A Quick Guide to Implementing Account-Based Marketing

A Quick Guide to Implementing Account-Based Marketing


Account-based marketing (ABM) has proved to be far more profitable than other marketing techniques. Some even say it is the magic wand of B2B marketing. Around 67% of brands leverage ABM. Furthermore, 86% of marketers agree it improves win rates, 80% say it improves customer lifetime values, and 87% agree it outperforms other marketing activities.

Flipping the traditional marketing funnel on its head, ABM is a powerful business strategy where B2B organizations identify and build a relationship with a select group of accounts. It involves implementing highly personalized, relevant marketing and sales efforts to target and convert the most promising accounts into loyal customers.

Setting up a successful ABM program doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. If you follow the right steps, you should be able to build an ABM campaign that works. Let’s go through the following guide to understand how to implement an ABM program that drives the best results.

A. Be strategic about selecting the right accounts

Targeting less valuable, poor-fit accounts will set your ABM program up for a major failure. If you want to implement a fool-proof ABM program, it’s indispensable to identify and pursue high-value, best-fit accounts that are most likely to convert into a buyer.

Make it a priority to develop a strategic process to find the right accounts to target in ABM. Building an accurate and complete ideal client profile (ICP) is a great first move to select exactly the kind of accounts you want your ABM team to go after.

Your ICP should define your most ideal buyer based on key attributes like:

  • Firmographics: Company size, industry, location, revenue, and budget
  • Technographics: Technology stack and technology needs
  • Psychographics: Business interests, values, objectives, and motivations
  • Life cycle: Maturity and development stage

After you’ve created a list of target accounts, start to know them better by deeply understanding their needs, pain points, future business plans, and what they look for in a vendor. Increase your knowledge about their purchase decision patterns, buying triggers, online behavior, and which topics they’re researching right now. This is where buying intent data proves to be extremely useful.

B. Create personalized messaging and customized content

ABM requires you to develop tailored interaction and engagement with target accounts. See to it that you create highly personalized messaging and custom content to target and nurture high-value accounts in ABM. Deliver content (and in the format) most preferred by target accounts.

Your ABM content should be able to address the business challenges of target accounts and present your product as the best solution. At the same time, it should be valuable and informative for target accounts. Both your ABM messaging and content need to align well to the specific buyer’s journey stage that target accounts are currently at.

Personalization plays a crucial role in ABM. It not only needs to be implemented at the account level but also at the contact level in ABM. That’s why it makes sense to create tailored, customized messaging and content for specific stakeholders or decision-makers within a target account. At least 56% of marketers strongly agree that personalized content is a key to the success of ABM.

C. Enable sales and marketing alignment

Statistics show that aligning sales and marketing departments helps organizations deploying ABM to become 67% better at closing deals. Consistent and proactive coordination between sales and marketing is a must if you are to improve your ABM results. Implement sales and marketing alignment or “smarketing” in ABM to:

  • Better identify target accounts and create more robust target company personas
  • Develop and run hyper-targeted, hyper-personalized go-to-market campaigns
  • Deliver the right content and messaging to the right accounts at the right time
  • Create a great combination of marketing and sales plays to nurture and convert accounts
  • Find the best communication, outreach, and retargeting channels and evaluate existing ones

To ensure your sales and marketing teams work in lockstep with each other toward achieving common ABM goals:

  • Encourage transparency between sales and marketing, especially when it comes to their individual activities and results achieved
  • Use insights and inputs from sales when developing value propositions, targeted messaging, and sales-enabled content
  • Ask marketing to share account engagement, account lift, and other key metrics with sales to help them prioritize and promptly follow up the right accounts
  • Ask marketing to provide air cover when sales reach out to target accounts
  • Encourage marketing and sales to agree on a lead scoring model best suiting your sales cycle

D. Invest in the right technology to boost your ABM success

Using an ABM platform or software is an effective way to scale your ABM efforts. It also helps improve different areas of your ABM plan, whether it is account identification, nurturing, analysis, or reporting. You can either continue using your existing martech stack or invest in end-to-end ABM software to create and run ABM campaigns.

However, if you plan to use your existing marketing technology, you’ll need to add supplementary tools as your ABM strategy matures and evolves. Whichever type of ABM technology you decide to choose, ensure that your business gets the highest ROI. Besides, bear in mind that the right ABM technology will always make the job of the ABM team easier and not overburden them.

E. Don’t forget to measure and optimize your ABM programs

Use the right metrics to measure the results of your ABM campaigns and make improvements as needed. You can also set metrics for each target account to keep track of its overall health and progress throughout the buyer’s journey.

Being different from traditional marketing techniques, ABM is measured using slightly different metrics. In ABM, the focus is more on winning high-quality accounts and proactively increasing engagement with them rather than growing the number of net new leads and hoping they will convert.

Here are some important ABM metrics you would want to measure:

  • Content engagement and conversion rates
  • Target account coverage
  • Influenced pipeline
  • Sales cycle length
  • Average deal size and deal close rate
  • Number of emails/calls per day and number of meetings
  • Conversation to appointment rate

A Final Word

Follow the steps explained above and you’ll be able to get your ABM program up and running quickly. When planning an ABM program, be sure to define and establish your goals. You may want to run an ABM campaign to target strategic named accounts, drive more value from existing clients, or successfully launch a new solution.

Whatever ABM goals you want to accomplish, discuss them with your core team and ensure that all your team members are moving together in the right direction. Speaking of your core ABM team, make sure you’ve covered all the necessary roles with the right talent. A solid ABM team will include the following experts:

  • Marketing leader
  • Marketing/sales operations leader
  • Sales development leader
  • Account executive
  • Executive sponsor
  • Customer success and support leaders
  • Product marketer
  • Content marketers and designers

To know more about how to implement ABM, including best practices and mistakes to avoid, follow this comprehensive guide: Account-Based Marketing (ABM) – A Detailed Guide for B2B Companies.





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