Introduction to Account Based Marketing (ABM) in B2B Sales

The early 2000s was the time when Inbound Marketing started gaining immense popularity in the Marketing world. Marketers swore by this marketing technique of generating leads where traffic was driven to their websites using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and strategic content. Even today, Inbound Marketing holds the same relevance and importance in B2B Sales as it is the most organic and trusted way of attracting customers by creating brand awareness and relevant content.

While there is no denying that lead generation using Inbound Marketing strategies is one of the most reliable techniques; the percentage of conversion of these leads into customers is still not yet upto the mark. Investing substantial amounts of time, money and effort in inbound tactics which eventually lead to only a negligible amount of leads getting converted to customers is not a great marketing strategy.

Hence, the “Inbound-only” marketing approach needed to be paired with an alternative Outbound approach to generate more results - that is when Account Based Marketing (ABM) came into picture.

What is Account Based Marketing (ABM) ?

• According to Wikipedia, Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach in which an organization targets, communicates and engages with individual prospects or customer accounts as markets of one.
• In ABM, the Sales and Marketing teams of an organization work in tandem to identify and target high-value and befitting accounts having good revenue potential, from their already existing customer database to create personalized buying campaigns.
• Account Based Marketing is a form of marketing where businesses focus on a particular set of customers and engage with their decision makers on a personal, one-to-one basis by curating customized experiences; thus ensuring maximum customer satisfaction and conversion.
• Also known as Key Account Marketing, ABM initiates direct communication with stakeholders of the organization’s key business accounts and immediately begins marketing activities that are most likely to appeal to their requirements; thereby increasing the chances of converting the prospect into a customer, once again.

Combining Account Based Marketing (ABM) with Inbound Marketing

Account Based Marketing (ABM) starts right at that point of the Sales funnel where Inbound Marketing stops. Unlike the inbound approach of targeting blanket markets to ultimately narrow down to one or two customers and then start the sales process, Account Based Marketing directly begins the sales process by approaching and engaging with best-fit and valuable accounts.

But neither ABM nor Inbound Marketing can single-handedly drive best results for any business. If put together, the concoction of both these marketing strategies can fetch highly effective sales results for businesses. Inbound Marketing works as the foundation by attracting valuable leads and accounts that can be targeted for implementing ABM strategies.

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Benefits of Account Based Marketing (ABM)

• Marketing and Sales Team Synergy

  Over the years, lead quantity vs lead quality has always been a bone of contention between the Sales and Marketing teams of an organization. While marketing strategies have always been about targeting a blanket industry or field, sales have always been focussed on leads that are likely to be converted to customers. With Account Based Marketing, the end goal of both the teams will be one - that of targeting and converting the same list of customer accounts. This cross-department alignment not only fosters business growth but also aids in enhancing customer experience.

• Efficient and Streamlined Sales cycle

  As mentioned above, rather than channelizing entire efforts and forces in generating a pool of prospects and leads, ABM focuses on directly identifying and targeting valuable accounts. This saves sufficient time and resources which can be utilized to focus on the phases that require more attention like creating effective marketing campaigns for the targeted customers.

• Enhanced Customer Relationships through Personalization

  By focusing more on individual customer needs instead of creating campaigns based on an entire blanket market, Account Based Marketing delves deep into personalizing customer experiences, thus providing them a delightful and seamless relationship with the business. “Customer First” seems to be the motto of ABM.

• Tangible and measurable Return on Investment (RoI)

  Since Account Based Marketing concentrates on specific accounts, it is easy to measure your returns and profits of each account. In the process of creating marketing campaigns targeted to an entire industry to finally get hold of only a couple of customers, a lot of money is invested and wasted as well. While this expenditure can never be justified, it has to be spent. On the contrary, ABM promises high RoI, compared to other forms of marketing since target accounts are well scrutinized and researched beforehand.

Zebrista for Account Based Marketing (ABM)

A sales acceleration tool, Zebrista, is a Sales automation tool that automates your end-to-end sales cycle by implementing prospecting, contact discovery, lead generation, email marketing, appointment generation, and much more.

With respect to Account Based Marketing (ABM), the Zebrista tool can be used by the marketing and sales teams to identify and target best-fit and high-value accounts to begin the sales process directly. Not only this - from recognizing high revenue generating and valuable accounts, extracting stakeholder and decision maker contact information, validating and enriching the data, establishing communication with these accounts through proper channels and personalized campaigns to - generating appointments, designing relevant strategies for closing the deal - Zebrista does it all. Which means Zebrista takes care of the execution of the entire sales process.

Zebrista doesn’t stop here, It does a whole lot of things - Connect with us now to see Zebrista in action and to ACCELERATE your SALES cycle.