The growth of B2B marketing has been increasing significantly for the past few years. There is a lot of misinformation and misinterpretation about account-based marketing in terms of what it can or can’t do. In fact, ABM doesn’t offer a magical solution to the problem, it is a process in B2B marketing. Today, we’ll discuss what is an ABM campaign; its statistical figures, and how to run it.
What is an ABM Campaign?
ABM (account-based marketing) is a marketing and B2B sales strategy where the stakeholders from various departments collaborate with each other to target and convert high-value accounts. The account-based marketing is good for companies that focus on targeting the main accounts. However, it is a great option for SaaS and B2B companies.
There is a vast difference between B2B and B2C marketing. For instance, the focus of B2C marketing is to attract the attention of a great number of people for low-value sales. Whereas, B2B marketing focuses on targeting companies of low volume for high-value sales.
The ABM campaign employs various strategies to approach its market, some of them are as follows;
- Consulting Sale
- One-on-one sales outreach
- Whitepapers, eBooks, and Blogs
- Online evens & In-Person
- Webinar
- E-mail marketing
- Paid Advertising
- Organic Social Media Posts
It doesn’t mean that you should apply all the strategies in your account-based marketing campaigns. In order to be effective in your campaign, you should approach and connect with your target market on various fronts. It is advisable if your campaign implements a combination of approaches like sales outreach, email marketing, and social media campaigns.
The statistic about ABM Campaign
Some of the top statistical figures for account-based marketing campaigns are as follows;
- Approximately 87% of the marketers say that account-based campaigns work better than other activities
- 91% of the marketers say that account-based campaigns help them to close the deal
- 86% of them say that its win rate is high
- Roundabout 80% of them say that it amplifies the customer lifetime value
How to Run ABM Campaign – Steps
Some of the main steps on how to run an ABM campaign are as follows;
Selecting the ABM Type
There are different types of account-based campaigns, and you should choose the right type for your business. Some of them are as follows;
- One-to-Many: it focuses on targeting more than 30 accounts low value accounts with customer-focused messaging
- One-to-Few: targets 10 to 30 accounts in the specific field and category
- One-to-One: it focuses on targeting 1 to 5 accounts that would generate a great value for your business, and they would spend their entire budget on the account-based campaigns
When it comes to choosing the right account-based marketing strategy for your business; you should keep in mind various elements like customer lifetime value, deal size, and sale cycle length. The one-on-one approach tends to be riskier than the one-to-many. You should test various approaches one by one and then move toward specificity.
Aligning with Marketing & Sales
Your account-based campaigns wouldn’t work and get off the ground without making alignment between the sales and marketing. Every department and unit of the company works independently on various tasks; it is significant that the sales and marketing share insight on who they’re targeting and how they would do it.
In order to achieve a high level of synchronicity and coordination in your account-based campaigns; you should bring personnel from the sales and marketing units on the same page;
- When you’re going to start one-on-one selling outreach
- How to measure and evaluate your performance
- Content and key messages
- Accounts you’re going to target
- Types of account-based strategies that you’re implementing
KPIs
Marketers and sales personnel of the company should be familiar with the KPIs. Without KPIs, it is difficult to evaluate the performance, analyze the success of the campaigns, and recognize various opportunities relevant to the course content. Some of the main KPIs relevant to the account-based campaigns are as follows;
- Deal value
- Conversion rate
- Length of the sales funnel
- Quality of the sales calling
- Total outreach that attempted the sale
- Engagement rate on various platforms
- The total amount of budget spending
- Duration of your campaigns
Creating a List of Accounts
Next, you should create a list of accounts relevant to the account-based campaigns that you would target. If you’re going to do it manually, it would consume a lot of your time and your sales and marketing department would have to reach hundreds of thousands of companies. You can find potential prospects quickly by using the right tools and strategies.
Personalized Content
When it comes to targeting your approaching your customers, you should what you’re going to say and how you would say it. One of the main elements of account-based campaigns is that they’re highly personalized. You have to make sure that your message content should influence their decision-making. You should tailor your message relevant to your campaigns.
Campaign Launch
After performing all the previous tasks and covering basic grounds, you should launch your campaign. In the meantime, your sales staff should be ready to start their work and connect with people. The sales staff should know who you’re offering and what you’re offering in detail; it would ensure the success of your campaigns.
Evaluation & Repeat
After launching and implementing your account-based campaigns, it doesn’t mean that your job is over. Now, you have to measure and analyze your campaigns’ performance based on the KPIs. Along with evaluating the success rate of your campaign, you should keep looking for opportunities that would deliver you better results.
Establishing Relationships
The focus of the ABM campaign is building and understanding your potential prospects and linking your marketing efforts to approach them. Along with that, the account-based campaigns also help companies to establish long-term relationships with their customers. However, it results in the form of increasing customer lifetime value, customer retention rate, and higher conversion rate.
Conclusion: What is an ABM Campaign? How to Run It
After an in-depth study of what is an ABM campaign; its statistical figures, and how to run its campaigns; we have realized that account-based campaigns are important for B2B marketers. If you’re planning to run it for your business, you should keep in mind the abovementioned guidelines.
Ahsan Ali Shaw is an accomplished Business Writer, Analyst, and Public Speaker. Other than that, he’s a fun loving person.
