What is Account Based Marketing?

MadeinWeb

Account Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategy that unites the marketing team with the sales team and generates campaigns focused on accounts with ideal customer profiles for sale, working with a focus on higher value accounts with greater chances of conversion.

With this integration of the two teams, it is possible to bring exponential results and even improve teamwork. In addition, the merger of the two departments also results in increased information and data about prospects, which makes each team better able to sell.

Keep reading and learn all about Account Based Marketing!

What is ABM?

Account Based Marketing has become more and more a very popular subject among Marketing and Sales professionals, despite not being part of the routine of many Brazilian companies in a concrete way.

In other words, it still represents an opportunity for your business to get ahead of competitors.

Translating the term, its meaning is Account Based Marketing, and we can understand it, in other words, as a very qualified way of working Personalization Marketing.

By the way, “customization” is another word that is gaining more and more strength nowadays, in a scenario of more demanding consumers!

To meet this potential customer profile in a more targeted way and increase your conversion rate, the ABM strategy is ideal. That’s because it impacts prospects and customers with a pre-screening and campaign designed specifically for them.

The result? On average, 208% more revenue for marketing efforts, according to Act-On. At this point, maybe you’re thinking, “but that’s not Inbound Marketing?”. No, actually both strategies must go hand in hand, complementing each other.

The main difference is that in Account Based Marketing, you choose as a first step exactly which leads you want to work with, starting with a funnel top that is often smaller in number of contacts.

In other words, with Account Based Marketing , you select which accounts will impact your marketing campaign, even before it goes live, thus focusing on maximum personalization.

How does ABM work in practice?

Account Based Marketing works with ten steps that lead you towards sales success. Keep reading and follow the step by step!

1st step – Wish list

The wish list is nothing more than putting together in a spreadsheet or document all the companies that your company has worked or works with, that you consider ideal, with which you have always had a good relationship, that always paid on time and that always generated the best results.

2nd Step – Identify patterns

Once the wish list is created, the marketing team performs a complete analysis of this list in order to identify what they have in common, starting with the basics, therefore: which is the vertical, which is the annual turnover and which is the number of employees .

Then comes the next step: what are your marketing, sales, innovation and market positioning strategies.

3rd step – Expand

Now that we understand what they have in common, it’s much easier to conduct research for similar companies and, therefore, generate an extensive list of companies that will serve as a focus for Marketing actions (Marketing+Sales).

Step 4 – Identify decision makers

In this step, the objective is to identify who we should talk to and also how to talk. In the past, it was common to have only one decision maker within a company, usually the CEO, but today the reality is different. We know that on average a decision is made by at least four people.

5th Step – Set up marketing campaign

Now that we know which companies we want and who we need to talk to to turn them into customers, we need to create ways to convince them, as well as strategies to add value and authority.

This is where Inbound Marketing comes in, that is, to attract a decision maker, we need to create content, offers, materials that resonate with their pain (a term that defines the need).

6th Step – Action channels

With the campaign and all the pieces in place, we then need to define which channels we will interact with these users. The hottest channel at the moment is the social network LinkedIn. Therefore, we use it at the agency for all of our ABM clients as the main interaction channel.

7th step – Engagement

Finally, our campaign begins, interactions and engagement begin. The most efficient method to do this is to turn to Inbound Marketing again.

The content of our campaign is intended to lead the user to convert on a specific and personalized page. So, with the data collected on this page, we started a relationship rule by email, SMS, WhatsApp or another channel available within your Marketing resources.

8th step – Passing the baton

We then arrived at the moment most desired by the commercial. This step is the action performed by the SDR (Sales development representative) which aims to pass the Qualified Lead for Sales (SQL), where the sales executive makes a commercial presentation of the product or service of interest.

9th step – Conversion

That the sales executive can sell very well, we all know, but with ABM it’s much easier. That’s because the opportunity arrived in his hands already with great knowledge and with the certainty that that solution is the ideal one. Now it’s just a matter of getting the value right and closing the deal.

10th step – Reports

All the work that goes on at ABM is measurable! We map everything from origination and consumption to conversion to sale. With this, we can demonstrate through KPI´s the real value of ABM and get the blessing of the highest executives for greater budget and, consequently, greater results.

What are the advantages of ABM?

Companies that manage to work with an ABM strategy notice relevant changes in their environments. Are they:

Less waste and more efficiency

By having as its direction certain specific targets, ABM ends up minimizing the loss of resources and favoring the optimization of sales.

In other words, the marketing team becomes more efficient in using time, money and energy on campaigns that will actually close sales.

This is essential, as it increases the productivity and morale of all team members, as well as making a difference in the final calculation of profits.

Less quantity and more quality

By having a more efficient work, Marketing no longer needs to worry so much about volume. Investments will always be focused on contacts that are of interest to the sales team, so quality is guaranteed (and ROI, higher).

Less conflict and more collaboration

You’ve probably heard of sales marketing, the alignment between the sales and marketing process. Well, the idea is the same here! As account-based marketing works with shared metrics, objectives and activities between the marketing and sales teams, conflicts are often reduced.

The sales team will help choose the companies that make up the list of key accounts, so everyone is eager to start negotiations.

Meanwhile, the marketing team knows that the campaigns created and the leads generated will be of interest to sales, so there’s no discussion about quality.

Less “reaction” and more proactivity

Instead of waiting for potential customers to raise their hand and become interested in your product or service, your team will actively seek out those customers and wait for them with specific content and strategic information that can thus facilitate the negotiation.

How to apply ABM in my company?

You can choose to hire in-house people with the necessary skills, but most choose to work with a team that knows Account Based Marketing and therefore has valuable experience in doing so successfully.

If you want to know more about all ABM processes and how to apply it in your company, contact us and talk to one of our experts. It will be a pleasure to serve you!

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