Account Based Marketing: Best Practices CMOs Should Follow

By Don Q. Dao - Last Updated on January 6, 2020
Account Based Marketing Best Practices CMOs Should Follow

Learn the best account-based marketing tactics for your business.

Account-based marketing (ABM) has been one of the most talked about trends in the last year. In short, it is a business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy that focuses sales and marketing resources on specifically targeted accounts to drive them down the funnel. This strategy was conceived as a solution to the current issue within the B2B industry: the idea of the traditional sales and marketing funnel is broken. According to a Forrester study, 99% of B2B leads do not convert. With odds worse than Las Vegas, the industry has turned to ABM.

To counter this issue, ABM flips the sales and marketing funnel upside down. Instead of the traditional method of starting the process with marketing to generate sales leads, ABM starts with businesses identifying and targeting the most suited accounts with the most revenue potential. Marketers will then use technology and strategy to serve custom content to the decision makers of these accounts. The main aspect of marketing in ABM is personalization. However, it’s worth stating that ABM isn’t for everyone. To truly see the benefits of ABM, companies must meet at least one prerequisite of the following criteria:

  • Have a large pool of accounts that make up an impactful portion of their revenue
  • Work with groups of accounts with similar needs
  • Provide a complex service solution to enterprise customers

If your business does any of those points, ABM may be a strategy that you could implement and reap the conversions from. A Demand Metric study found that 60% of companies generally saw at least a 10% increase in revenue after one year of implementing. If implemented correctly, ABM can definitely improve your revenue.

Proven ABM Practices CMOs Should Follow

The essence of ABM lies in creating a completely aligned sales and marketing process that can build relationships with specifically targeted accounts to generate leads. Here are three account-based marketing best practices:

Define and Identify the Right Target Accounts

The most important aspect of ABM is finding and targeting the right account. To do this, be sure to use the following types of data to help you:

  • Firmographic data – Firmographic data is essentially the demographic of organizations
  • Technographic data – Technographic data is a new form of data that can help give your business insight into how the account functions
  • Behavioral data – Behavioral data convey certain events and triggers that signals intent, meaning that your business would know how strong the lead would be

With these three types of data and the analytics tools needed, you will be able find the most accurate data to predict if the account you’re looking to target is ready for your business.

Develop Personalized “Sales” Offers

“Sales” offers are offers designed to help the sales team get the prospect account to agree to a meeting. Personalization is essential to ABM, mainly because you’ll be communicating with the decision-makers of the accounts.

Use Retargeting to Build Brand Awareness

Retargeting is always an effective way to stay engaged your prospect accounts. According to a Forrester study, 75% of buying activity tends to occur before a “hand-raise”, meaning retargeting is more essential than ever.

ABM can be very effective with the right strategy and execution. With these tips, you’ll be closer to an effective ABM strategy.

Don Q. Dao | Always striving to learn, Don Dao is driven by new adventures and challenges. His love for media and social interactions has led him to pursue a career in marketing. Over the years, he has developed a broad skill set in all aspects of marketing, specifically in event organization, social media marketing, and content marketing. He enjoys working with passionate people to bring visions to life and inspire the world.

Don Q. Dao |Always striving to learn, Don Dao is driven by new adventures and challenges. His love for media and social interactions has led him to pursue a career in marketing. Over the years, he has developed a broad skill set in all aspects of marketing, specifically in event organization, social media marketing, and content marketing. He enjoys working with passionate people to bring visions to life and inspire the world.

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