A Common Sense–Based Approach to Account-Based Marketing

When marketing and sales teams take an orchestrated approach to identifying, educating, and converting the same sets of accounts, “true magic can happen,” Lessard says. “It’s no longer about handing off a lead from marketing to sales; it’s about an integrated approach to engaging and converting key accounts that requires both marketing and sales support at every stage of the journey.”

Alexander Kesler, president at inSegment, a digital marketing agency, goes a step further, saying that it is beneficial for businesses to initiate an account-based marketing strategy when a new marketing or sales team comes on board, as it will foster unity.

This coordinated approach between marketing and sales also promotes relevant marketing. Working together encourages the sharing of client information between marketing and sales, Renton says, which enables marketing to create relevant, custom content that addresses specific clients’ challenges and problems. By crafting more relevant communications, businesses can establish a consultative position with their clients, as opposed to being viewed as just another vendor.

Malinda Wilkinson, chief marketing officer at Salesfusion, a provider of sales and marketing automation solutions, says that such coordination leads to more focused efforts, and more personalization. “By targeting a defined list of accounts, account-based marketing ensures marketers focus their efforts on vetted accounts that have been predetermined to be a good fit for the business,” she says.

“It also allows marketers to take a more personalized approach when targeting these leads. Because you not only know who you’re targeting but also are only targeting a select number of accounts, you can spend more time creating personalized content and other forms of outreach for these accounts,” she continues. “Doing so can be a powerful tool to help decrease the length of the sales cycle and increase the size of those deals.”

Experts also note that account-based marketing decreases the risk associated with spending advertising budgets on markets that have not proven themselves, or going after unknown prospects. “There’s a lot of risk because you may get a lot of leads that will not turn into any business,” Kesler says. “Doing account-based marketing outreach is more effective because there’s less risk. You have identified a list of accounts that you know are going to be good.”

IMPLEMENTING AN ABM STRATEGY

While the benefits of account-based marketing can be significant, the practice is not without its challenges. According to Lessard, one of the biggest is simply training and educating marketing teams so that they are in the right mind-set and equipped with the right tools to successfully engage in the strategy. Embracing the alignment between sales and marketing and creating an account-based marketing program that is well-orchestrated for both teams can be difficult, he says.

For those willing to tackle these challenges, however, there’s no shortage of advice on how to get started.

“There has been a lot of hype around ABM in recent years, and too many people believe an ABM tool is all that is necessary and ignore [the fact] that having a strategy is the true key to success,” Wilkinson says. “It is always a good idea for marketers to be thoughtful and deliberate with whom they are targeting. The steps for incorporating an account-based marketing approach can be as simple as identifying accounts to target, building a plan and communicating the plan to stakeholders, marketing to individuals at key accounts, and analyzing performance to make any necessary adjustments.”

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