisation, and look at some account-based marketing case studies which demonstrate how this form of marketing can benefit organisations.
Matt Heinz, President at Heinz Marketing, uses a well-known analogy to describe ABM: “Account Based Marketing simply means instead of fishing with nets, we’re fishing with spears. You identify exactly the prospects you want to do business with and then you market very precisely and narrowly to them directly.”
Justin Gray, CMO at LeadMD takes a more holistic view: “Our definition of account-based marketing is just good marketing. If you only had one prospect to sell and market to, you would treat them with the same principles as outlined in ABM. It’s just aiming at a more well-defined area of the funnel, and treating your best buyers in a much more personal way.”
The core principles of ABM include:
Customised, personalised campaigns that are created based on thorough knowledge of the customer
Alignment and integration between marketing and sales that promotes collaboration throughout the customer lifecycle
An overall strategy that focuses on optimising business standing, improving customer relationships, and increasing revenue
Why should organisations adopt account-based marketing?
In addition to a one-to-many marketing approach (e.g. a mass mail-out, a TV or radio ad), ABM’s one-to-one or one-to-few methods may help cement relationships with high-value prospects and ensure their customer experience is as optimal as possible.
RSPCA South Australia uses account-based marketing to offer advice and support to people who have adopted a new pet. Similarly, they tailor campaigns to those who have shown an interest in donating. Prior to implementing Salesforce’s Pardot, the marketing team would send out a campaign to a full list of contacts without a clear view of the relative importance of that information to each person. RSPCA SA’s successful ABM campaigns over the last two years have noted fewer people unsubscribing, email subscribers growing, and helps them identify and rapidly engage with regular donors.
What are the benefits of account-based marketing?
1. It offers a personalised and consistent marketing approach
2. Alignment between the sales and marketing teams
3. Streamlined sales cycles
4. Higher ROI
How do you establish account-based marketing in your organisation?
1. Identify the right accounts
2. Improve customer engagement
3. Align sales and marketing
4. Measure and optimise campaign performance
There’s no doubt that ABM is an optimal strategy for marketers, but without proper measurement in place at the onset of implementation, true business impact won’t be understood. The biggest difference with ABM is that it requires measuring a unified buyer journey for the whole account, not separate journeys for each individual. It’s measuring accounts as opposed to leads. The emphasis is also taken away from generating volume and is instead about quality engagement. With ABM you should be looking for fewer leads but a much higher conversion rate. Additionally, because ABM has longer sales cycles and more touchpoints than traditional marketing, it is also necessary to use a full-funnel attribution model, especially as a significant amount of marketing effort occurs after the opportunity is created.
KPIs will also differ from inbound marketing metrics. If your goal is to increase recurring revenue through ABM, there’s no point including the total number of new accounts as a KPI. Metrics that focus on potential leads, including initial enquiries, website users/sessions, and social followers need to be replaced with measuring engagement within particular accounts, like contacts, responses to ABM marketing material, revenue, upselling, and shortening the length of the sales cycle.
Account-based marketing case studies
One of Volkswagen’s main priorities is to ensure a lifetime loyalty for their customers. At 104 dealerships nation-wide, Volkswagen has used Salesforce to ensure a consistent customer experience, provide analytics which helps customers find the right solutions, and hit a new benchmark - Volkswagen Group Australia now ranks within the top 3, globally, for service.
The dealer networks and the contact service group use account-based marketing to deliver a more connected customer experience, whether they enter a dealership, apply for a test-drive online, or follow through with a sale. These communications are all entered into Marketing Cloud and messaging is delivered that supports each customer at a personal level.
30 years ago, the Cotton On brand was being sold at an outdoor market. Today, Cotton On is Australia’s largest retailer operating on a global scale. Cotton On uses Salesforce to personalise its marketing via the Cotton On & Co Perks initiative - a loyalty campaign which applies to customers instore and online. Marketing Cloud supplies insights and opportunities through customers’ engagement and purchases and helps ensure they are receiving promotions and communications relevant to their interests.
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