Before getting into Account-based Marketing (ABM), let's see
how sales personnel get business without it. Imagine that you want to make a
sale for your company. You can either do cold calls or do direct walk-ins and
hope the person you talk to is a decision maker in the company, which can end
up as a disappointment if he's not.
Then you will have to ask for a call or a
meeting with his manager, which may or may not get approved and if it's
approved you will have to wait for the scheduled time which may change again at
the last moment.
The sales person will have to patiently go through the whole
process until the final call to make the closing. Those who have worked in
sales knows how time consuming the whole process is and I bet that sales people
will do anything for solid leads which can make their work easier. And this is
the sole reason that marketers all over the world are embracing ABM techniques
for simplifying their work.
Sales made easy through Account-based Marketing
ABM can be referred to as a blend of a company's sales and
marketing functions, which is a strategic approach to B2B marketing based on
goals for specific target accounts. In the current business world, Key-Account
Marketing is considered as a more strategic way to do outbound. With the help
of ABM, the sales team can directly approach the key-decision makers of
targeted companies without going through the entire process of random
cold-calling, unnecessary meetings etc. The key advantage is that the sales
process which takes several months for closing can be accomplished in a much
lesser time.
The
Need for Account-Based Marketing
The phrase coined by ITSMA in 2004 has its roots in the
1990s when companies began to realize the importance of personalized marketing.
However, it wasn't until recent years that Key Account marketing has really
begun to catch on in the B2B industry due to the increase in the importance of
inbound marketing and in the rise of vendors who offer the ABM services. With
the help of ABM, companies started to expand their knowledge of potential
customers, which in turn, helped them in acquiring more sales and profit.
This
technique also applies the psychological factor that customers respond more
when approached in a personal manner rather than being approached as just
another sales lead. Moreover, if you are linking Account-Based Marketing with
the CRM of your company there will be additional benefits of maintaining
critical information like the client's role in the company, the status of the
account, company industry type, company size etc.
Account-Based
marketing & it's working
Presently, there are different Account-Based Marketing
technologies in the market. Productive key account marketing involves a
multi channel approach and requires close alignment between an organization's
sales, marketing, and customer success teams. To reach target accounts, digital
targeting is used by Account-based advertising to fit an organization's ideal
customer profile.
CRM or marketing automation tools are integrated with ABM
platforms to run campaigns targeting the company's target accounts. This
provides an ability to run multi channel campaigns for ads across different
channels like mobile, display, video and social media. By doing this you can
understand which message resonates the most, through which medium and get the
exact data to back it up - with A/B testing in near real-time.
One of the reasons that Account-based technologies have seen
great success is that they engage customers on their terms using digital
channels other than e-mail and phone calls. Key Account Marketing can be done
on a larger scale rather than traditional methods because it engages the entire
account as well as the targeted leads.
Benefits seen after using Account-Based Marketing:
· Faster Deals: With the help of ABM, leads are funneled to the most
targeted ones, the chances of getting rejected narrows down to a minimum and
deals get closed much faster.
· Higher returns: Since sales people are targeting on the best accounts for
business with the help of Key-Account Marketing rather than typical demand
generation, the returns are higher.
·
Reduced Time Consumption: With ABM, the sales team will focus only on the accounts
that have high conversion rates. It means they don't waste their time on leads
that don't matter or are unqualified.
·
Alignment of marketing and sales: There are chances that the marketing and sales teams of the
same organization are focusing on separate accounts. Key-Account Marketing
requires cooperation between the two teams so that they work together to target
key decision makers within the same accounts.
Account-Based
Marketing - The Future
Above all, ABM is finally about the customer. A fact that business
professionals should focus on is that buyers are not looking for a cold call or
a random marketing email, rather they want to explore the solutions for their
pain points on their own terms and only receive communications from vendors
that are meaningful and relevant.
ABM makes it easy to deliver on this need
across the buyer's journey.For availing the Account-Based Marketing services, link with
Data Captive & connect to managers on a global scale.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9789018
