What is Account Based Marketing? Top ABM FAQs 2023

• Introduction
•  What is Account Based Marketing?
• What is an Account Based Marketing Strategy?
• When Should I use Account Based Marketing?
• Why is Account Based Marketing Important
• How does Account Based Marketing Work?
• How to Select Accounts!
• How to get in touch with Decision Makers
• How to Engage with Decision Maker

• Steps to Account Based Marketing
•  How to Select Accounts for Account Based Marketing
• What is Tiering?
• Tier 1 (5-10 accounts)
• Tier 2 (10-100 accounts)
• Tier 3 (1000 or more accounts)

• What is Account Based Content Marketing?
• What is an Account Based Marketing Funnel?

• How Do I Approach Through LinkedIn
• Benefits of Account Based Marketing
• Higher ROI.
• Freedom to Choose an Account.

• What Kind of Companies can Implement Account Based Marketing?
• Build an Account Based Marketing Strategy.
• Identify your Key Accounts.
• Align your Teams
• Focus on Social
• Identify Your Channels and Craft your Message
• Qualify and Manage Accounts

• What is an Account Based Marketing platform?
• Identify
• Prospect
• Engage

• Conclusion

Introduction

Account Based Marketing (ABM) and its various strategies have been designed for B2B companies to get in business with huge dream companies. It takes a certain amount of budget, time, and effort from all levels of your business. One of the notable features of Account Based Marketing is, every time your organization will need to onboard, and help concentrate their efforts towards the few key accounts you want to work with.

Every small and mid-size company has a list of companies they want to work with. Some dream of working with Nike, while some with Procter and Gamble. One of the many things common with these mega-companies is they have a complicated hierarchy and multiple decision-makers. To work with them, would take the life out of a newly founded small or mid-size company. How can one even begin to get into business with any Mega Company?

In this article we will learn everything there is to know about Account Based Marketing. In detail, you will see how your business can start with Account-based marketing When you need to start implementing ABM Strategies, and How companies like Intandemly are making it possible for small and midsize companies to implement strategies.

You will also learn how accounts are selected and how your business can start getting leads from your dream companies.

 What is Account Based Marketing?

Account Based Marketing is a very powerful concept derived from B2B marketing strategies. In its nature, it flips the funnel to form a focused group of accounts and diverts efforts to close these accounts.

Account Based Marketing combines the efforts of your sales and marketing team to work together by going after a few select accounts. Unlike regular marketing, Account Based Marketing (As the name suggests) requires the teams of your organization to focus on individual accounts, rather than industry-wide. This strategy aims to connect with the target accounts and generate a lead while creating a meaningful connection.

This strategy works perfectly for approaching large companies with multiple decision-makers. Allowing you to create a long-term relationship even if the person in contact is relocated.

What is an Account Based Marketing Strategy?

Account Based Marketing Strategy involves a selection of accounts and marketing to key people within an account with content specifically created to grab their attention. Account Based Marketing Strategy is said to have the highest ROI compared to any other B2B Marketing Strategy.

Mainly the focus is narrow. In comparison to the Demand Generation Strategy where marketing and sales focus more on the entire industry, in Account Based Marketing, the Marketing and sales team focus is focused on a few select accounts.

This enables the strategy to be an efficient exercise for all the teams. The Strategy begins with Selecting a few accounts that are more likely to convert. This is quantified based on multiple factors and can vary from company to company.

Most organizations pick accounts based on the product/service they are offering, and who would most likely benefit from being its customer.

Under an Account Based Marketing Strategy, the efficiency of the entire organization increases. This happens because the reception of new clients, managed by the Sales and Marketing teams, is handled by both teams on an account level.

In other words, since the sales and marketing teams are collaborating on the front, it makes it easier for them to exchange ideas, messages, and reporting with each other. Making the journey made by new accounts much smoother.

When Should I use Account Based Marketing?

Account Based Marketing is highly suitable for B2B companies who are aiming to work with high-end clients. The entire process of closing a deal can easily take weeks, months or in some cases, a year or more.

The underlying principle dictates a lot of waiting and budget expenses, making it a suitable strategy for Large-Size B2B companies. However, thanks to advancements in technology, and the rise of cloud-based applications, Account Based Marketing is becoming affordable for most mid and small-size companies of all industries.

Some companies like Intandemly offer tools and platforms for Small and Midsize companies, perfectly capable of executing account based marketing strategies and principles by a small team of 1-4 users.

Ideally, account based marketing should be implemented by B2B companies whose target customers are high-ticket accounts. that is priced at a range of $1,000 Subscription, or a one-time cost of $10,000 or more. These figures are just to set a ballpark for businesses to understand before considering applying Account based marketing.

Additionally, ABM & sales expert Sampath Mallidi suggests new businesses getting into ABM should allocate only about 30% of their entire budget into account based marketing, and concentrate the majority of their budget into other forms of marketing like Outbound & Inbound.

Since the closing of a deal through account based Marketing is time-consuming, companies starting with ABM need to plan to score most of their forecast leads through other strategies. Otherwise, a company might have to suffer due to insufficient cash flow.

To tackle this issue, most experts suggest starting, companies should first create a flow of leads through other strategies and after reaching stability in other methods, start implementing account based marketing by devoting less than half of their sales and marketing efforts to account based marketing Strategies and platforms.

It is also advised for organizations to involve the upper management like CEO and Finance Directors in the decision-making process.

Why is Account Based Marketing Important

It helps you focus.

Instead of going out in the market trying to target everyone, in Account Based Marketing, you will know the 300-500 accounts you want to do business with and invest all your efforts towards them!

By dedicating your Sales and Marketing activities to these accounts --due to it being an exact fit-- any return you get is naturally a higher ROI. There's not much guesswork when your marketing team is creating content or your sales guys are approaching clients. All the efforts of your teams are instantly quantifiable since the results are directly co-relatable to each team!

Compared to the traditional methods of B2B marketing, account-based marketing allows you to concentrate your teams' efforts & resources on certain selective accounts. This allows businesses to focus their entire strategy on closing the accounts that matter to the business.

Let's say your company witnessed a sudden rise in IT Services and Consultancy companies in your city. To your business, you decide to launch a new high-value service specifically tailored for IT Services and Consultancy companies. It makes more sense for you to follow the Account Based Sales & Marketing strategy for this since IT Consultancy companies are huge with multiple key decision-makers, and your asking price can be placed fairly.

In this case, you target 300 companies, start identifying key decision-makers, and create content for high since the service you are providing would be high value as well!

How does Account Based Marketing Work?

The underlying principle of Account Based marketing is very simple to understand. You have a few selected accounts that you want to penetrate. To accomplish this goal you divert your marketing and sales team along with their resources to close this gap.

The journey of an account in Account-Based marketing through three stages. From finding the accounts you are interested in, and

• Selecting of accounts

• Getting in Touch with key people of accounts

• Engaging with the Decision Maker of accounts

How to Select Accounts!

Within the boundaries of account based marketing, the selection of accounts is subjective from company to company. The primary objective of selecting an account should be based on the quality of the business transaction. The account you want to work with will naturally be the companies who can afford your offering, at the price set by your organization.

Most companies implementing account based marketing tend to look for the following in an account before making a decision:

• The Industry account is active in

• The Annual revenue netted by the account

• The total number of staff working for the account

• The Requirements of the account and the business's ability to meet these

How to get in touch with Decision Makers

In the age of the internet, finding decision-makers is much easier. The people you are interested in are most likely active on LinkedIn. Besides LinkedIn, there are many platforms where professionals spend their time, a platform like AngelList and TechCrunch are some examples.

Sales and Marketing teams start by contacting these people on the platform they most frequently see and try to get a connection. Tools exist which can search for contact information around the internet. Intandemly's Chrome extension helps to find the prospect's email address from their social media profiles.

Alternatively, Intandemly's powerful Sales Prospecting Tool can make it easier than ever for your reps to find contact information

How to Engage with Decision Maker

Engaging with a prospective Account is very similar to salespeople making a touchpoint. But In Account Based Marketing, it involves your entire organization and all its teams contributing towards creating meaningful engagement. To the core, it requires your sales and marketing teams to align themselves on the account level and exchange ideas, content, and messaging while creating meaningful communication and being at the front of your business.

It is the same reason, Most Account Based Marketing experts suggest Sales or Marketing teams take charge of a few accounts and Orchestrate their entire play.

Engaging on an Account level includes activities like:

• Making marketing videos

• Creating Demo Accounts of your SaaS product, tailored to an account's needs

• Arranging Events targeted at solving problems particular to a certain account

• Sending personalized gifts through Direct mail

Steps to Account Based Marketing

The first step in getting started with Account Based Marketing is to select a few companies and organizations you are interested in. The process of selecting is completely dependent on your organization's goals and varies from company to company.

 How to Select Accounts for Account Based Marketing

Your business needs to figure out what your ideal customer looks like. You need to factor in a lot of things like

• What type of companies will benefit from your companies?

• Which of these companies will be able to pay your asking price?

• How Big These Companies Should be?

• How many employees should they have? More than 200? or more than 10,000?

• How much revenue should they be netting annually? $3 million or more.

• Should they be headquartered in your city, your country, or somewhere internationally?

This exercise should help you describe the exact company persona you are hoping to work with. These companies will typically benefit from your offering while paying the exact asking price you quote to them!

The list of ideal companies will differ from business to business. And depending on your industry and how populated your space is, it is totally fine to come up with 100 such companies to proceed with.

What is Tiering?

Once you have a list of companies you are interested in, you need to divide them into 3 tiers. Tiers are made to give your business a perspective of what the overall picture looks like. Segmenting and Tiering up your Accounts in Accounts Based Marketing is by far the most critical step if you want to execute ABM.

Account-based marketing is a vast ocean. And the strategies can range from going very intensive about the mega accounts, to having a very scalable mechanism for thousands of accounts that you want to reach.

The most critical element here is how you tier your accounts. We would go through each of these 3 tiers.