In the world of marketing, people have started to become more interested in something called account-based marketing (ABM). ABM is a form of strategic business marketing where a business takes a customer account or individual prospect and treats it like its own market. ABM is most relevant to B2B and is typically practiced by enterprise-level sales organizations because it’s very helpful for businesses with multiple stakeholders.
The main goal of account-based marketing is to connect to all of the stakeholders within a business and address the needs of that business as a whole. In order to start practicing ABM, you should follow these four basic steps.
4 Steps to Account-Based Marketing
1. Find your target audience and do your research.
With account-based marketing, you’re dealing with organizations, not people, so this step is not to identify buyer personas but rather to identify your target accounts with input from both marketing and sales. You’ll need to get data on information such as company size, location, industry and annual revenue. After you’ve determined your target, do your research to figure out who the key players are within the organization, and figure out how your product or service can be best conveyed to them.
2. Develop the right content.
Now that you have determined your target accounts and who the key players are within those accounts, you need to create content specifically for them. Make sure this content speaks to the pain points of not only the key players but also to the organization as a whole. Click here to find out how to create compelling content that people will actually want to read!
3. Determine the right channels to use.
Once you have great content, you must be sure that you’re sending it out on the right channels to promote it. Think about where the specific people within each target are spending their time online. It’s very likely they are on Facebook, but also consider LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, etc. It is also wise to invest in advertising on these platforms to ensure your content is being seen and that you’re targeting the right organizations on these platforms.
4. Run your campaign and measure your results.
Now it’s time to execute your plan! Be sure you’re monitoring your ads and examining the number of clicks, the click-through rate, and cost per click. You’ll also want to monitor your website to check the bounce rate and the number of conversions and actual customers you’re getting. If any of these numbers are not where you had hoped they would be, re-evaluate the previous steps here to make sure you’re hitting the right organizations, with the right content, at the right places online.
Now that you understand how to get started with account-based marketing, give it a shot! When done correctly, ABM can yield great results for B2B companies. If you're interested in learning more about account-based marketing or inbound marketing, schedule a free consultation with Blue Frog today!
