What is ABM and is it right for me?
Account Based Marketing (ABM) has become a popular term for B2B marketers in the past few years. That’s because the tone of marketing is changing as people become defensive towards traditional techniques.
Old school sales pitches are a thing of the past (think infomercials)! Now, we’ve adapted to people having their barriers up.
Marketing and sales are teaming up to do two things: (1) get hyper focused on finding targets that are a good match and (2) provide initial value (like valuable content or free trials) that is catered to that specific target. This method of marketing helps people warm up to purchasing and connect with products they’ll love.
Speaking of that hyper focus, ABM refers to targeting specific companies deemed “key accounts” who are a good fit for your services. An ABM strategy usually involves targeting multiple people within one organization (the account).
While some ABM strategies can be simple, like nurturing a sales lead with relevant content, others can involve marketing to multiple employees of an organization throughout the entire buying cycle.
Let’s break down the ins and outs of ABM as simply as possible.
What can ABM tools help you do?
Account based marketing can be done through many channels, but usually people lean towards automating retargeting ads and emails.
After going through sales calls and free trials with many ABM tools, I’ve found that ABM tools can help you in some (or all) of these areas.
Build lists of good companies to target.
You will have to do some of this work on your own. You can either take a look at the data with your existing top customers, look at your competitors’ best customers, or build profiles of the ideal customers that you want but don’t have.
Regardless, you’ll need this information about your ideal target:
Company size by employee count
Company revenue
Industries
Decision maker job titles
Technologies they use or other common characteristics
The reason you need this information is because ABM tools can help you find ideal companies to target within your criteria, and these characteristics are the bare minimum required for targeting.
Once you have company targets, you’re probably going to further narrow your focus to reaching decision makers.
Track (and qualify) company behavior on your website.
Many tools can track the businesses that are already lurking on your website. That can give a good idea of who is already familiar with your brand, and these targets are much more likely to convert. Tools like Kickfire will both track the companies of visitors and qualify if they’re a good fit based on your criteria.
On the downside, as work from home becomes more popular, it’s harder to track companies based on IP addresses.
Target decision makers through various channels.
Some tools, like Simpli.fi, will let you run video or display ads to decision makers at their home IPs. Others will run ads to the IPs of their full company.
Some tools, like InsideView, will generate lists of email addresses for your targets, giving you the opportunity to cold outreach. These tools boast confidence in accurate email addresses, regularly updating contact information on your lists.
The most expensive ABM tools, like Terminus and Kwanzoo) will help you build targeted lists, cleanse your data, handle all types of outreach, and track progress in one place.
Track your existing leads’ behavior.
ABM tools will also help you track a prospects behavior on your website. That makes it easier to follow up with emails or sales calls while you’re top of mind.
You can also gain a better understanding of these prospects’ web behavior, giving you data to enhance your conversion rates.
How does content strategy tie in?
ABM strategies aren’t a good idea for sites with thin content. Each method of outreach you use will involve a content piece - which could be a blog post, download, landing page with a form, webinar signup, etc.
You’ll want to have plenty of useful content for the decision makers of your ideal company targets.
Could an ABM tool work for you?
ABM tools work best for these types of businesses:
B2B companies
Sell high-investment products and services with a lengthy buying cycle
Have a developed content strategy
Have a marketing department to handle the ABM tools
Mature sales and marketing teams, work hand in hand to define targets and best methods to outreach
Must be able to clearly define who you are targeting, as many tools are based on demographic segmentation
