Account-based marketing (ABM), is a B2B marketing strategy that concentrates sales and marketing resources on a clearly defined set of target accounts within the addressable market and employs personalised campaigns designed to resonate with each targeted account.
Account Based Marketing recognises that successful B2B marketing is about a collective business or department and not only to isolated individuals. ABM is highly personalised, and combines insight-driven marketing with sales, to increase awareness, develop relationships and drive growth within specific high-value accounts.
Do you see any of the below symptoms with your organisation?
If you said ‘yes’ to two or more of them, you need to consider Account Based Marketing.
If you're a B2B company that has ...
If the above describes you, your organisation is a good fit for ABM and should seriously consider ABM. IT and Software companies, Systems Integrators, Enterprise SaaS companies and Consulting are some of the examples of B2B organisations that use ABM successfully. Any B2B organisation that needs to influence multiple stakeholders in their sales process, should consider ABM.
ABM is about 'flipping the funnel' to treat each client or future client as a ‘market of one’ as opposed to targeting a wider demographic, as inbound marketing and other demand generation strategies do.
ABM is also referred as 'fishing with spears' as opposed to 'fishing with nets', since it starts with
...which is a very different paradigm as opposed to the typical lead generation process of
Thus, in ABM, a campaign will start with a selection of target company accounts (or industry verticals), then work to expand relationships and buy-in with key stakeholders and decision makers within that account or industry.
With the potential to drive stronger, more valuable customer relationships and enhance retention, Account-Based Marketing is a hugely valuable strategy for B2B marketers.
What does this mean for sales?
Grow Digitally offers a range of ABM services that propels your team to do their best. Right from owning an ABM program to delivering specific services, you can pick the set of services that make sense to your business. Our services as an account based marketing agency are -
We offer complete and fully customisable ABM execution programs.
You can opt for full-stack end-to-end ABM Programs that can start right from ABM martech setup to end to end running of campaigns or simply augmenting your ABM team for whatever skills are required.
The objective of this program is to build a pipeline from new ideal target clients (not existing accounts).
The objective of this program is to increase velocity of the pipeline by accelerating engagement with specific target client accounts that have come through from Inbound Leads.
The execution process in an ABM campaign will depend on your overall campaign KPIs, campaign goals, channels determined, targeting criteria and maturity level of ABM in your organisation.
The key steps in the ABM process will include the following:
Here are some of the ABM tools we use to enable our ABM services. It is not an exhaustive list of ABM tools, and we do work with a long list of other ABM tools, however this list provides you an idea of key tools that we use.
Audit | Google Forms |
Content | Adobe CC, Ceros, Office, Google tools |
Content Personalization | HubSpot |
Account Data | LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Hunter, Zoominfo |
Ad targeting | Terminus, LinkedIn |
Ads optimization | Opteo |
CRM | HubSpot, Salesforce, Dynamics |
Email Marketing | HubSpot |
Marketing automation and Nurturing | HubSpot |
Project Management | Asana, Trello, Basecamp, or any tool that you use |
Communication |
Zoom, Slack, Email |
Is ABM right for my organisation?
The answer is provided above in the section ‘Who is Account Based Marketing For?’
How do I start on ABM?
You start by assessing your ABM readiness. This involves reviewing how aligned are your sales and marketing teams, how well defined is your ideal customer profile and target account list, and how mature is your team in using sales and marketing automation tools.
A quick way to judge readiness is to ask your sales and marketing people individually, what their goals are. If they are aligned, you are ahead of the curve! If not, it is not unusual. Most organisations we speak to have differences of goals and targets of sales and marketing teams.
We can help with assessing your ABM readiness as well as preparing your teams and management for ABM.
How do I get my sales and marketing teams aligned?
Get them in the same room, and get them to work on the business goals, and then the sales goals. And figure out how sales and marketing can deliver on those goals as well. The idea should be to design the same key goals and KPIs for both teams. Brainstorm how sales and marketing can help each other. Continue to have sync sessions like these, till they are aligned and working on the same goals seamlessly.
Will you help us in our sales and marketing team alignment?
Absolutely! Depending on the service or package selected, sales and marketing alignment is the most crucial factor in the success of Account Based Marketing strategy. You will need to have CEO level commitment to start with.
What is the length of your ABM programs?
Typically ABM programs are longer in nature as they run through demand generation to conversion and then expansion. There are quarterly cycles set within each of the program to ensure agility and flexibility. At the end it will depend on your requirements—full program OR specific tailored solutions.
So will ABM solve my quota problems?
Done the right way, it can. But you must bear in mind that it is not a magical thing that changes things overnight. ABM is more of a marathon than a sprint, and it takes hard work, discipline and phenomenal teamwork to get it right.
What do I need in my tech stack to get started on ABM?
At a base level, you need a good CRM in place, that your sales team uses religiously. You need a good marketing automation tool. And you also need your CRM to be well integrated with your marketing automation tool. That should be able to start you off.
As you mature with ABM processes, you can bring in more tools that help in ad targeting, data research, personalisation, data enrichment, discovering buying intent, and so on.
You can download the ABM guide for more information.
Let's get started with a 30-min introductory call to baseline your ABM readiness, goals, challenges and introduce you to our processes and programs. Use the calendar below to book a time and date that suits you.