When to Use Account Based Marketing (ABM)

There are many strategies to help focus B2B marketing efforts. Among the most effective is Account-Based Marketing (ABM), a strategic marketing approach that focuses on targeting and engaging specific individual accounts or companies. ABM narrows your marketing focus towards a segmented, hand-selected group of customers that fit your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) rather than casting a wide net to a broader audience. It takes the concept of marketing towards your ideal customer and narrows the focus even further. Learning how and when to use account based marketing tactics can improve your sales funnel production.

The goal of ABM is to create highly personalized and targeted marketing campaigns that cater to the specific needs and preferences of key accounts or high-value customers. In traditional marketing, businesses often develop generic messages and content to reach a wide audience, hoping to attract potential customers among the masses. However, ABM flips this approach and customizes marketing efforts for individual accounts or a select group of high-priority accounts.

The ABM strategy involves the following key steps:

1. Identify target accounts: The first step in ABM is to identify and select the high-value accounts that align with the company’s ideal customer profile. These accounts are typically those with significant revenue potential or strategic importance.
2. Gather insights and research: Once the target accounts are identified, detailed research is conducted to understand the account’s specific needs, pain points, organizational structure, decision-making processes, and key stakeholders.
3. Personalize marketing messages: ABM involves creating tailored and personalized marketing messages, content, and offers for each target account. The content is designed to resonate with the account’s specific challenges and goals, showcasing how the company’s products or services can address their unique needs.
4. Select marketing channels: ABM uses a mix of marketing channels to reach the target accounts effectively. This could include email marketing, social media, direct mail, personalized website content, and one-to-one interactions such as phone calls or meetings.
5. Engage key stakeholders: ABM focuses on engaging multiple stakeholders within the target account, as buying decisions in B2B scenarios often involve various decision-makers and influencers. The marketing efforts aim to build relationships with these stakeholders and align the company’s offerings with their individual interests.
6. Measure and optimize: ABM campaigns are closely monitored and measured to assess their effectiveness. Metrics such as engagement rates, conversion rates, pipeline progression, and revenue generated from the targeted accounts are analyzed to optimize future ABM strategies.

ABM is particularly effective in B2B (business-to-business) marketing, where sales cycles are longer, and individual accounts hold significant value. And ABM works best when it represents a collaboration between all your customer-facing teams, including sales and customer support. They can provide valuable information about the needs and challenges of your target accounts. Once you have identified potential target accounts, engage in account profiling to deepen your understanding of each account. This involves researching the account’s business objectives, recent news or events, financial performance, and any other relevant information that can inform your ABM strategy. Engage in regular discussions with your sales team to get their input on target account selection and to ensure alignment on account-specific strategies.

By focusing efforts on a select group of accounts and delivering personalized experiences, ABM can lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased customer retention, and improved overall marketing ROI.

When Should You Use Account-Based Marketing?

ABM is a valuable strategy in specific scenarios where the company’s goals and customer engagement can benefit from a highly personalized and targeted approach.

Here are some situations when a company should use ABM:

1. High-value or strategic accounts: ABM is particularly effective when dealing with high-value accounts or strategic customers. If your business relies on a small number of key accounts for a significant portion of its revenue, ABM can be an ideal approach to nurture and deepen relationships with these accounts.
2. Long sales cycles: In B2B industries with long and complex sales cycles, ABM can be instrumental in engaging and nurturing key decision-makers within target accounts throughout the buying process. By providing personalized content and support, ABM can help accelerate the sales cycle and drive conversions.
3. Multiple stakeholders: When the buying decision involves multiple stakeholders with different needs and interests, ABM can help align the messaging and content to address each stakeholder’s concerns effectively.
4. Customizable offerings: Companies that offer customizable products or services can benefit from ABM since it allows them to showcase how their offerings can be tailored to meet the specific needs of individual accounts.
5. Account expansion and up-selling: ABM can be used to up-sell or cross-sell to existing customers within an account. By understanding the account’s needs and providing tailored solutions, companies can strengthen their relationships and increase customer lifetime value.
6. Penetrating new markets or industries: When a company aims to enter a new market or industry, ABM can be valuable for building relationships with key accounts in that sector. A personalized approach can demonstrate the company’s understanding of the industry’s unique challenges and position it as a trusted partner.
7. Limited marketing resources: ABM is a focused strategy that requires resources, and it may not be feasible for every company to implement ABM across its entire customer base. Companies with limited marketing resources can use ABM to concentrate their efforts on high-priority accounts that offer the most significant potential for growth and revenue.
8. High competition: In highly competitive industries where differentiation is crucial, ABM can help companies stand out by delivering unique and personalized experiences to target accounts.

Ultimately, the decision to use ABM should be based on a careful assessment of the company’s business objectives, target market characteristics, and the potential benefits of a more personalized marketing approach. By leveraging ABM strategically, companies can build stronger relationships with their most valuable customers and achieve better results in terms of customer acquisition, retention, and revenue growth.

The Four Stages of Digital Content for Lead Nurturing

At every stage of a buyer’s journey, buyers need to be able to learn more about the seller and its products or services. If you want to keep your leads engaged throughout the buyer’s journey (and steward them forward with an automated pre-sales education process) it’s essential to provide them with the right type of authentic educational content at the right time. This require creating the right type of content for every step in their buyer’s journey and your pre-sales education process.

The four stages of the buyer’s journey are a framework that marketers use to understand and address the different phases that a potential customer goes through before making a purchase decision. These stages are commonly used in inbound marketing and sales strategies.

This typically divides itself into four distinct stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Preference
• Decision

Let’s quickly look at all four stages and what type of content is required at each stage for effective lead nurturing.

AWARENESS

The first stage of a buyer’s journey is Awareness.

At this initial stage, the buyer realizes they have a problem or a need and they begin to research what solutions are available. They are seeking information and education about their challenges and trying to understand both the scope of their issues and the resources that will be required for a solution. During this phase, the buyer may not yet be aware of your specific product or brand. The goal for marketers is to raise awareness by providing valuable content, such as blog posts, educational videos, or social media content, that addresses the buyer’s pain points. At this point, the buyer isn’t ready to commit to speaking to a sales rep at length – they are still gathering data to inform their decision.

What type of content does a buyer want at the awareness stage?  At this stage the buyer wants content that helps educate them about their problem and how they should think about solving it. This can include blog posts, info-graphics, short videos and statistics. It may also include self-assessments.

CONSIDERATION

The second stage of a buyer’s journey is the Consideration stage. At this point the buyer has identified/agreed/decided that there is an issue/problem they need to address and is actively researching potential solutions. In this stage, the buyer will continue to conduct research to understand their problem and narrow down their solutions to a few final contenders and/or approaches to the solution. They will continue to do a little more research about the problem and the specific vendors that solve these problems.

Content that is valuable during the Consideration phase is content that dives deeper into the problem and the solution.  Content types for this stage may include features and benefits pages, webinars, and detailed demo videos.  Articles and videos that help buyers think about “what to consider…” are also helpful.

PREFERENCE

During the preference stage the B2B buyer will start to select their preferred solution.  They have narrowed down their options and are looking for the best fit for their specific requirements. Marketers need to provide content that supports the buyer’s decision-making process, such as customer reviews, testimonials, free trials, or discounts, to encourage them to choose their product or service. A potential customer may narrow down to one or two finalists. In this stage, they will almost always contact those vendors to speak to sales reps. Ideally your sales rep should have already reached out pro-actively at this point based on your buyers Lead Score.

This is when they start creating their business case and formalizing the purchase request with higher management. Content types that are effective during this stage include testimonials from existing customers, use cases, detailed webinars, use cases, pricing pages and about us pages.

DECISION

The fourth and final stage of the B2B buyers’ journey is the decision. At this point, your potential customers are deciding whether they should buy from you or a competitor. It’s important to make sure that they have all the information they need in order to make an informed decision.

What content does a buyer typically use to make a decision? During the decision stage, content like case studies and detailed product comparison pages become very important. Additionally, anything that can provide reassurance to the buyer that they are making the right choice is also useful. This could include customer testimonials, awards and certifications, technical details, customer service expectations and, in some cases, even free trials or samples.  ROI videos and ROI calculators are also helpful at this stage.

How Targeted Marketing and Ideal Customer Profiles Improve Campaigns and Lead Nurturing

In this article, we will explain the benefits of integrating your targeted marketing practices with your ideal customer profiles.  Combining the two tools enables businesses to optimize their marketing efforts, improve the relevance and personalization of content, increase conversion rates, build stronger customer relationships, and drive better customer acquisition and retention outcomes. It maximizes the effectiveness of marketing strategies and ensures that resources are allocated to the most valuable customer segments.

So, let’s start by defining terms.

What is B2B targeted marketing?

B2B targeted marketing, also known as business-to-business targeted marketing, refers to the practice of tailoring marketing efforts and strategies specifically to businesses, rather than individual consumers. It involves promoting and selling products or services from one business to another.

In B2B targeted marketing, the focus is on reaching key decision-makers within the target businesses, such as executives, managers, or purchasing agents, who have the authority to make purchasing decisions on behalf of their organizations. The goal is to create awareness, generate interest, and ultimately convince these businesses to engage in a commercial relationship.

What is an ideal customer profile?

An ideal customer profile (ICP) is a fictional representation of the perfect customer for a business. It is a detailed description of the type of customer who is most likely to derive the highest value from a company’s products or services. The ICP helps businesses identify and target their most desirable customer segments more effectively.

By understanding your ideal customer profile, both Digital Demand Center and our customers can better tailor marketing strategies to reach the most qualified prospects. The creation of an ideal customer profile involves analyzing and understanding the characteristics, behaviors, and needs of existing successful customers. Here are some key components typically considered when developing an ICP:

• Title and Level of Contact – You want to ensure your marketing efforts reach buyers that can make or influence a purchase decision.
• Functional Area – Understanding the specific roles or departments involved in purchasing decisions, such as procurement, marketing, IT, finance, operations, human resources, and executive leadership, is crucial for effective targeting. Tailoring messaging to decision-makers’ needs and priorities within these functional areas enhances campaign effectiveness.
  
• Vertical Market – This is especially important if having existing referrals or expertise is important to close the sales.
• Demographics – This includes information such as industry, company size, location, annual revenue, and employee count. These demographics help identify businesses that align with the company’s target market.
• How to Run an Account Based Marketing Campaign – Identifying the specific challenges, problems, or needs that the ideal customer faces helps position the company’s offerings as solutions. This understanding enables businesses to create targeted marketing campaigns that address these pain points effectively.

We also recommend that you look at past customers that you struggle to retain. This means analyzing your past failures. Understand what type of customers drive the least amount of revenue for the most effort.

Three Reasons Why an Ideal Customer Profile Is Important for B2B Targeted Marketing and Lead Nurturing?

An ideal customer profile is a key factor in any successful B2B marketing strategy. Defining an ICP helps you understand how to:

1. Maximize your targeted marketing budget.
2. Decide what content to create for your campaigns.
3. Ensure better open rates for email campaigns.

How does an ideal customer profile help you to understand what marketing channels to use for your business?

An ideal customer profile can help you understand which marketing channels to use by giving you an idea of where your audience resides. Knowing the age of your target customer will can help you choose the most effective platforms and methods for reaching them so that you’re not wasting time, energy or resources on marketing that won’t be successful.

By understanding where and how your target audience likes to receive messages, you can craft campaigns that deliver maximum reach and engagement. For example, if you’re marketing to baby boomers, it might make sense to focus more on Facebook and display ads than other social media to build your initial awareness. Similarly, when your ICP contains the characteristics of your target customers, such as industry, company size, and location, you can more easily identify the platforms or channels commonly used by your target audience. For example, if your ideal customers are primarily active on LinkedIn and attend industry-specific events, this suggests that utilizing these channels could be beneficial for reaching and engaging with them.

If your target audience heavily relies on online research and engages with content through social media, investing in digital marketing channels like social media advertising, content marketing, or search engine optimization (SEO) could be effective. On the other hand, if your customers prefer face-to-face interactions, attending trade shows, conferences, or industry events, may be more suitable. If you’re targeting millennials or Gen Z, digital platforms like Instagram and YouTube would likely be more effective.

Finally, an ICP can also help you identify opportunities for expanding into new markets or demographics. For example, if you see that a certain segment of your target audience is disproportionately engaging with influencers on TikTok, it could be a sign that you should consider investing in influencer partnerships to reach those buyers. By understanding where and how your target audience prefers to receive messages, you can tailor content and campaigns for maximum efficiency.

But it’s important to remember that, according to Salesforce and Hubspot, email remains the preferred channel for initial awareness and education for the B2B buyer.

How does an Ideal Customer Profile help you decide what content format to create for your campaigns?

Your ideal customer profile can also help you decide what content format will be most effective for engaging with your target audience. Depending on the interests, goals and needs of your ICP, certain formats may be more suitable. For example, if your ICP consists of younger generations, then creating visual content such as infographics or videos might be effective in capturing their attention.

On the other hand, if your ICP consists mainly of professionals, then creating content such as white papers and webcasts may be more appropriate. This is especially true if you have a complex sales process that requires building trust with your buyers over time.

Understanding the interests and needs of your ICP will help you identify which formats would be most suitable for delivering quality content that resonates with them and encourages them to become curious about your solution.

No matter what format you choose, it is important to always be mindful of the message you are trying to communicate. Focus on creating content that is accurate and clear, as this will help your audience easily understand the information being provided. Additionally, ensure that your content is relevant to the interests of your ICP.

How does an Ideal Customer Profile Help you build better email subject lines?

Knowing your ideal customer profile helps you create better email subject lines that will resonate with your target audience.

Email subject lines will be tailored to the potential buyers’ needs and also help to make it clear why they should open the message.  By focusing on areas of need and potential pain you will get more opens.

For example, C-Level Executives care about strategy and the organization’s performance:  They prefer subject lines that are often more top line focused like:

• “A Proven Strategy to Increase Your Profits”
• “How Does XXXXXX Increased Productivity?”

By focusing on the top line and strategic value that you are providing, C-level executives will be more likely to open your message.

And as a second example when selling to managers you may want to stay focused on their team and efficiency. When writing email subject lines for managers, they should also be clear and informative but focused on the team, cost savings and shorter-term goals such as:

• “Learn How to Increase Your Team’s Efficiency”
• “Increase Productivity with This Simple Solution”
• “How To Increase Production This Quarter With…”
• “Discover How You Can Save Resources”

Summary

By developing an ideal customer profile, businesses can focus their marketing efforts and resources on attracting and serving customers who are most likely to become long-term, profitable relationships. The ICP guides various aspects of marketing, including messaging, content creation, lead generation, and customer acquisition strategies.

To learn more about how Digital Demand Center can help you maximize your sales and marketing budget we invite you to check out our eBook on the Digital First Transformation.