3 B2B Strategies to Use with Account-Based Marketing

If your job description includes marketing or sales and you work for a firm that has a B2B focus, you have probably heard the buzz surrounding Account-Based Marketing. It only takes a quick glance on LinkedIn to see the latest “Flip Your Funnel” whitepaper or ABM software company, but how does this affect you as a B2B marketer? Let’s take a high-level look at 3 strategies that you can effectively use in an Account-Based Marketing strategy.

***Please keep in mind that for this article we are assuming that you have a working knowledge of how ABM generally works

Give Your Sales Team Account-Based Marketing Air Support

Generally speaking, the main focus of Account-Based Marketing is to provide your sales team with the proper support they need to help move their leads towards an ultimate conversion. However, traditional lead-based selling activities usually work by calling a lead in a company and organization that has exhibited some degree of interest, and then “selling them” on your product and service. This lead may or may not have extensive knowledge about your offer or product, and once they are sold they usually have to go up the ladder to get the proper approval to move forward with the transaction.

With ABM, you can provide the proper “Air Support” by working with your sales team to develop a very targeted list of companies that would be in their target market. Once your targets have been selected, you then develop a series of display advertisements promoting offers or educational pieces about your product or service that are intended to be served to the departments and executives that you are selling into. When done correctly, by the time the sales team is working their magic, the prospect, along with the key decision makers should have a general familiarity with your product or service and make it easier to start a conversion and move the prospect towards a close.

Provide Additional Velocity for Your Sales Pipeline

Many companies do a great job of filling up the top 1/2 of their funnel, only to become frustrated when they have trouble getting those leads to schedule a demo or move closer to making a decision. Account-based marketing can provide the firepower to help target not only the specific leads within the pipeline, but also the organization or company as a whole.

If your sales team has spoken with a lead and they have indicated that they may be interested in moving forward or have an obvious need for what you are selling, then an ABM strategy may prove to be effective. Account-based marketing strategies can keep your brand in front of your prospect, as well as supporting your overall efforts by educating the rest of the people in their organization to make sure that the old adage “out of sight, out of mind” doesn’t occur.

By providing a steady flow of assets such as case studies or webinars, you can continue to provide value and enhance your sales team’s chances of bringing the prospect to a successful close.

Let Prospective Customers Know You Will Be at an Event in Advance

If your company is active on the event or tradeshow circuit, wouldn’t it be nice if you could let attendees know that you are going to be attending a show, as well as getting the opportunity to educate them about your product or company in advance?

To accomplish this task through ABM, it works best if you can get a list of the companies that will be attending at least a month or so in advance of the show. You can then parlay your software platform’s data source with the company list and appropriate prospect titles in order to start to get your message in front of your prospects through display advertisements for a few weeks before the show itself.

By utilizing an Account-Based Marketing strategy, you can easily get your brand in front of these attendees in advance and be able to show up to the event with a room full of attendees that are familiar with your company.

As we mentioned, this article gives you a few very high-level ideas on how ABM can be used to support your company’s sales efforts. Each of these strategies will be dependent on your ability to come up with compelling advertisements and offers, along with the proper research and targeting, in order to catch your prospect’s attention and get your brand the intended recognition.

At KPItarget, we have experience in handling a cradle-to-grave Account-Based Marketing approach, and can show you how to properly implement these strategies. Contact us today for a free consultation to learn how we can help your organization with all of your ABM needs.