3 Best Practices That Can Bring Success to Your ABM Campaigns

ABM (Account Based Marketing) is the new age sales fuel that B2B companies need. It is one of the most focused sales activities that also guarantee results. In most companies, sales and marketing are siloed. You might get away with that in B2C, but in B2B, integrating your sales and marketing is critical. This is where account-based marketing comes into play.

Account-based marketing is a strategic B2B marketing approach in which sales and marketing teams work together to target best-fit accounts and turn them into customers.

Here are three tips for success in ABM that you can follow!

 

Have Clear Goals and Objectives

Setting clear campaign goals is essential in any marketing technique. However, its importance increases tenfold when it comes to account-based marketing. Sales and marketing teams generally have different goals. It’s important to devise common objectives that enable both sales and marketing teams to work in sync. 

Thus, account-based marketing goals may differ slightly from other traditional marketing and lead generation campaigns.

Typically, account-based marketing goals include the following:

• Quality account generation
• Increase in account decision-making
• Revenue expansion within accounts

If you want your sales and marketing teams to stay on track, you’ll need to define how success will look like for your account-based marketing campaign. 

Here’s where setting SMART goals comes into play, which means your goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely all for best business results.

Instead of arbitrarily targeting accounts, conduct in-depth research and identify lucrative marketing opportunities. Analyze how data on your contacts fit in your sales funnel. If the results seem unattainable, consider investing your marketing dollars elsewhere. 

Be Clear About Budgeting for Each Account

Coming up with a realistic budget and spending strategy is one of the toughest decisions to make. This step is difficult because there are no formulae or metrics to calculate a precise amount that you should be spending per account. 

It’s essential to take an accounts-first approach if you want to streamline your budgeting process. Several factors can affect the budget of your account-based marketing campaign, including:

• Size of the business
• Decision-makers and influencers
• Departments involved
• Brand awareness and perception
• Competition
• Need
• Product complexity

Thankfully, setting your initial budget doesn’t have to be a tedious and cumbersome process. By following these three principles, you can achieve budgeting success in account-based marketing. 

1. Don’t let your overall budget and the total number of accounts be the only deciding factor. Be sure to consider other factors involved. 
2. Don’t let your budget dictate the accounts you target. First, select the accounts that are most likely to make a purchase, and then set a budget accordingly. 
3. Instead of mismanaging your budget, invest in appropriate skills and personnel.

Measure and Analyze Results 

The final key to success in account-based marketing is to measure and analyze your results. In the B2B realm, no strategy is set-it-and-forget-it types. You need to track crucial metrics and KPIs for each account to determine if your marketing efforts are aligned with your business objectives or not.

You can implement and track a wide range of metrics to measure the success of your account-based marketing campaign. These include:

• Audience growth
• Customer engagement and customer perception
• Added value to sales
• Sales cycle length
• Revenue growth
• Customer retention

Regularly monitoring these KPIs will help you measure the success of your account-based marketing campaign. 

If you’re not able to achieve the desired results, stay agile and be ready to implement changes and optimize your campaign. 

Conclusion-

Account-based marketing has been out there for a while, and it is here to stay. But with decision-makers becoming smarter and more independent, B2B companies need to develop innovative strategies to achieve the desired results. It’s essential to set realistic, measurable goals, decide on a budget, and constantly report and review the marketing performance.