B2B marketing is full of concepts, abbreviations and keywords. And it can get pretty confusing. That’s why we’ve decided to write a series of blogs, briefly looking at a few of the more bewildering buzz-words and setting the record straight with regards to what they actually mean. The first one of the series is account-based marketing, also known as ABM.
What is account-based marketing?
Here’s what ABM is basically about: B2B marketers often build marketing campaigns in such a way that they appeal to a wide net of companies within their target market. ABM, on the other hand, is an alternative strategy that concentrates sales and marketing resources on a clearly defined set of target clients, also known as target accounts, within a market. These are mainly high-value account clients, so this approach is more of a quality vs. quantity approach.
Why is it useful?
According to research reported by ITSMA, 80% of marketers say ABM is more successful than other types of marketing investments. Why might they think that?
1. Your marketing is specifically aimed and easier to personalise. It is human nature to be more curious about specifically aimed marketing as opposed to generic marketing. Personalised marketing and sales strategies therefore inspire higher engagement with the buyer, which can build loyalty and lead to strong long-term relationships
2. ABM is precise and cognitively based. This means it weeds out the less attractive leads, targeting the businesses most relevant to your brand, therefore wasting less time and fewer resources.
3. It is becoming easier and cheaper. So far, ABM has been fairly expensive as it requires more resources. New technology is changing this. LinkedIn Account Targeting, for example, allows marketers to tailor their sponsored content or sponsored InMail to a chosen list of accounts.
In our next post, we’ll be following up with a second widely used buzz-word for our series: advocacy marketing.