Account Based Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

In 2021, it is expected that Account Based Marketing (ABM) will be eagerly adopted by companies. This Account Based Marketing Guide will help you understanding this tactic better.

According to the 2020 State of ABM Report, companies reported that 79% of their sales opportunities are due to their implementation of Account Based Marketing.

The same study shows businesses who are in their early stages of Account Based Marketing display at least 18% of their company’s overall revenue. It’s no wonder that 67% of brands are gravitating towards ABM.

With this in mind, Account Based Marketing is becoming more than just a passing trend. It is a solid tactic that will increase the performance of your marketing team and overall business.

Understanding the Definition of Account Based Marketing

Account Based Marketing is an approach that identifies high-value target accounts which will be transformed into customers.

This requires a strong alignment between both Marketing & Sales as the strategy demands their expertise to work in sync. Besides locating relevant accounts, you will also need to penetrate them before closing deal

What makes ABM a favorable tactic is its personalized 1:1 approach. To implement this strategy, companies must establish partnerships that are not generic.

ABM strongly emphasizes on the effectiveness of creating engaging, active dialogue to win the hearts of potential clients. After all, marketing isn’t a one-way street.

Why is Account Based Marketing Important

1. Establishes meaningful and long-lasting relationships with potential clients by using personalized forms of communication.
2. Delivers higher ROI compared to traditional marketing strategies.
3. Structures your marketing resources efficiently onto certain accounts that are predicted to garner high profitability.
4. Encourages constant collaboration and teamwork between sales and marketing departments.
5. Allows companies to track down the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns and evaluate them accordingly.

Step-by-Step Guide to Account Based Marketing

Step 1: Identify your target accounts.

Let’s break it down in non-marketing lingo. The key driver of a successful ABM campaign is identifying and reaching the high-value clients.

Keep in mind that what we’re surveying for is accounts, not just individuals.

Instead of running broad campaigns across all your prospects, you are now only focusing on real qualified leads and creating a targeted campaign.

Start off by going through your database in your CRM and single out these valuable target accounts.

Step 2: Pinpoint stakeholders and their job functions.

We call it a target account and not target customers because we want to maximise our relevance and business value by involving all key stakeholders in the nurturing process.

Each stakeholder plays a major role in the eventual decision making process of engaging with you. 

Therefore, we need to invest time and effort to learn more about your target accounts. All this information would help to create a personalised experience for each identified contact and tracking information.

Be sure to tap into resources like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Hubspot & Zoom Info for your research.

Step 3: What’s in it for them? Learn about their pain points.

It’s great that we’ve figured out who we want to target. But remember, why do they need you?

Consider your unique selling point and the importance of why they should engage you. Similarly, you’ll need to spend time to understand their challenges and identify the gaps.

It’s essential to leverage on all this information because you’ll be able to better position/upsell your business to serve their needs & be more resonating with them. You’re already forming a meaningful relationship.

Step 4: Get your A-team aligned.

Now that we have all these data to get started, make sure your team has both Marketing and Sales people working together.

This is a major key because we’re documenting, tracking and monitoring all interactions of the account using Account based reporting dashboards.

The Sales rep can keep track of their KPIs whereas the Marketer can look into the engagement of each contact related to the account.

P.S. Don’t forget to document everything in your CRM!

Implement Your Account Based Marketing Strategy With Us

To ensure we successfully execute an Account Based Marketing campaign, we need to invest in planning and more planning.

While mapping out the accounts may seem tedious and time-consuming, ABM has been delivering the highest ROI of all this far.

digitus specializes in Account Based Marketing and its implementation in various organizational settings.

We’re here to set a solid foundation for nurturing and retaining clients, as well as guide you through each step for a successful marketing campaign.

Contact us now to book a consultation.