By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist
If you’re a marketer on the planet, you’re no stranger to the term ABM (whether you’re actually doing it or not). Google searches for "account-based marketing" and its acronym "ABM" topped out in the year 2020. Three years later, terms like “account-based experience,” “account-based everything,” and the catchall acronym “ABX,” which shifts the focus from marketing to the entire customer journey, are also on the rise.
The big brains at Forrester have already predicted that by 2025, B2B demand generation efforts will focus predominantly on accounts, not leads. And since the events of 2020, that shift has only accelerated. Account based marketing takes all that you know about your best customers to find more customers just like them.
To bring an ABM strategy to life, it is essential to have both a CRM solution and a marketing automation platform. The CRM serves as the single source of truth for data and powers your account-centric strategy, while the marketing automation platform engages target markets at scale and in real time. By integrating these two technologies, B2B revenue teams can successfully launch and grow an ABM strategy that enhances customer relationships and drives business value.
Successful ABM relies on being account-centric, where buyers are at the center of every interaction. It involves creating highly personalized experiences that combine targeted content and intentional communications across every touchpoint. Today, buyers expect companies to anticipate their needs and provide personalized offers. ABM is designed to interpret and understand buyers on an individual level, so your marketing automatically delivers relevant, personalized content and messages across every channel.
To do this effectively, your CRM serves as the key to success, as it is the single source of truth for account data and gives teams a 360-degree view of the customer. You can then personalize engagements for your audience with marketing automation. Use the real-time data from your CRM and input from your sales team to identify the best ABM target accounts, create personalized content for target accounts, and distribute it in the channels they most prefer. Share leads and adjust tactics across marketing, sales, and service teams based on engagement data.
Finally, it is essential to measure the success of your ABM campaigns and increase customer retention, track engagement, awareness, and lead-quality metrics. Companies that take advantage of ABM’s potential see impressive results, with 77% of ABM users achieving 10% or higher ROI, and 45% of ABM users seeing at least a two times ROI compared to other marketing efforts.
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