More than 100 years ago, retail magnate John Wanamaker was famously quoted saying, “Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
A century later, many marketers have the same fear about their overall marketing efforts: there is too much wasted money, time and effort on activities and audiences that are never going to result in revenue. The fear is based on experience; the history of mass marketing is dotted with miscalculations that have missed the mark.
If only marketers could weed out the irrelevant audience and focus their efforts directly on the people who are actually in the market for the product. Surely that would increase efficiency and reduce wasted effort.
Good news: That’s exactly what account-based marketing does.
What is account based marketing?
Account based marketing (ABM) is a strategy that aligns marketing and sales resources on a set of target accounts within a market. It uses personalized campaigns to engage each account, basing the message on the specific needs of that company.
The Benefits of Account Based Marketing
Realistically, there are too many benefits to list here. However, there are four key benefits to highlight.
#1. Improve Your ROI
By communicating with high-value accounts as if they are individual markets, you'll see a greater return on investment and a boost in customer loyalty.
With ABM, no effort is wasted trying to reach leads that aren’t the right fit for your business. You can also use your resources engaging your target accounts with content and messaging that is relevant to them.
#2. Shorten Your Sales Cycle
By hyper-targeting your funnel early on, companies can cut the time from lead identification to final sale (or upsell). Sales and marketing teams can focus their time and energy on the accounts that are most likely to convert versus those that aren’t truly in the pipeline.
#3. Improve Your Efficiency
While eliminating unproductive effort has been a continual theme here, it bears repeating: ABM is a more efficient approach to reaching your goals. Because ABM is predicated on focusing on promising, high-value accounts, marketers can invest their resources more efficiently. This includes running marketing programs that are specifically optimized for the accounts (and buying groups) most likely to convert.
#4. Provide More Value to Prospects and Customers
With a thoughtful ABM strategy (and good data to understand audience pain points), you can talk to your target accounts about the things that actually matter to them. By doing so, you’ll show value and built trust with your audience, which is a key factor in sales, upsells and referrals.
Data and Account Based Marketing
No matter the type of ABM you’re running – one to one, one to many or one to few – relevant data is the key to success.
With the right information, go-to-market departments can identify the exact companies who need what you’re selling, understand who will make the buying decision, and take appropriate actions to drive conversion.
Next Steps
When you’re ready to use account based marketing, Anteriad is here to help. We can help you:
- Get the data you need - from intent data showing which companies want what you’re offering to contact-level data that will help you reach the right members of the buying group. This includes more than 500 billion intent touchpoints every month and 120 million individual contacts.
- Deploy at every stage of the pipeline - fully-managed SEM, display ads, content syndication, email marketing, and more. We focus on the details of execution so that your team has more time to focus on strategy.
- Access your insights - get full visibility into how your campaigns are performing. Our team will also tell you how your results compare to industry peers and advise you on how to improve your metrics.
To learn more:
Read Top 10 Emerging Account Based Marketing Trends
Read The 7 Most Difficult ABM Truths
