Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B strategy that aligns the marketing and sales teams together to target a high-intent account with maximum possibility of conversion.
ABM is:
- Strategic in focus
- Customized in approach
- Personalized in messaging
- An individual in targeting
- Distinct from mass marketing
The main goal of account-based marketing is to build long-term relationships, stronger engagement, and achieve more return on investment compared to broad-based marketing.
Why Account-Based Marketing Matters in B2B?
Approximately 84% marketers found a higher return on investment on account-based marketing than other marketing strategies. Let’s see some statistics that show why account-based marketing is the king of marketing strategies.
- 76% respondent reports higher ROI
- 87% B2B marketers prefer ABM
- 80% business says that after using ABM, ROI becomes 2X
- 28% faster sales
- 35% higher deal close
- 44% companies see a reduction in customer churn
- 68% companies report ABM improves sales and marketing
If you still have doubts, let’s see some conceptual impacts that come from using account-based marketing for your business.
- Aligns sales and marketing, Boosts ROI
- Increases personalization and engagement
- Generates high-quality leads
- Improves customer loyalty
- Optimizes resource allocation
We have done rough digging on finding reasons why account-based marketing matters for the B2B industry. So now let’s move on to the next part.
Types of Account-Based Marketing Frameworks
The main types of account-based marketing (ABM) frameworks are one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many. Let’s break down how those frameworks work to market your business.
One-to-one (1:1): Strategic ABM
- Focus: One single, high-value account.
- Personalization: Very high. Every campaign is made just for that account.
- Resources: It takes time, effort, and budget.
- Best for: Your most important accounts where you want a deep, long-term relationship.
One to few (1:Few): ABM lite
- Focus: A small group of accounts with similar traits (industry, size, or challenges).
- Personalization: Content is customized to the group, not each account.
- Resources: Good balance between personal touch and efficiency.
- Best for: A cluster of accounts that share the same needs.
One to many (1: Many): Programmatic ABM
- Focus: A large number of accounts using automation and tech.
- Personalization: Based on account data and broad patterns.
- Resources: Relies on tools and automation.
- Best for: Reaching many accounts quickly, and great for scaling or after targeted campaigns.
Account-Based Marketing Strategy Framework
Account-based marketing is not a single-action task; it takes step-by-step execution to bring you a better result. Strategic ABM aligns each stage carefully, and when combined with B2B lead generation. Let’s break down strategic ABM in the discussion below on how those steps are aligned and effective.
Step 1: Define Target Accounts
Identifying the target account is the key action for account-based marketing. The term says the meaning or the approach of this marketing strategy. Marketing based on account means finding an account that matches your ideal customer profile and taking steps to convert it into a customer.
Use multiple data sources to identify matching accounts:
- Firmographics: Find your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) according to industry, company size, revenue, and location.
- Technographics: See if your prospect has a similar demand for tools, software, and platforms if your product or service is technology-related.
- First-party website engagement: Pages viewed, time spent, and repeat visits are aspects of your ideal customer profile identifying criteria.
- Third-party intent data: Topics they are researching across the web
According to those criteria, once you have got your ICP, you can go to the next step of aligning marketing and sales.
Step 2: Align Sales and Marketing
The main benefit comes from when the sales and marketing team work on the same prospect or account with collaboration, then it becomes easier to analyse the prospect’s details. Let’s see how the sales and marketing team aligns.
- Collaboration on shared goals
- Prioritize the target account together
- Creates a single and unified strategy
- Works on shared data feedback loop
Step 3: Develop Account Plans
Developing an account plan includes research about the company’s structure, pain points, etc. Let’s break down how you can develop an account plan for an account-based marketing strategy in the points below.
- Try to research the company structure, decision-makers, and pain points.
- Define engagement strategy with clear touchpoints and ownership.
- Carefully identify key decision makers, champions, influencers, and blockers.
- Map product or service benefits to their business pain points.
- Set timelines and milestones for outreach and conversion.
Step 4: Design Personalized Campaigns
Designing a personalized plan for your account-based marketing campaign is the heart of the process. Say, you have found your ICP and are reaching them with content that is not personalized and does not add value to the prospect; everything is meaningless to the prospect. So you have to create something that is meaningful, and that makes the prospect notice and pushes them to the next step.
- Create content customized to each account (case studies, whitepapers, landing pages).
- Select channels where stakeholders are most active (LinkedIn, email, industry forums).
- Build messaging hierarchy: awareness > consideration > decision.
- Develop creative assets such as personalized ads and account-specific webinars.
- Equip sales with customized platforms, one-pagers, and talking points.
Step 5: Measure and Optimize
It’s important to measure how well your ABM game is because if your expected strategy does not match the actual on-field play, then you need to work on that area. Utilize feedback loops between your sales and marketing teams to optimize campaigns. Optimize by ramping up the good, cutting the bad. Double down where channels are working and cut anywhere they are not.
- Monitor engagement: Important aspects of engagement include open rates (emails), impressions (ads), attendance on webinars, and visits to the website.
- Monitor pipeline: The Monitoring track is focused on metrics of outcomes like meetings, opportunities, and deal velocity.
- Assess revenue: closed-won deals, average deal size, and customer lifetime value.
The key is to find out which action is the flaw in your process. You should be concentrating on what limitations are hindering your team’s ability to deliver KPI stack satisfaction and streamlining those.
Account-Based Marketing Models
The Flip Funnel Model
This model is by Sangram Vajre and Eric Spett. It inverts the old marketing funnel. Instead of casting a wide net, you pick specific accounts that you want to do business with.
The flip funnel four-stage models:
- Identify: Select high-value accounts that you want to go after. Choose companies that are a good fit for your business.
- Expand: Form connections to more than one prospect at those companies. Not all who are not your potential ideal customers.
- Engage: Develop custom campaigns that address each account and keep them engaged with multiple channel outreach.
- Advocate: Convert your customers into fans. Compel them to talk about your brand with others.
It is because, the big idea goes, you are treating each account as its own market. This is not at all what the average marketing has been.
The TEAM Framework (Target, Engage, Activate, Measure)
This model provides a straightforward, actionable roadmap for ABM. The TEAM framework is an acronym for target, engage, activate, and measure. So, let’s discuss the four layers of account-based marketing in the TEAM framework.
- Target: Pick your ideal accounts. Leverage data about company sizes, the tech they use, and what they are interested in.
- Engage: Develop customized campaigns for each account. Use multiple channels. Make your message address their needs in particular.
- Activate: Engage your sales and marketing teams to work together. Escort these accounts through the buying process as a group.
- Measure: Track the right metrics. Consider activity on accounts, the velocity of deals, and actual revenue. Don’t just count leads.
The key here is teamwork. Sales and marketing must be in lock step from beginning to end. There are many more frameworks available in this industry, and you are allowed to use any of them if your business fits them.
The SiriusDecisions ABM Framework
This is a comprehensive model used by many large companies. It breaks ABM into three types based on how many accounts you are targeting.
Process of SiriusDecisions ABM framework:
- Preparation
- Prioritization
- Planning
- Execution
- Measurement
Foundation of SiriusDecisions ABM framework:
- Insights
- Communication
- Technology
- Organization, Roles, Competencies
The framework shows you that different accounts need different approaches. Your biggest accounts deserve more personalized attention. Smaller accounts can be grouped together.
All three approaches include finding the right accounts, learning about them, running programs, and measuring results.
How to Execute an ABM Program Successfully?
Not only account-based marketing, but anything you want to do that brings profit needs proper planning. Account-based marketing is a very accurate and specific marketing process. So we have classified your execution process into three categories.
- Plan and align: Create a solid plan for marketing, like how you will find fit accounts, how to measure that they actually fit your ideal customer profile, etc.
- Personalize and engage: In this step, create your content strategy, pick outreach channels, and personalize messages.
- Measure and optimize: Once you have implemented the account-based marketing strategy, measure your team’s performance and fix flaws by optimizing them.
You just need to implement every step properly without making mistakes. Your ABM program will be executed successfully and bring you results.
Conclusion
Account-based marketing is a specific and acute marketing strategy. In this strategy, identifying ICP is very important because you will personalize every lead and make them feel like they are the only customer you are dealing with, so if you mistakenly target the wrong prospect, all effort will be ruined.
