What Exactly Is Account Based Marketing? Why Is it Important for B2B Businesses?

ABM is a go-to-market strategy where you have to focus on specific named accounts which enables marketing and sales to expand the target market and to engage with prospective customers.

Simply put, ABM is the magical mix of Sales and Marketing of a business that can boost the revenue engine.

To explain the importance of ABM, Pareto Principle (80-20 Rule) notes that nearly 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customer base. ABM helps you target that 20% better. It's made for that.

It takes some learning from views of successful business people around, in order to effectively implement ABM. So, let’s take a brief look at the insights by successful sales leaders across the world who have track records with successful ABM implementation.

The Rise of Account Based Marketing

Time and again, in traditional lead-centric marketing, the leads you generated are NOT targeted enough.

Imagine that you want to catch a fish. One way is to use a net. You also have a choice to use a spear. If you use the net, you may catch much fish (along with a huge pile of waste, of course) stuck in the net, but if you are hoping to catch the BIG fish you've been looking for, only luck can help you.

But luck and hope aren't a strategy. But hope isn't a strategy.

But when you use a spear to catch that BIG one, you are much aware of the fish's whereabouts and all you should do was to aim for it and spear it on.

If you have made sure that your targeted your accounts are highly-engaged and well-informed, you have done a great job as a marketer—No matter, how small the target audience was.

To make happen exactly that, there comes a new strategy that is making rapid strides in the ecosystem in the name of Account Centric Marketing.

Why should you consider account-centric approach as a solution if you are looking to boost your revenues?

1. As you are targeting the accounts that are most likely to move down the sales funnel, this method of marketing is efficient and so boost your revenues.

2. According to ITSMA, 84% of marketers said that account-based approach generated higher ROI as compared to other marketing methods. So, it’s apparent that account centric approach will get you more wins than any other marketing approach in terms of revenue.

3. It helps you to to ‘land and expand’. Account centric marketing can help you to drive business at new accounts and to expand within existing accounts. It enables you to open doors of your business and deepen engagement with existing customers and thus multiply your revenue.

4. This approach helps you to strengthen the alignment between sales and marketing. Forrester Research stated that organizations with aligned sales and marketing teams see an average of 32% annual revenue growth, while less aligned companies see a 7% decline in growth.

Thus it overcomes every drawback of traditional marketing and enables businesses to grow sustainably. So, it’s high time for companies to switch from lead centric to account centric.

This account centric approach has been developed and practised as ABM (Account Based Marketing).

Let’s get a closer look at how some of the top B2B industry leaders define Account Based Marketing >>