Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach to business-to-business marketing in which an organization targets and engages with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one. The goal is to initiate, develop and maximize business relationships. ABM initiatives focus marketing and sales resources on a clearly defined set of target accounts within a market. ABM helps align marketing and sales teams while helping organizations market smarter, not harder.
What are the benefits of ABM?
There are several key benefits that make ABM an attractive marketing approach for many B2B companies:
- More relevant targeting – ABM enables businesses to focus marketing efforts on those accounts that offer the greatest potential value. This is far more efficient than scattering efforts across a broad audience.
- Increased personalization – With a deep understanding of each target account, marketers can craft highly tailored messaging, offers and experiences.
- Full funnel engagement – ABM strategies integrate both marketing and sales to fully engage accounts across the entire customer journey.
- Higher return on investment – The tailored and account-focused nature of ABM delivers higher conversion rates and larger deal sizes.
- Strengthened relationships – The one-to-one nature of ABM helps foster deeper, lasting relationships between accounts and vendors.
- Enhanced sales and marketing alignment – Shared intelligence on target accounts improves collaboration between sales and marketing teams.
In summary, ABM provides the account insight, personalization and measurement capabilities required for predictable pipeline generation and accelerated revenue growth.
What are the key elements of ABM?
There are four core components that comprise a complete ABM strategy:
- Target account selection – Research and data are used to identify and prioritize a set of accounts that align with sales and revenue goals.
- Account-based insight – Deep research is conducted on each target account to inform personalized messaging and experiences.
- Tailored outreach – A variety of channels, content, and sales plays are leveraged to engage target accounts.
- Account-based metrics – Progress is tracked based on target account engagement, pipeline and revenue generation.
Bringing all four of these elements together enables alignment around a carefully selected set of premium accounts and helps sales and marketing work together to penetrate these accounts.
How are target accounts selected in ABM?
Selecting the right target accounts is a critical first step in ABM. There are several techniques used to identify appropriate accounts:
- Current customers – Upsell opportunities within existing customers represent low hanging fruit.
- Lost accounts – Bringing lost accounts back into the fold requires a targeted re-engagement effort.
- Strategic prospects – Major accounts in key industries represent prime targets.
- Ideal customer profiles – Accounts that match well against developed ICPs warrant targeting.
- Firmographic data – Industry, size, location and other attributes help surface attractive targets.
- Intent data – Accounts demonstrating research behavior are primed for outreach.
- Referrals – Marketing and sales can collaborate to request introductions to new targets.
The specific combination of targeting techniques depends on the organization, industry and product. But in general, a blended approach covering past customers, promising prospects and demonstrated interest delivers the best results.
What account intelligence is gathered in ABM?
Central to ABM strategy is developing deep knowledge of each target account. This account intelligence informs the tailored messaging and experiences delivered to accounts. Key types of intelligence gathered include:
- Firmographic data – Details on company size, location, industry, revenue.
- Organizational structure – Information on decision-makers, influencers, and purchasing processes.
- Technologies used – The tools and solutions already deployed within an account.
- Strategic initiatives – Current projects and focus areas driving technology needs.
- Business challenges – Pain points addressed by the vendor’s solution.
- Competitor landscape – Other vendors engaged with or deployed by the account.
This account research can be gathered through first-party data as well as third-party sources, and tracked in marketing automation platforms to enable account insights to be distributed to sales reps and other stakeholders involved with the account.
How are target accounts engaged in ABM?
Armed with intelligence on target accounts, marketing and sales teams can execute orchestrated outreach campaigns customized to each account. Tactics used to engage accounts include:
- Personalized emails and messaging
- Customized and relevant content assets
- Industry-specific ad campaigns
- Retargeting based on account activity
- Direct mail touchpoints
- Geo-targeted billboards and signage
- Executive gifts and swag
- Sales plays tailored to account needs
- Executive briefing events for top accounts
- Orchestrated sales & marketing touches
The emphasis is on creating relevance, value and preference within each account through highly customized engagement across channels over time.
What metrics are used to measure ABM performance?
There are a range of tactical and strategic metrics used to track the performance of an ABM program:
- Account engagement metrics
- Email open rates
- Ad/content interaction
- Direct mail responses
- Event participation
- Sales pipeline metrics
- Target account prospect leads
- Deal velocity by account
- Win/loss analysis
- Revenue metrics
- New account revenue
- Share of revenue by target account
- Net account retention
Blending engagement, pipeline and revenue metrics provides a complete view of ABM program effectiveness. These results can be tracked over time to refine and optimize an ABM strategy.
What technologies enable ABM?
There is a robust ecosystem of technologies available to support ABM programs. These include:
- CRM/MAP systems – Store prospect and account data for segmentation and tracking.
- ABM platforms – Provide tailored prospect profiles and orchestration.
- Marketing automation – Nurture prospects and surface sales insights.
- Ad tech – Enable delivery of targeted ads.
- Intent data – Identify engagement signals from target accounts.
- AI and predictive analytics – Uncover trends and model account outcomes.
- Account data management – Centralize account intelligence from across systems.
- CRM/MAP systems – Store prospect and account data for segmentation and tracking.
Integrating technologies provides the data foundation, infrastructure and intelligence needed for 1:1 personalization at account scale.
How should sales and marketing align for ABM success?
For ABM to reach its full potential, sales and marketing must work hand-in-hand in orchestrated account engagement. Key areas for alignment include:
- Joint target account selection based on shared intelligence.
- Marketing provides air cover and sales executes targeted plays.
- Shared KPIs and accountability for account progress.
- Two-way sharing of account intelligence and insights.
- Orchestrating touches across channels to penetrate accounts.
- Joint quarterly business reviews on targeted accounts.
- Ongoing program optimization based on account metrics.
The most effective ABM programs have sales and marketing playing complimentary roles focused squarely on moving target accounts to closure.
What are the main challenges with implementing ABM?
While delivering significant benefits, adopting ABM also poses some potential challenges, including:
- New strategy, skills and mindset required – ABM requires change management across the organization.
- Increased budget, resources and stakeholders – ABM needs significant strategic investment to execute effectively.
- More complex campaign coordination – Orchestrating highly tailored plays is hard work.
- Greater executive involvement required – Securing leadership buy-in and support is crucial.
- Difficult to manage many accounts – Most ABM programs focus on dozens to hundreds of accounts max.
- Sales and marketing misalignment – Friction can occur driving adoption.
- Proving ROI takes time – Expect a 6-12 month runway before results materialize.
These challenges underscore the need for thoughtful program design, change management and executive sponsorship when embracing an ABM approach.
Conclusion
In summary, ABM represents an evolution beyond broad-based demand generation to a more strategic, targeted model for B2B marketing and sales. By orchestrating tailored engagement across both teams, ABM fosters meaningful relationships with high-value accounts. And tighter sales and marketing alignment ultimately drives accelerated revenue growth. While requiring commitment, time and investment, ABM delivers outstanding ROI for organizations that execute it well.