ABM along with B2B Intent data Intertwined can give serious relationship goals to your amplified sales pipeline. Read more to learn the crucial facets of the same.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a game-changer, however, it’s normal for sales to push back against implementing it as a new strategy, it’s understandable. ABM is a strategic approach to build and execute highly-targeted, personalized marketing campaigns, and initiatives to drive the growth of business and impact with particular, named accounts. Treating every client or account as an individual and marketing to them accordingly is the primary difference between Account-based Marketing and other styles of marketing.

More and more B2B marketers are adopting ABM as part of their overall marketing efforts and strategies. Account-based Marketing perfectly complements the traditional, short-term marketing objectives of generating leads with efforts targeted at driving long-term growth.

Why companies should adopt ABM in their marketing strategy?

In addition to a one-to-many marketing approach, one-to-one or one-to-few methods of ABM might help in cementing relationships with high-value prospects and make sure their customer experience is as optimal as possible.

Aligning Sales and Marketing Teams

ABM aligns Marketing and Sales in the selection and pursuit of a bunch of accounts with the greatest potential for business. Companies get a real competitive advantage from ABM when their marketers work with sales to make smart decisions about which accounts or prospects to focus on, then find out what those accounts and the individuals in them care about, and utilize those insights to engage in relevant, timely ways. Sales and marketing teams share knowledge about a client that benefits both, the marketing team can customize their campaigns and the sales team can use engagement information from that to present more targeted solutions, and most importantly the customer feels heard and has a seamless experience with the organization.

Higher ROI

Tracking the Return on Investment (ROI) is significant for all aspects of your business, but it’s even more important for the marketing department, which is normally observed as a cost center.

So, when we spend our marketing dollars, it’s important to show a positive ROI, right?

For ROI enthusiasts, the good news is that the top marketing channel for creating a positive ROI is account-based marketing.

As per the ITSMA’s Research, 87% of marketers that measure Return On Investment stated that ABM outperforms every other marketing investment!

The research also found that the investment made in Account-based Marketing delivers either the same ROI, somewhat higher or significantly higher returns compared to other marketing initiatives – making it a zero-waste strategy!

It’s these kinds of results that have led to more businesses focusing on ABM initiatives.

Also, that is exactly why ABM works, it helps you focus.

Selection of Accounts

Selection and definition of accounts is an important process in which marketing and sales have worked together to define what the ideal account will look like, and then selects the target accounts. This involves finding an agreement on the size, number, and type of accounts that you will target.

This is a significant step in ABM and this decision must be data-driven and made collaboratively by sales and marketing teams together.

Streamlined sales cycle

One of the biggest strengths of Account-based Marketing is accelerating the sales cycle by influencing decision-makers before they even talk to a sales executive. In many companies, the sales cycle involves a broad campaign to attract as many prospects as possible; sifting through the prospects to recognize high-value leads; and pulling the leads through the pipeline with the hope of eventually closing the deal and making sales. With ABM, marketers with the sales team identify target accounts, personalize the marketing strategies and experience, allowing the sales team to convert the lead into sales. ABM shortens the sales process by increasing the involvement of marketing in the sales funnel. As per the 5th annual State of Marketing report, the incidence of sales and marketing teams sharing common goals and metrics rose from 52% to 87%.

Conclusion

The main advantage of ABM is it creates ways to fill the gap between the client and marketer by clearly defining the requirements of clients and adapting the skill set of an organization to meet these requirements, no matter the industry.

ABM has proven its effectiveness for a growing number of businesses, yet it must only be truly successful if both marketing and sales buy-in. This can appear like a hard sell for sales teams that are set in their ways and feel that what they’re already doing works. You have to drive home that a shift to ABM can work better. Ultimately, you are working toward a marketing sales partnership, but alignment is crucial to reach a partnership.