Account-based marketing (ABM) is a combined effort of the marketing team and sales team to target individual high-value accounts and turn them into customers. This marketing technique is used when a company targets only high-value clients. This marketing strategy is not best suited for companies seeking low profile customers. ABM helps in locating, engaging with, and closing deals with high-value accounts. In B2B, ABM helps to improve the marketing ROI, drives revenue, generates more conversions, and aligns sales and marketing.

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Account-based marketing and personalization

Account-based marketing requires a high degree of personalization. The more personalized your sales pitch is, the more likely you are to land that client. The content you present to your prospects should be highly relevant, personalized and timely. If a company required your services yesterday, then you approach them today does not make you look good in their eyes. The channels you use to approach these prospects are also very important. Each company has a team who will be deciding whether they need your services or not. Each member of this team functions differently. 

Some might prefer reading blogs and articles; some might prefer social media, while some might prefer old school meet and greet kinds of events. You need to find out who has the most influence on that team and their preferred channel of information. You approaching them through that channel will boost your chances of making the deal. Personalization means you understand their needs and deliver accordingly. You should focus not only on the company but also on the needs of the individual in charge. If you can offer services that will benefit both, then take it to be a done deal. 

Fundamentals of account-based marketing

• Identify your target accounts

The first step in designing an account-based marketing strategy is identifying your target accounts. This can be done by collecting leads from the sales department. Research on each lead and find out who is most likely to buy your services.

• Develop personas

Developing a persona for an account-based marketing strategy is an ongoing process. Before building anything, you need to have general information about your prospect. This information should include how the prospect business runs, which makes the decisions, the main challenges they face, what the core principles are, etc.

• Develop the right content

Developing the right content means creating tailor-made content that will seem most relevant to your prospects. You might need to develop separate content for each client as they are triggered by different things. Personalizing the content makes the prospect believe that you value and respect them.

• Measure and optimize

Measuring your marketing strategy is a very important aspect of marketing. Measuring how well your strategy is doing and whether it is meeting your expectations or not should always be determined. A timely measurement of your strategy is essential. You can then optimize your account-based marketing strategy based on the results obtained during measurement.

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Platforms for account-based marketing

Listed below are some of the most popular platforms for account-based marketing: – 

• HubSpot ABM Software

With HubSpot ABM Software, you can create an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). You can match different accounts with this profile and find out how good a fit they are for you. HubSpot also automatically suggests prospects that match your ICP.

• Terminus

Terminus is a multifunctional platform that helps to find prospects and allows users to run several marketing campaigns simultaneously. The data collected from these campaigns is further turned into insights for identifying prospects.

• Demandbase 

Demandbase was specially designed for B2B marketing. It has a very user-friendly interface. It helps its users to identify prospects and design personalized strategies to convert them. With Demandbase, you can experiment new ways to close deals.

• Triblio

Triblio specializes in the growth of the account pipeline. It allows its users to leverage sales tools, ads and web analytics to attract high-value accounts. Triblio understands the web behavior of prospects and signals you the best time to approach them.

Account-based marketing today is not what it used to be years ago. And 10 years from now, you will observe tremendous changes and enhancements in this marketing structure. Looking into the future,  account-based marketing will be following the customer throughout its lifecycle. This strategy is going to be more consistent and coordinated. The engagement between the sales and the marketing teams is to be improved. The introduction of Artificial Intelligence in account-based marketing to understand customer behavior is a major step forward for strategizing excellent, focused, well-planned, result-oriented marketing campaigns.

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