If you’re a marketer, there’s a strong chance you’ve either implemented or are considering integrating an Account based marketing (ABM) approach into your outbound strategy. One reason ABM has the marketing world on fire is because it has the potential to open up entirely new revenue channels. It’s no longer a pipe dream to be able to identify the universe of accounts that are a good fit for your product and deliver personalization at scale – via targeted advertising, direct mail, and sales outreach.
A 2016 FlipMyFunnel research report, which surveyed over 200 B2B marketers to uncover how they’re currently using or planning to use ABM, revealed that 49% of marketers surveyed have been running ABM campaigns for less than six months. But, a whopping 71% are planning on adding ABM tools next year alone.
So, what is driving the need for businesses to build an ABM program and how do you successfully implement one?
As companies look for new ways to win upmarket revenue, we’re seeing a shift away from traditional lead gen strategies to a more “quality over quantity” ABM approach. “Predictive prevents account-based marketing from turning into a problematic ‘spray and pray’ approach. ABM helps companies identify their target audience and personalize their message, and the key to success in ABM is personalization at scale,” says Sangram Vajre, co-founder and CMO of Terminus, and author of Account-Based Marketing for Dummies.
Predictive analytics brings a whole new perspective to ABM, but it’s important to be strategic about how you leverage it to avoid adding more noise. At Infer, we’ve come up with a simple 4-stage framework that walks you through how to build a targeted account list, add net-new contacts and accounts, map your ABM tactics, and measure success:
Often, the hardest — and most time-consuming — part of getting an ABM campaign out the door is building a targeted account list. With predictive, you can build your target list with far more confidence and intelligence than ever before. As account-based marketing gains steam, it’s important to note that this universe encompasses more than your current CRM or marketing automation platform customer database; it includes external signals and net new accounts you should be targeting. Through account scoring, personas, behavior scoring, and custom signals like technographics, you have the ability to hyper-segment your list so that your ABM strategy is focused on a stack-ranked list of the best accounts. To be successful, especially with predictive-driven marketing, you need effective techniques to segment and target these groups.
As the research notes, the abundance of growing ABM tools and tactics represents an exciting time for B2B marketers to find new ways to drive higher conversion rates, larger average deal size, and deliver personalization at scale. To help you capitalize on this opportunity and successfully execute a sound ABM strategy, we’ve put together this guide on how to implement Infer’s “Account-based Marketing in a Predictive World” 4-stage framework.
So, B2B marketers of the world, “Let’s market smarter and win together.”
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