B2B Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is like having an ace up your sleeve – it lets you focus your...
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We welcome you to the world of Account-Based Marketing (ABM). It’s a potent strategy for your B2B success as it:
- Offers you sales efficiency
- Nurtures your customer relationships
- Fuels your revenue growth
But here's the real question: How can you become really good at ABM? Do you have all the right skills, tools, and things to do well in ABM? If you're not sure, don't worry!
Let us introduce you to ABM marketing agencies - they're like your teammates on this journey. These experts are super good at planning, doing, and making your ABM strategy work even better. They know a lot, have done this many times, and use advanced tools. They'll help guide you to reach your ABM goals.
So, let's explore the top 10 benefits of working hand-in-hand with an ABM marketing agency.
Top 10 B2B Advantages You Get From Your ABM Agency Partner
Let us tell you that ABM is a complex strategy. It needs you to have a deep understanding of your target accounts. Plus, you must be able to execute a multi-touch campaign. Hence, working with an ABM agency can help you ensure you're doing it right.
Here's what Olivia Langford, Senior Editor and Marketing Management Expert at NY Crossword Today, says about leveraging an ABM agency-
"If you're serious about ABM, working with an agency is the best way to get started. They can help you develop a winning strategy and execute it effectively. ABM agencies have the resources and expertise to help you reach your target accounts with the right message at the right time. They can also help you measure the results of your ABM campaigns so you can see how your investment is paying off."
So, let's start with our list of the top 10 benefits of partnering with an ABM agency.
1. Helps With Your Account Selection and Prioritization
When you connect with a reliable ABM agency, you get to select and prioritize your target accounts effectively. The ABM experts help you strategically identify and engage high-value accounts rather than waste efforts to attract unqualified audiences.
Here's how Luisa Fernanda Echeverry, the business development lead at Castleberry, puts it-
"The real beauty of ABM marketing is it forces companies to truly understand their audience. When you make a sincere effort to understand your audience, the entire business benefits, not just the marketing department. ABM is a secret multiplier that helps companies develop new understandings."
So, let us learn how an ABM agency does it:
- Perform Data Analysis And Research:
An ABM agency has access to advanced data analytics tools and market research capabilities. It can help you analyze your existing customer database and market data to identify potential target accounts. It involves evaluating factors like:
- Firmographics (company size, industry, location)
- Technographics (technology stack)
- Behavior data (online engagement, content consumption)
- Develop Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
Your ABM agency works with you to create an ideal customer profile for your business. Basically, it's a detailed description of the characteristics and attributes that define your best-fit customers.
- Establish Account Scoring:
You get to set up account scoring models that your ABM agency provides. These models help you rank and prioritize target accounts based on factors such as their:
- Fit with your ICP
- Engagement with your content or website
- Buying intent signals
- Potential revenue impact
Hence, with this scoring, you can easily identify which accounts should receive more attention and resources.
- Create Persona Mapping:
An ABM agency assists you in developing buyer personas within your target accounts. They help you understand the roles and responsibilities of key decision-makers and influencers within these accounts.
Further, you can create personalized content and messaging for these personas.
2. Gives Access To Different ABM-type Programs
You get access to various ABM-type programs once you partner with an ABM agency. Further, ABM experts tailor these programs to your specific business needs.
Here's how they can help you choose the right ABM approach:
- They Take You Through Consultation And Assessment:
Typically, the agency begins by assessing your:
- Business goals
- Target market
- Existing marketing strategies
Through consultation, they gain an understanding of your specific needs and challenges.
- Brainstorm to Identify the Right ABM Approach For You:
The agency experts analyze your information through consultation and assessment. Additionally, they consider your goals and your target accounts’ nature. Next, they recommend the most suitable ABM approach for your business.
3 Types of Account Based Marketing
- 1-to-1 ABM:
This approach lets you perform highly personalized marketing. It requires you to dedicate specific resources to a small number of your high-value target accounts. It's ideal for you if you run a business with a small customer base.
- 1-to-Few ABM:
Here, you'll target a group of similar accounts with shared characteristics or needs. Though you can still add some personalization, it is more scalable than a 1-to-1 approach.
- 1-to-Many ABM:
With this approach, you'll target a larger set of accounts with common traits. ABM agency enables you to leverage automation and scaled content to engage these accounts efficiently.
3. Brings Easy Collaboration Between CS, Sales, and Marketing Team
You may struggle to maintain a balanced collaboration between your Sales, Customer Support (CS), and Marketing teams. But, once you partner with an ABM agency, this problem gets solved.
These three departments need to stay in sync for your ABM initiatives' success. Hence, an ABM agency maintains a healthy collaboration in two ways:
- Regular Meetings:
An ABM agency helps all of your three departments select target accounts jointly through regular meetings. These meetings provide a platform for your cross-functional teams to share:
- Updates
- Feedback
- Ideas
– So that they can focus on similar prospects without any conflicts.
Further, regular meetings bring a transparent relationship between these departments. It ensures your teams are consistent in messaging and timing.
- Closed-Loop Feedback:
Your ABM agency can establish feedback loops to collect input from sales and CS teams. It shows the quality of leads your ABM efforts generate.
Hence, you can use the feedback to help your marketing team adjust lead-scoring criteria and content strategies. Furthermore, it meets sales and CS teams’ needs.
4. Creates Hyper-Personalized Messaging
The ABM agency often uses marketing automation platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, etc. These tools help you engage with accounts based on action triggers set by you.
Plus, the agency also employs personalization tools to offer your target accounts dynamic content. Some of the popular ones are Yieldify, Google Optimize, and Fresh Relevance.
These tools enable you to swap out content blocks or images within emails or web pages based on the recipient's attributes.
For example, a personalized email may address the recipient by name and reference their specific industry or pain points.
5. Helps Creating Industry-specific Content Development
Your ABM agency helps your business create industry-specific content. But how? It’s because ABM experts often specialize in specific industries or verticals. Hence, they understand your industry's nuances, challenges, and trends.
And their in-depth knowledge allows them to address the pain points of your ideal clients like no other.
6. Runs Multi-channel Campaigns
When you apply ABM in your campaigns, the multi-channel approach is a given. Some of the most common channels your ABM agency may use are:
- Email: To deliver personalized content, nurture leads, and close deals.
- Social Media: To improve your content’s visibility, build relationships, and drive traffic to your website.
- Direct Mail: To deliver personalized collateral.
- Webinars: To reach your target accounts one-on-one virtually.
- Trade Shows And Events: To design meetings around your customers' interests and personally engage with them.
- Sales call: To connect with sales opportunities with exclusive offerings.
We recommend you use a combination of channels to engage your target accounts at every stage of their buyer's journey.
7. Improves Your Relationship Building
You already know an ABM agency takes a highly personalized and targeted approach. Hence, your prospects’ relationships will undoubtedly prosper.
Abhi Bavishi, a leading growth marketer, further solidifies our above statement with his quote-
"Involving an ABM agency is like setting the GPS on your most lucrative targets. The honed-in strategy fast-tracks you past the realm of broad-stroked advertising into an era of relevance and relationships. It's not just a service, it's a selective, surgical advance in conquesting the most opportune markets."
Though anyone can use basic personalization steps, an ABM Agency goes beyond that, such as:
- Your ABM agency focuses on understanding individual prospects' unique needs, pain points, and preferences.
- They take an account-centric approach by engaging with multiple stakeholders within your target organization.
- Your ABM agency is well-equipped to send direct mail, customized emails, and one-to-one messaging to engage with your prospects.
- The agency displays personalized ads to specific individuals within your target accounts.
8. Employs Data Analytics to Measure Your Campaigns’ Effectiveness
Once you connect with an ABM agency, it ensures you always make data-driven marketing decisions. It makes it happen by tracking your:
- Website Traffic- To see which pages are most popular and which pages are driving conversions. Thus, you can use this information to improve your content and website design.
- Email Opens And Clicks- To see which of your emails are getting the most attention. It helps you to improve your email subject lines and content.
- Sales Opportunities- To see which campaigns are generating the most leads.
- ROI- To see which campaigns are generating the most revenue. Thus, you can decide which campaigns to continue and which ones to discontinue.
This data helps measure your lead generation campaign effectiveness in terms of:
- Reach: How many people were exposed to the campaign?
- Engagement: How many people interacted with the campaign?
- Conversions: How many people took the desired action, such as visiting a website, signing up for a demo, or purchasing?
- Return on Investment (ROI): How much revenue was generated from the campaign?
9. Identifies Cross-selling/Upselling Opportunities Within Your Existing Accounts
Your ABM agency works to gain a deep understanding of the target account understanding. It includes:
- Your primary contact or buyer
- All relevant stakeholders within the organization
Thus, it helps you map out the organizational structure and identify key decision-makers and influencers. As a result, you gain insights into the potential for cross-selling and upselling.
10. Provides Account Health Reporting
Your ABM agency’s reporting team often runs assessments of the health and progress of individual accounts. It can involve:
- Tracking account movement through various stages of the sales funnel
- Identifying potential roadblocks
- Highlighting opportunities for further engagement
Further, your ABM agency makes it easy for you to stay in touch with the latest reports via:
- Customized Dashboards Or Reporting Tools:
You can monitor campaign performance in real time. Plus, get a comprehensive view of all relevant metrics and KPIs in one place.
- Regular Reporting:
You receive reports at specific intervals depending on your campaign's duration and your preferences. But it is often monthly or quarterly. Thus, you always have insights into your campaign’s progress toward its objectives.
Join Revnew For Your ABM Needs!
Revnew is a leading ABM agency and can be your best companion. Our expertise and usage of the latest technology can level up your targeted marketing game.
We have a track record of turning ABM strategies into big successes. Our experts have loads of experience, and we are all about making solutions that fit you like a glove.
Additionally, we use the latest tech and are there for you every step of the way.
So why settle for less? Team up with Revnew and turn your B2B marketing dreams into reality!
FAQs
1. Does ABM Really Work?
Companies that use ABM found their reputation improving by 84% and their relationships with customers getting better by 80%. So, yes, ABM is effective.
2. What Is The Cost Per Lead For ABM?
You can calculate the Cost Per Lead (CPL) for ABM by dividing the amount of money spent by the number of leads you get. For example, if you spend $5,000 and get 50 leads, the CPL is $100 ($5,000 divided by 50).
3. How Do You Know If ABM Is For You?
Consider your sales cycle's duration when thinking about ABM. If your sales cycle only lasts a few days, ABM may not be effective. However, ABM is a great fit for you if your sales cycle ranges from 3 to 12 months or even longer.
4. What Is The Disadvantage Of ABM?
ABM can take up a lot of time and resources, especially at the beginning when you're looking closely at what needs to be done. This can be a problem for organizations that don't have a lot of resources to spare.