Account Based Marketing, or ABM, is a strategy that concentrates your sales on clearly defined targeted accounts within a specific market. Focusing on an important few large accounts and potential accounts with the greatest promise to your bottom line.
ABM helps you devise a strategic approach based on specific account awareness. This type of marketing is commonly associated with Complex Sales organizations, notable ones who, in the past, have relied on B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing to expand and grow their business.
WHY IS ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING RIGHT FOR YOU?
First, you need to ask yourself, are you already doing Account Based Marketing and don’t even know it? Account Based Marketing has been around in one form or another for years. With growing trends and changes in our economic climate, ABM has been woven through many businesses under different names.
Do you already have or are doing the following:
Social Media Campaigns
Direct Email Campaigns
Offers Designed to Initiate One-on-One Meetings
These are all forms of Account Based Marketing – creating a specific, targeted marketing focus to entice and engage current and potential clients through a specific set of parameters. Are you wondering if Account Based Marketing is for you? Taking into consideration your timeline, the well-being of your team, and the potential benefits of an ABM approach to marketing – check out these 5 pros and cons below!
FIVE PROS AND CONS OF ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING:
1. “Smarketing” (You believe that sales and marketing need to be tightly intertwined):
PRO: According to Hubspot, companies who integrate sales and marketing, “…get 20% annual revenue growth.”
CON: If you do not want to implement the idea of Smarketing, and prefer to keep sales and marketing separate—Account Based Marketing will be difficult.
2. Targeting Audience:
PRO: Account Based Marketing helps you pinpoint the exact niche you’re looking to entice with your wears. ABM is a perfect platform to tackle Outbound Marketing. It allows you to organize in a way to reach a specific audience, thus opening the doorway to potential clients.
CON: It could be a con if you prefer to throw a wide net each time you have a webinar to share information and don’t feel targeted marketing is right for you or your company.
3. Lots of Leads:
PRO: If you are not into searching for marketing leads, ABM may be right for you. Spending most of your time sifting through multiple leads can lead to low return. By using ABM, you can successfully make contact, with the knowledge the client, or potential client, is looking for what you have to sell them.
CON: If you like the hunt and feel the next big client is just around the corner, it might not be the right time to implement ABM.
4. Personality:
PRO: With Account Based Marketing it is easy to personalize your services towards specific clients. It helps you create an inviting narrative that draws people to you, and gets them to stay by your side.
CON: You fear you don’t have the time to dedicate to Account Based Marketing and to breaking down your marketing plan to a “hyper-targeted” market.
5. Traffic Jam:
PRO: ABM will help you structure a plan that will lead you away from traffic jams. While this may sound counter intuitive, in the end using ABM will lead you to build stronger and more mature connection with clients and potential clients. This relationship often ends in increased sales and stronger business relationships.
CON: ABM may seem like a con If you love a good traffic jam. You like to see high click numbers on your analytics weekly report, even if it doesn’t have a high return.
There are many examples of successful Account Based Marketing campaigns. Aaron Doherty of Salsify explained in an article on Drift.com that one of his company’s most successful campaigns was to get attendees to register for a roadshow event they were hosting in New York City. By reaching out to a target list of accounts early with a marketing message in email and display, combined with the efforts by the sales team (an example of “smarketing”), they were able to register 82 people for the event (with a goal of 60) in just 2 hours. For more success stories, check out the article.
When broken down into pros and cons, Account Based Marketing feels less intimidating. You could be one of these success stories! You’re now able to visualize how implementing ABM in your company could benefit you. By consolidating your client base and targeting a specific niche, ABM is the perfect way to increase your bottom line. Why not give it a shot? Measure your results and let the numbers decide.
Do you use Account Based Marketing? Tells us your pros and cons in the comments below!
