What is Account Based Marketing?

How To Run Account Based Selling For Your B2B Company

In the past, there was a one size fits all marketing approach. Now, it is more tailored.

This article will help you understand what account based marketing is and how it can be applied to your company. It will also show you how it can benefit you in the future. In fact, we at MAN Digital were able to generate over 228 qualified leads for our agency services by purely focusing on target accounts in only 6 months.

In Short:

1. Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy that focuses on targeting the right people with the right message at the right time.
2. It's not about blasting your target audience with irrelevant messages, but rather creating an individualized experience for each person based on their needs and interests.
3. ABM helps you get closer to customers by understanding who they are, what they need, and when they need it.

Grab your ☕ or 🍵 and let's get started.

Table of Contents

1. What Does Account-Based Marketing Mean?
2. What Is Account-Based Marketing?
3. Why Account-Based Marketing Important?
4. Account-Based Marketing vs Inbound Marketing
5. Account-Based Marketing Stats
6. Types of Account-Based Marketing
7. Account Based Marketing Playbooks
8. Account-Based Marketing Metrics
9. Account-Based Marketing Maturity Model
10. What is an ABM Platform?
11. What is Account Based Advertising?
12. Data Providers for ABM
13. Wrapping up

What Does Account-Based Marketing Mean?

It’s a B2B approach targeting specific accounts rather than posting content to everyone. Account-based marketing is not about doing less.

It’s about targeting better.

Here’s how MAN Digital approaches this:

Our Total Market is businesses looking to build and optimize their Marketing & Sales funnels.

Our Target Market consists of B2B Tech companies.

In MAN Digital target accounts are specific Software Houses in Poland with 100+ employees.

Lastly, our Strategic Accounts, Opportunities, and Customers are all evolution stages of the Target Accounts as they move along the buying journey.

We use HubSpot to track all activity within and around target accounts. This allows us to stay focused on opening the deals that matter most. Additionally, we leverage account-based marketing tools to enhance sales and marketing collaboration through automation and personalized campaigns.

With ABM, you’re moving from one-time sales opportunities to long-term relationships, focusing on high-value accounts and using personalized messaging to boost revenue.

What Is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-based marketing is a term that has been around for years. However, it's recently been given new life.

The easiest way to lay out the ABM philosophy is by using the TEAM Framework by Terminus:

• Target - Target and Segment your accounts (involve your sales team)
• Engage - Orchestrate engagement strategies with your targeted accounts
• Activate - Develop sales tactics and plays to convert sales.
• Measure - Get insights of your ABM programs and optimize

This framework helps marketers develop targeted lists of highly engaged customers or prospects primed for conversion through strategic activation campaigns tailored to them.

Below is an example of an ABM framework we use for MAN Digital.

Why is Account-Based Marketing Important?

Simply, it is more effective for B2B businesses with long sales cycles. According to Boston Consulting Group, ABM programs experience 50% faster sales velocity.

• Here is another astonishing fact from Altera Group: 97% of marketers say ABM has a higher ROI than other marketing activities.
• ABM’s practitioners experience a 285% lift in win rate (Engagio)
• Account-based marketing delivers a 40% decrease in customer acquisition costs (Forrester)

ABM aligns the marketing and sales team, leading to more effective targeting of qualified accounts.

Using account-based marketing campaigns, customers who come from target accounts have an average conversion rate three times higher than those coming in through different channels (Forrester).

Account-Based Marketing vs Inbound Marketing

Account Based Marketing is a combination of approaches, focusing on building long term relationships with target accounts instead of one-to-one individual engagements.

ABM’s benefits can be summarized in the following table:

Account-Based Marketing Stats

The numbers show that ABM is an investment worth making with a high return. Compared to traditional biz-to-biz marketing, account-based has outperformed by 39%.

• ABM brought 58 qualified leads and 3 high-ticket opportunities of 6-figure value to a case study alongside Skyrise.tech.

Types of Account-Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing comes in three major types:

• One to one
• One to few
• One to many

One-to-one ABM is a high-end of Account-Based Marketing focused on accounts with the biggest value. One-to-few ABM targets account clusters based on shared attributes. One to many ABM addresses a broader set of accounts, creating content that establishes general expertise.

Account Based Marketing Metrics

Metrics used to measure and optimize ABM campaigns include:

• Engagement by account
• Meetings within accounts
• Opportunity Rate
• Account Conversion Rate

Implement account-based marketing to track these metrics and see what is working.

Wrapping up

Account Based Marketing may be the most important marketing trend today. The entire approach can be summarized as:

1. Target a limited number of accounts identified by Sales and Marketing together.
2. Research and approach each account in a personalized way.
3. Develop targeted content and campaigns.
4. Measure and optimize for a set of high-value accounts.

If you need the help of qualified ABM experts, get in touch.