Account-based marketing (ABM) is an effective tactic used by marketers today. ABM enables businesses to work and engage with high-value accounts as if they are individual markets. They personalize content, campaigns and messages to resonate with their audience. ABM offers a more successful ROI compared to other marketing tactics in B2B scenarios. Just like any other technique you are bound to make some common mistakes in the process. Sometimes these mistakes can go unnoticed, which could impact your campaign in a negative form.
So, let’s take a look at some common mistakes which marketers make in their ABM strategy. This can help you implement your strategy in a seamless way without any hurdles.
Not doing a comprehensive research
ABM marketers generally rely on their sales teams to give them the list of target accounts. This can be a mistake as sales teams have an ambiguous selection process or none at all. Since the foundation of ABM depends on selecting high-value target accounts it is important to get this first step right. If you do not conduct extensive research on your ideal customers, you will end up marketing to the wrong people and miss out on the right ones. Selecting the target account is not enough, you also need to know who the key stakeholders are in each account. Because they are the decision-makers, you need to build your content keeping them in mind.
The correct way to do this would be to first develop a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Creating a buyer persona defines the perfect customer for your organization. It helps you understand their interests, preferences, and pain points. It allows you to focus only on selling to these target accounts and also help identify problems your customers face so that you can respond to their needs.
You can then research accounts that fit your ideal customer profile and eliminate the ones that don’t. It is also important to research potential leads outside of the sales account list because sometimes sales teams can miss out on identifying ideal customers.
Not aligning with sales team
Although the marketing team plays a key role in ABM, you should not avoid the sales teams. Sales teams are the ones who communicate with your customers and are responsible for closing the deal. They understand the interests and pain points of the customers. Hence, they can help in different areas like building buyer personas, determining target accounts, personalising content, providing data and more. Without the help of your sales team you might not get the desired results.
Right from the beginning involve the sales team in your ABM plan Marketers can start by providing the sales team with information and resources to understand the ABM process completely. Involving the sales team can help you get valuable insights on your target accounts as well as ideas for content. As sales teams have the entire contact database they can share this information with the marketing team when required. With a sales team you can implement your ABM strategy smoothly.
Not updating lists
Another mistake marketers make is failure to update their ABM strategy. The accounts are added to a list and then for a long time the list remains untouched. They do not prioritize or eliminate or add names. Hence, they spend a lot of time on the wrong accounts. Account list should be reviewed and updated frequently so that you can reach the right target accounts.
In this situation, your sales team can help you out. Sales teams have the database and CRM tools to maintain customer information. You can discuss the accounts with your sales teams on a monthly basis. They can help you remove the accounts that have not been active. By doing so you can focus on the right accounts and save your time and resources. This can help you keep your data clean and updated.
Focusing on all accounts
ABM strategy caters to different target accounts at different levels. You should spend more time and attention on accounts that are engaging with your content and are beneficial to your business. If you focus the same amount of attention on all accounts, you might end up spending more and also wasting your time. Hence, it is beneficial and time saving to invest in high-value accounts.
Account-based marketing focuses on targeting those accounts that are high-valued and have the potential to get more opportunities. Focusing on all accounts will not get you the results you are looking for. Research the accounts that have the potential to generate value for your business. Match these accounts with the buyer personas you have built. Once you have narrowed down these accounts create content that is relevant to them. This can save your resources and avoid waste. The right approach here is to pick quality over quantity.
Lack of testing
Not performing regular testing will not bring any improvements to your campaigns. While launching a campaign you can estimate what works for your customers, but it's not always enough. Sometimes you are bound to make mistakes and certain predictions might not pan out. Therefore, it is important to test different approaches and analyse which works best. These findings can help you make changes to your current campaigns.
It is important to perform regular testing and optimize your ABM strategy. You need to take a look at important metrics or KPIs. It is also important to keep a check of other areas such as how often your team engages with your customers, how many accounts you have closed or how your ABM strategy is doing compared to your other strategies. It is a good idea to involve your sales team when you are analysing your campaigns and database.
Now that you know which mistakes you are likely to make; you can be proactive and avoid making these mistakes altogether. When it comes to ABM it is important to reach the right audience at the right time with the right content. Taking these extra steps can allow you to get successful results from your ABM strategy and maintain good relationships with your customers.
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