What is account based marketing?

Account based marketing (ABM) consists in finding and targeting specific businesses on an individual level. It is a methodology that lets you prioritise quality over quantity, so it’s ideal for those with long and complex processes leading to high-value sales.

The benefits of tailoring your marketing offerings are well-understood among B2C organisations. It’s little surprise that a personal touch is similarly effective with businesses.

Let us put it this way: when you sit down at the table on a first date, you’re a lot more likely to have a good time when your partner remembers your name and pays attention to your preferences. You’re a lot more likely to want a second date if you know your date will be thinking about you, not just anyone who could fill a you-shaped hole in their day.

Account based marketing is pretty similar, although it’s a little less romantic. (A little.) The goal is to nurture carefully-selected leads through custom engagement and personalised support, and thereby woo them.

So, how do you get started?

1. Picking your targets with due care

To extend the metaphor to breaking point: you can’t, and shouldn’t, swipe right on everyone.

Pick target accounts with care, relying on vital factors like specific industries, the technologies they use or the size of the company. After you’ve made an initial selection, be prepared to put some research time in. You must weed out businesses that will be a bad fit or which are low value, because you’ll be putting in plenty of effort for the ones that remain.

3. Tailored nurturing and engagement

Sales and marketing are going to have to stick it out and collaborate in a serious way here.

Sales engagement and marketing content should be heavily customised according to the needs and values of the target account. This does not mean your resources can’t serve multiple purposes, of course: there are, among businesses, typically trends in pain points and use cases, so if a target business is seeking something out then you can bet your response will have broader utility than just for them! But when you’re engaging with a target account, you’re striving to deliver the overall impression that they’re your one and only.

Get yourself in front of key contacts—the people in the decision-making unit—by attending key industry events, using your personal network, or producing tailored content aimed at those contacts. All of your research and profiling from point two should inform the ways you get your targets’ attention and keep it.

The key here is nurturing your accounts all the way through your sales pipeline.

4. Keep track of how you’re going

Conversion is, obviously, the end goal. And a high-value, tailored experience is more likely to convert your target accounts than an undisciplined spray-and-pray methodology.

But it’s also vital to make sure you have real, measurable, clear goals for each stage of your progress—from first contact to conversion, and supporting customer loyalty beyond. Use the tools at your disposal, like lead scoring and engagement analytics tools to make sure you’re keeping track. This will alert you to any changes in your targets’ behaviour. If the initial ardour has cooled suddenly, you’ll want to know when and why so you can act fast.

On a pragmatic note, such metrics are a good way of keeping track of your own performance, too. If problems arise at particular key points in the process over and over, it might require more than just a change of tactics to rectify, so it’s valuable information.

Done right, account-based marketing is super effective, particularly in long and complex sales processes aimed at high-value targets. It’s a valuable method, and if you’re not using it you might quickly find yourself losing key clients to your savvier competition!