The adoption of account based marketing (ABM) has skyrocketed in the past few years. However, unfortunately, most businesses aren’t able to achieve the benefits they seek from ABM. And the biggest reason behind this is a lack of guidance. If you, too, think that launching account-based marketing campaigns is a bit of a chore, we’ve got you covered.
Let’s discuss the account-based marketing best practices you can follow to plan your account-based marketing campaigns and make the most of ABM.
What is account based marketing, and how does it help marketers
ABM or account based marketing is basically a marketing strategy that focuses on targeting a specific set of accounts instead of targeting everyone. It involves everything from planning, executing, monitoring and analyzing hyper-personalized campaigns.
Account-based marketing campaigns focus on the quality of leads and not quantity. This way, low-quality leads (with poor conversion potential) are weeded out. And the sales and marketing teams have just the right accounts to focus on. Such accounts require less nurturing, which shortens the sales cycle and reduces customer acquisition costs (CAQ).
Moreover, the highly personalized approach of ABM campaigns improves client relationships, further improving the chances of conversions.
Six steps for planning your account based marketing campaigns
Here’s how to create your account-based marketing plan for launching successful account-based marketing campaigns.
1. Align your marketing and sales teams
Sales and marketing teams are closely related when it comes to account-based marketing.
For instance, if your sales team fails to understand the potential of leads, the efforts made by marketing teams would be useless. And if your marketing team doesn’t follow a targeted approach, they won’t be able to generate quality leads for the sales team.
Therefore, ensure that the marketing and sales teams are aligned and on the same page.
2. Form an ABM team
To create, execute and monitor your account-based marketing campaigns, you’d need a core ABM team that comprises:
- Marketing managers for managing marketing automation, generating quality leads, and managing the marketing team.
- Sales managers to manage the sales team and ensure the account details are up-to-date and are being followed up on.
- Content creators for developing highly personalized content.
- Account executives for executing the ABM strategy.
3. Identify your target accounts (TAs)
Targeting the wrong accounts will lead to a complete failure of your account based marketing campaigns. So, make sure to identify your target accounts. And you can do that by following the below methods.
- CRM data: Your existing customers are likely your ICPs. The easiest way to determine your ICP is to visit your CRM, choose 5-10 customers and find the common criteria among them. Then start creating your ideal customer profile.
- Sales team: Your sales team work on the leads marketing team forwards. They’ll know about the common characteristics shared by leads who converted quickly.
Based on the data, you can create an ICP and find your target accounts and prioritize them (using lead scoring).
Pro tip: You can further refine your ICP by using technographic, firmographic, and intent data to create an ICP. This data will allow you to understand your prospects better and launch even more personalized campaigns.
4. Create content
Once you have identified your target accounts, create personalized content according to their requirements. The content needs to be really specific as different companies have different decision makers (unique personas) and will engage with different types of content.
Your content must resonate perfectly with your target accounts and offer a solution to the reader’s problems.
5. Launch your account based marketing campaign
After your content is ready, it’s time to distribute it across different channels, i.e., where your target audience can see it. However, if you have selected a few hundred accounts, you can set up calls, send out emails, offer your content (eBook, whitepaper), etc.
6. Track and monitor your campaigns
Once you’ve launched your account based marketing campaign, make sure to track and monitor the important metrics such as conversion rate, number of MQLs converted to SQLs, etc. This way, you can determine if your campaign worked. And you can use the metrics to launch a better campaign next time.
7. Bonus step: never forget to make the most of data
Data is key to the success of your account-based marketing campaign.
For instance, without data, you cannot determine your target audience, You may end up targeting the wrong audience, leading to meager results. Also, you won’t be able to create and distribute personalized content, which leads to poor results.
Moreover, without data, you won’t fully understand your prospects, which will derail your outbound motion (cold emailing and tele-calling). Therefore, make sure that your account-based marketing campaigns are data-driven.
You can use this b2b marketers guide to account-based marketing as youraccount based marketing framework. Use this to create and launch effective ABM campaigns. However, you can also refer to some ready-to-use account-based marketing templates to speed up the process.
Better conversion with data-driven account based marketing
Account-based marketing could be your chance to shine and overpower your competitors.
Therefore, you must carefully plan out your account-based marketing campaign and ensure it’s data-driven. So, follow the aforementioned steps, experience better conversions.
