Account based marketing – what is it and why do you need it?

May 21, 2021

Your latest e-newsletter or direct mailer has gone out, your blog is live, and your social media content strategy has been finalised … now what?

In the noisy and crowded world of marketing, businesses more than ever need to ensure that their carefully thought-out and delivered message is reaching their target audience.

Amy Bull, head of content at Media Matters PR and digital marketing specialist said: “Just as important as hitting the correct audience is thinking about how effective your marketing is when it comes to conversions for your business.

“If the answer leaves you in any doubt; then it may be time to look at account based marketing – and reap the far-reaching benefits of this trusty tool.”

Account based marketing (ABM) is a hyper-targeted form of B2B marketing where you tailor and personalise your activity to specific high value accounts.

Amy added: “It can be an incredibly powerful way for B2B brands to prove ROI of marketing efforts and generate high-quality, genuine leads.”

Account based marketing combines numerous marketing tactics into a specific campaign, using personalised content to resonate with the target audience and generate interest.

Account based marketing campaigns normally fall into one of the following three categories. Here’s how it works:

1. Cluster account based marketing – targeting a cluster of similar businesses, perhaps within the same industry and location, or with the same challenges which your service or product can resolve.
2. One to one account based marketing – the most targeted form, where a business targets multiple stakeholders in one business with content relevant to each of these stakeholders. There is only one account, or one business, as the target of this type of account based marketing.
3. One to many account based marketing – the least targeted form, where a business targets many businesses (as a rule of thumb, about 30 or more) as part of one campaign. These businesses should still have similarities, for example they may be part of the same industry or show signals of interest in the product or service. It is normally the aim of a one to many ABM campaign to gather more data on the target audience, to enable more personalised communications moving forwards, which in turn generates leads.

But best of all, there are some excellent rewards and benefits from following the ABM process:

• Being able to focus on a very specific audience, it’s a highly measurable form of marketing. You can easily see if a lead has been created within a target business and if that lead later converts, offering a clear ROI.
• Affording you the opportunity to learn much more about your target audience. With the right tools and campaign plan in place, you will be able to see how your audience interacts with your content, website, adverts and much more, clearly tracking their journey.
• Allowing you to capture more personalised data on target prospects – whether that is through research or through high-value, gated content assets giving you the opportunity to request more information and detail in return for the content.
• Being able to focus your activity, often making better use of your marketing budget than with a broad campaign with little targeting.

 

Amy added: “Account based marketing combines numerous marketing tactics into a specific campaign, using personalised content to resonate with the target audience and generate interest. Results and rewards can be achieved almost straight away, giving you the edge on competitors who aren’t using ABM.”