Why ABM is Necessary in 2021

What’s the key to succeeding as a business in 2021? If you look closely at what consumers are demanding, it’s personalization and connection with the brands they purchase from. So if you’re not using strategies to build relationships with your audience and customers, you’ll struggle to gain trust and loyalty. This is what makes account-based marketing (ABM) a powerful marketing tool. But only if you’re consistent with it.

With ABM automation, you can ensure your email lists never go cold. It’s one of the reasons 76% of marketers are adopting automation in 2021. Email marketing remains a top focus for marketers, but many are sending fewer (more personalized) emails to their audience. The result: 77% of marketers are seeing more engagement with their campaigns.

So if you’re not already using ABM automation to nurture and grow relationships with your customers, it’s time to start. Let’s review how you can get started with ABM today.

What to Look for in an ABM Platform

You won’t get far with your account-based marketing campaign without the right technology. So we put together a list of the things to look for on your search. Here are some things to consider:

‍1. Customer data integration: Integrating customer information from multiple sources into one place makes it easier to access critical data and insights.

‍2. Automation: Automating emails, social media posts, phone calls, SMS, and other interactions with customers keeps you relevant and top-of-mind.

‍3. Reporting & analytics: Seeing what works or needs improvement is essential. A great reporting system allows you to track everything from how many times people click through links in email messages to which channels convert better.

‍4. Segmentation: Getting relevant content into the “hands” of your audience is vital to keeping subscribers engaged (and on your email list).

‍5. Integration: Integrating with CRMs like Salesforce helps you manage leads across departments and ensures you have up-to-date data for leads (plus, it eliminates siloes between marketing and sales teams).

‍6. Mobile first: Using mobile devices to access emails is now the norm, so make sure your tools send mobile-friendly content.

7. Social Media Marketing: Having a strong presence on social media channels is crucial for building brand awareness. And since most prospects start researching products via these networks, being present there gives you a competitive advantage.

‍8. Data Visualizations: Visualizing data is essential to making important business decisions. With dashboards, you have access to insights and reports to guide decision-making.

‍9. User-friendly: Being able to set up and use your ABM tool quickly is key to launching and maintaining your campaigns.

What ABM Tools Should You Use to Automate?

A good tech stack for account-based marketing includes a mix of CRMs, marketing automation platforms, and ABM platforms. So we put together a list of the various tools needed to make your ABM campaign complete. Let’s check it out:

• HubSpot: HubSpot offers a full suite of features designed to drive sales growth including lead nurturing, personalized messaging, automated follow-ups, and more. It has been named “Best Overall Platform for Lead Management” by Gartner Inc. and was recently awarded Best Email Campaigns Solution by Forrester Research.
• Salesforce: With the world’s 1 cloud enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and human capital management applications combined into one powerful product, Salesforce empowers companies to innovate at scale faster than ever before.
• LeadFeeder: The 1 tool used by marketers around the globe to automate lead generation and nurture programs.
• Marketo: Marketo provides the technology behind B2B marketing operations such as demand generation, pipeline optimization, and social media listening and engagement.
• Demandbase: DemandBase is a leading provider of predictive intelligence for digital commerce. Its AI-driven platform enables brands to increase revenue and optimize conversion rates by identifying high-value customers based on purchase intent signals.
• 6Sense: 6sense helps organizations identify qualified buyers in any channel or stage of buying cycle through intelligent content recommendations powered by machine learning algorithms.
• Triblio: Triblio combines artificial intelligence and big data analytics to help e-commerce retailers create highly targeted email campaigns and personalize user experiences across all channels.
• Zapier: Zapier connects over 200 services making it easy to build workflows between different systems. Whether you’re building something completely custom or need to integrate two existing platforms together, Zapier makes it possible.
• MailChimp: Mailchimp is the # 1 choice among small business owners because it allows users to easily send emails, manage contacts lists, track opens & clicks, segment subscribers, design beautiful HTML newsletters, add images/videos, schedule autoresponders, etc.
• Engagio: Engageio is an award-winning CRM system built specifically for account-based marketing. It includes everything needed to run successful multi-touch campaigns: prospecting, contact management, opportunity management, workflow, reporting, forecasting, and much more.
• Bound: Bound is a simple yet effective way to get leads from Facebook ads without having to pay for them first. Simply set up a campaign with a goal like “New Leads” or “Qualified Leads”, then use the app to find prospects who have liked your page. Then, simply message them directly via Messenger!
• Terminus: Terminus is a modern marketing software that lets you plan, execute, measure, and analyze every aspect of your marketing efforts. From creating new accounts to managing current ones, Terminus will make sure you never miss another sale again.
• Sendoso: SendSoso is a SaaS Sending Platform that simplifies sending personalized bulk gifts to multiple recipients simultaneously. It has dozens of partners to shop from via your dashboard. And you can track your sends and even include a hand-written note. It’s direct mail marketing at its finest.

Account-Based Marketing Automation Strategy

The best account-based strategies take advantage of each individual touchpoint while also providing a cohesive experience throughout the customer journey.Here’s a look at the steps to building an effective ABM campaign:

1. Create Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Buyer personas help you identify which customers are most likely to buy from you and what they need. This includes info about their demographic, job title, pain points, objections, and whether they’re a decision-maker or an influencer.
2. Set Up Your Target Accounts: Create a list of the accounts you’re targeting in your campaigns. You can do this manually or use an automated tool like HubSpot’s CRM integration.
3. Integrate All of Your Automation Tools: Once you’ve created your ICP and identified your target accounts, it’s time to integrate all your automation tools together. Don’t forget to create a repeatable planning process for your marketing team to follow using these tools.
4. Build your ABM campaigns: What’s the goal of your ABM campaign? Is it lead generation? Lead qualification? Or maybe even sales? Whatever it may be, there needs to be a tangible result you’re seeking for your account-based marketing strategy.
5. Nurture Your Leads: It’s time to nurture your company list by sending personalized emails at regular intervals about relevant topics. This will make every piece of marketing content you create essential to reaching a common business objective.
6. Track Your ABM Efforts: Now you need a way to measure whether your inbound marketing efforts are paying off. Use your marketing automation tool to build a dashboard that shows data from all of your tools to see how effective your business strategy is.

Benefits of ABM Automation

Offering a personalized experience is an essential part of growing relationships with high-value accounts.  That’s why it’s crucial to implement automated account-based marketing campaigns. Here are just a few benefits of using account-based marketing software:

1. Scalability: You start off targeting a small list of current customers. Over time, your list will grow, which means you need a way to scale your ABM campaigns.
2. Cost Savings: Running an ABM campaign is cheaper than using paid ads and other traditional forms of marketing.
3. Better Customer Experience: ABM focuses on an omnichannel approach, which improves the buying process and post-customer journey. Make sure to continue your campaigns to turn customers into brand advocates.
4. Increased Sales Conversions: You gained the trust of your customers and now they’re a part of your contact list. This means they’re looking forward to your emails and are more willing to click on the links you send. Use this to guide them to relevant products on your website.
5. Improved ROI: As your email list grows, you’ll have a higher rate of conversions, which means better ROI for your campaigns. Just ensure you’re delivering value more than you’re selling by sharing personalized content.
6. More Opportunities for Referrals: People don’t just refer great products and services. They refer great buying experiences. So if you can deliver on this, it becomes easier to get more referrals.
7. Easier Lead Management: By adopting automation tools, you can better control your contact records. You can even use a CDP (customer data platform) to maintain the accuracy of your target contacts.

Best Practices for Your Account-Based Marketing Efforts

There’s a right and wrong way to approach marketing campaigns. This is especially true if you’re using outdated methods. So be sure to stay abreast of the latest best practices for ABM. Here’s a list to start with:

1. Create Custom Landing Pages: Create a unique landing page for each segment you’re targeting. Serve up personalized content to improve the odds of them converting.
2. Include Calls to Action: Every piece of copy needs an action step. This can be a signup form at the bottom of blog posts. Or an email with a CTA pointing to one of your services.
3. Provide Value First: When a buyer searches for content or opens an email, they’re looking for value. So make sure to include tips, insights, examples, and stores to inspire and intrigue your audience.
4. Offer Discount Codes: Adding coupons and discounts to subscribers is an excellent way to get them to convert now.
5. Build an Omnichannel Experience: Your audience is on multiple channels—make sure you are as well. Publish blog posts, share them on social media, and deliver insightful newsletters to their inbox.
6. Keep Content Engaging: Everything from the subject line and heading to the content and CTA should be engaging. Otherwise, no one will take time to read (let alone act).

FAQs around ABM Automation

Still have questions about targeting high-value prospects with your ABM campaign? Maybe these will address some of your concerns.

How Do I Get Started With ABM Automation?

There are two main types of solutions you can adopt: Software as a service, which means you pay monthly fees; and hosted self-service platforms, which require no upfront investment but charge per transaction. Both types of solutions typically integrate seamlessly into existing CRMs such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, Pipedrive, Zoho, etc., making it easier to automate all aspects of your account-based marketing efforts.

What Are Some Benefits of Using an ABM Campaign?

There are plenty of benefits to running an ABM campaign. For example, it can increase conversions, reduce customer acquisition costs, improve your brand image, and grow sales faster.

How Much Does it Cost To Run An Account-Based Marketing Campaign?

The cost depends on the tools you adopt (and how many). The size of your email list will also determine your rate since most providers charge by the number of contacts you have.

Is My Business Ready For Account-Based Marketing?

It doesn’t matter your industry—if you have a good list of prospects who fit your ideal customer profile, then you’re ready to start using account-based marketing. You may even find that you generate enough revenue from one single client alone to justify investing in account-based marketing. Just make sure to identify your ideal prospect before you decide to invest in account-based marketing automation.

Create an ABM Strategy that Yields Results

Account-Based Marketing offers an opportunity to increase your revenue while reducing the costs of brand promotion. It’s an inbound strategy, which means your contact list is open to receiving messages from you (even sales-related ones).

So now, it’s up to you to take the first step in developing an ABM campaign. Just follow the above tips and you’ll have a great starting point for building a winning strategy.

Not convinced it’s right for your business? See how sales development teams are increasing their response rates by 4X with Sendoso.