What is account based marketing?

In recent years, Account Based Marketing (ABM) has taken off in B2B online marketing. We expect account based marketing to increase even more due to the deployment and growth of personalization software across digital channels (such as A-B testing, liquid content, remarketing, B2B marketing automation, etc.). In addition, more and more companies see their own website and online campaigns as the basis for leads and transactions.

Account based marketing: a step further than target group

The power of account based marketing lies in specifying the desired customer (named accounts). A classic sales & marketing plan often zooms in on target group, market and desired volume. Account based marketing goes one step further and literally zooms in on the desired account. Who do you want as a customer and how can you ensure that he becomes a customer. It is a tested method that fits well within an effective online marketing department that is in line with the sales department. Smarketing as it is meant to be.

The phases of account based marketing

When starting account based marketing we distinguish a number of phases. The first phase is identifying the desired customer. A nice task for the commercial talents of the company. Make sure there is enough information about the company. With whom is there already contact within the company, who is the decision maker, which products are they possibly interested in et cetera. Try to immediately sort this correctly in the database. That  later makes a difference when setting up the campaigns.

Now it is clear who you would like to have as a customer. The challenge for the online marketer is to get the brand or product in question to the attention of this customer at the right moment. This form of inbound marketing is the difficult aspect of account based marketing. The various messages for the various customers need to be set up in terms of software tooling (for example SalesForce) but also in terms of tone of voice. Be sure to involve an experienced content marketer. The right message remains a deciding factor for success in account based marketing.

Catching the attention of the right person with your product

As soon as the campaign is running and the the attention of the account is caught with the product, it is important to strike. In a way that is logical. Here the sales qualities of the product experts play a decisive role. You can also opt for a webshop but this is by no means the best option for all products. Certainly not with B2B companies with different price agreements. In short; online marketing and therefore also account based marketing remains partly a people’s job.

If you want to know more about account based marketing and all the possibilities please contact us. Jelba knows how to score quality leads for its B2B customers through the use of digital channels and therefore has a lot of experience with account based marketing.

Do you have additions or remarks about account based marketing? Let us know and send an e-mail to collega@jelba.nl. Thanks in advance.