As a B2B marketer, can you relate to the following challenges?
- Maximizing the effectiveness of your (small) team
- Justifying your use of budget in a market downturn
- Getting higher win rates and shortening your sales cycle
- Seeing down-funnel results of your programs fast
ABM is a tried-and-proven way to help your business become more efficient in uncertain times and beyond. Why? Here are some of the best reasons to implement ABM now:
1. ABM delivers higher ROI
With an account-based focus, you’ll be able to target specific accounts with the highest fit, intent, and engagement to help drive revenue fast. And this hyper-focused approach optimizes both employee resources and demand gen budget. As found in ITSMA’s 2023 study, 77% of ABM users saw revenue growth and 72% found ABM delivered a higher ROI compared to other types of marketing.
In other words, ABM initiatives outperform other marketing investments’ ROI. For example, when Dialpad introduced a new product offering, their Senior Demand Gen Manager wanted to target the specific accounts most likely to buy that product. By leveraging ABM and the capabilities of RollWorks Account-Based Advertising, Dialpad saw 52% of deals closed faster and 3.25x ROI. Those results may not have been possible without a laser focus on the highest value accounts.
2. ABM has big wins, even for small businesses
In a challenging B2B marketing landscape, ABM is a strategy savvy small businesses both need and increasingly embrace. And more and more small businesses are leveraging 1:many ABM campaigns to supersize their results, without supersizing their team. Auditoria’s small but mighty marketing team was able to reach 93% of their 15,000 target account lists by focusing on a core subset of 100-150 companies at a time. Beyond targeting high-priority accounts, Auditoria also saw a 208% increase in the number of accounts from their TAL engaging with their brand.
3. ABM keeps you ahead of the competition
With an account-based strategy, you'll have a greater chance of capturing demand before your competition does. With this type of insight, you'll get to know your customer behavior and intentions best to create more effective digital ads and overall messaging that both resonates with best-fit accounts and beats the competition.
Of the companies that have already implemented ABM programs, 71% of companies reported an increase to their ABM spending in FY2023. In other words, if you haven’t adopted ABM to get ahead of your competition yet - now would definitely be the time.
4. ABM works in as little as 90 days
Unlike it’s slow and cumbersome reputation, ABM can deliver fast results. Once you’ve defined your ABM strategy and set up your campaigns ABM can deliver value in as little as 90 days.
Within only 3 months of their first ABM initiative, BlackBaud saw 4x larger sales opportunities using ABM by focusing on the singular goal of using targeted display ads to increase the number of engaged target accounts. Blackbaud’s digital marketing team lead Sam Kuehnle said, “Thanks to [BlackBaud’s] new targeting abilities — we don’t have to throw out 20 messages and hope that one lands. We can mention the specific pain points we know you're going through and how we can help you.”
HOW TO GET STARTED IN ABM
Now that you’ve decided to adopt ABM to beat your competitors, it’s time to form your strategy and get started. While kicking off an ABM campaign isn’t as simple as flipping a switch, we can recommend the best course of action for getting started. We’ve outlines the full ABM planning process before, but will cover the main ideas below:
1. Build the Case for ABM
ABM requires a team effort, so be prepared to explain why your team should adopt this strategy. You’ll also need to anticipate skepticism and build out a roadmap for your team to follow. Once you create the business case for ABM, the wheels will start to turn in motion.
2. Integrate your ABM Plan with your Demand Gen Plan
It may be easier to sell ABM to stakeholders if you can demonstrate how account-based marketing and demand generation work together.
3. Build a Comprehensive Understanding of Your Audience
Marketers know how important audience building is; ABM is no different. Start your pitch for ABM by segmenting and building out your target audiences.
4. Craft your ABM Project with Program Initiatives
This is possibly the best part of building your ABM plan: figuring out how to build the programs that will drive engagement across channels. You’ll need to decide on your ABM channels and vendors, define your goals and initiatives by funnel stage, and get as specific as possible.
5. Define your Campaign’s Success
Once you complete your trial run of ABM, it’s time to measure your campaign’s success. Knowing the metrics that matter to ABM will be key to realizing your account-based programs potential.
About the Author
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