The landscape of business operations has undergone a profound transformation in the modern era. In the age of the internet, everything is interconnected, bridging the gap between consumers and businesses.
Traditional marketing methods and tools that thrived in the past may not be as effective in the contemporary world. It’s time to adapt and innovate, moving away from conventional approaches.
Outbound marketing, which includes strategies like sales calls and telemarketing, doesn’t always guarantee a high Return on Investment (ROI) compared to the more modern Inbound marketing techniques such as blogging and social media. Inbound marketing sets a strong foundation for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) platforms. Let’s delve into the details of ABM now.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a B2B marketing strategy that directly targets high-value and best-fit accounts, eliminating less promising leads. This approach focuses on engaging specific accounts with personalized offers, campaigns, and content, considering high-value accounts as distinct markets with tremendous potential.
ABM allows for complete customization of marketing and experiences for each account, leading to increased sales conversions. The entire sales process is streamlined, integrating marketing directly into the sales funnel.
ABM is particularly effective for B2B, IT, and SaaS companies. A notable example is Personify, a leading constituent management and engagement (CME) platform, which successfully implemented the ABM approach. Let’s delve into their challenge, solution, and results.
Challenge — Personify sought better insights into its target audience and enhanced targeting capabilities.
Solution — Implementing an ABM program, Personify collaborated with sales and product marketing teams to construct an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This allowed them to create a list of top accounts to target within their niche. The ABM platform identified key market segments, enabling the execution of various personalized digital advertising campaigns based on personas and business stages. This approach proved effective in increasing brand awareness and engagement.
Results — Personify experienced a remarkable 39x increase in engaged website visitors, and the ROI on marketing-sourced revenue surged by 8.5x.
ABM has reorganized the sales process, transforming it from the traditional Prospect → Engage → Research → Present → Close → Delight sequence to a more targeted approach:
Identify Target Accounts → Present to Target Accounts → Close Target Accounts → Delight Accounts
Advantages of ABM
Commitment
ABM adopts a quality-over-quantity approach, emphasizing the investment of substantial time and resources in catering to specific groups. This process facilitates increased engagement through a personalized and consistent customer experience. Building loyalty with high-value accounts is essential for gradual business expansion.
Step ROI
ABM tools enable you to easily measure your ROI for each account. You can estimate the time and resources invested in each account and determine their suitability for your business. This facilitates better decision-making, allowing you to focus on and delight only those accounts that yield high ROI.
Lined Up Sales and Marketing
ABM is a powerful strategy to align sales and marketing departments, fostering clear communication and improved cross-team collaboration for organizational growth. With both teams focusing on the same goals and adhering to the budget, it aids in efficient time, money, and personnel management, creating a seamless customer experience. Now, let’s explore some of the top ABM tools to enhance your business conversions.
Demandbase
Demandbase, recognized as an ABM leader by Gartner in 2022, stands out as an ABM platform providing a comprehensive analysis of the ABM market and evaluating the objectives of ABM practitioners. With an in-depth understanding of the growing importance of ABM services, particularly in leveraging the enhanced alignment of marketing and sales, Demandbase empowers businesses to execute campaigns and distribute impressions effectively across both accounts and individuals. It allows users to assess the impact of clicks on deals, pipeline, and revenue at both individual and account levels. With complete control over ad placements, businesses can ensure their ads are strategically positioned, contributing to brand reputation management.
Terminus
Terminus, trusted by over 1,000 clients globally including Autodesk, Dow Jones, and Gainsight, is a leading force in multichannel ABM. This platform facilitates engagement with target accounts and empowers marketers to build a robust pipeline. With Terminus, users can enhance performance through connected account experiences, executing personalized campaigns featuring relevant content and messaging. The platform provides accurate insights, and its Data Studio houses all necessary account data for segment creation and campaign execution. Engagement channels encompass chat, marketing, email, sales, website experiences, MAP, and more, while the Terminus Measurement Studio evaluates the entirety of your marketing program.
6sense
6sense stands out as an Account Engagement Platform designed to boost pipeline growth and revenue through a comprehensive account-based solution tailored for your entire go-to-market team. This platform facilitates collaboration among marketing, sales, and operations teams. Leveraging advanced capabilities such as insights, intent, and AI-driven technologies, 6sense identifies high-value accounts and contacts along with their key areas of interest. This enables the creation of consistent, relevant, and personalized customer experiences throughout the entire journey, from initial touchpoints to renewals and cross-selling. Strengthening sales efforts, 6sense provides valuable account insights and delivers measurable outcomes through detailed reports and analytics.
RollWorks
RollWorks emerges as a premier account-based platform catering to B2B marketing and sales. Whether you are initiating a new venture or scaling up an existing one, RollWorks empowers you to swiftly transform your target accounts into valuable opportunities.
With account-based programs, RollWorks ensures the delivery of the right message to the right audience at precisely the right time, thereby accelerating revenue generation. Leveraging data and artificial intelligence, RollWorks enables you to pinpoint target accounts that align seamlessly with your business objectives. Trusted by industry leaders in B2B, such as Aircall, Dialpad, Personify, and more, RollWorks stands as a reliable partner in achieving marketing and sales success.
Jabmo
Jabmo stands out as an excellent choice for industries such as Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Healthcare, and Business Services. Providing a comprehensive solution, Jabmo excels in multichannel Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and also delivers a marketing automation platform with managed services. Their global ABM platform ensures expansive reach and compliance with privacy regulations, engaging large buying groups throughout the entire purchasing journey.
In addition, Jabmo fosters alignment between marketing and sales, particularly around high-value accounts. Through Jabmo’s control teams, marketers can effectively demonstrate progress and return on investment (ROI). Renowned for empowering ABM strategies for some of the world’s largest enterprises, including Siemens, National Instruments, Megger, and more, Jabmo stands as a trusted partner in achieving marketing success.
Marketo Engage
Marketo Engage, initially a standalone marketing automation software, was acquired by Adobe in 2018. Positioned as a sales intelligence tool, Marketo allows sellers to swiftly identify high-value leads, gain deeper insights into buyer behavior, and drive engagements leading to successful deals. With user-friendly campaign tools, it facilitates personalized email communications and integrates prospects into marketing campaigns. The platform enables real-time monitoring of purchasing interest behaviors, such as email opens or website visits, directly from a mobile device. Leveraging behavior tracking, Marketo Engage empowers businesses to engage the right customers and rapidly deploy and scale automated marketing campaigns. Additionally, it aids in evaluating the impact of marketing channels on revenue.
Folloze, a trusted solution for leading B2B brands like Autodesk, Qlik, Aruba, Boomi, boasts over 300,000 executed campaigns, 1.5 million active accounts, and numerous engaged buyers. The platform allows users to create no-code experiences within minutes, facilitating the design of marketing campaigns at various stages of the buyer journey. By harnessing existing data, content, and messaging, Folloze enables personalization and guides buyers through unique journeys at a corporate scale. The platform also supports the analysis of target accounts, providing insights into buyers’ needs, challenges, and their current journey stage.
In conclusion, adopting an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) platform can significantly boost business revenue, generate qualified leads, align sales and marketing efforts, and scale overall business operations. This B2B strategy directly targets high-value and best-fit accounts, optimizing the allocation of time and resources. ABM allows for effective tracking of account performance, enabling enhanced engagement and satisfaction. By leveraging inbound marketing and ABM platforms, businesses can drive growth and eliminate low-value accounts.
