Account Based Marketing Plan Template – Learn how to identify and reach high-value customers with the most effective account-based marketing (ABM) tactics and software.
Imagine a world where you can start your sales process by selling directly to the most suitable, highest value accounts. Don’t waste time trying to sell unskilled customers who are not suitable for your business. That is, you can proceed directly to attracting and satisfying target accounts. Talk about efficiency, right? Account-based marketing allows you to weed out low-value businesses early and achieve a full alignment between Marketing and Sales – so your team can sooner or later begin the important processes to attract and satisfy those accounts. ABM helps your business work and connect with high-value accounts such as individual marketplaces. By doing this – in addition to personalizing the buyer’s journey and tailoring all communications, content and campaigns to these specific accounts – you will see a huge return on investment and increased customer loyalty. What is Account-Based Marketing? Account Based Marketing and Inbound Marketing Benefits of Account Based Marketing Account Based Marketing Tactics What is Account Based Marketing? Account-based marketing (ABM) is a targeted growth strategy where Marketing and Sales collaborate to create a personalized shopping experience for a cohesive set of high-value accounts. Before we look at the additional benefits of account-based marketing and the specific tactics you can implement in your company, let’s take a look at how it relates to another important strategy: inbound marketing. Account Based Marketing and Inbound Marketing Batman and Robin. LeBron and D-Wade. Peanut butter and jam. Probably one of the strongest partnerships 💪. These dynamic duos are forces to be reckoned with. Likewise, account-based marketing and inbound marketing when paired together have the power to make waves (the good ones) for your business. “How does this partnership work?” you asked. A question may arise. We just covered the definition of account-based marketing — as you know, ABM is a highly targeted strategy. At the same time, inbound marketing is more fundamental; It is a methodology and growth strategy that allows you to attract customers by creating valuable content, SEO and a great customer experience. Inbound marketing allows you to organically communicate the information your target audience needs at any time, rather than cutting out your audience and customers (like outbound marketing). Inbound provides the foundation for a strong ABM strategy by ensuring high-value accounts are highly targeted and resourced effectively. Here are a few more reasons to implement ABM and inbound marketing strategies at your company: Inbound marketing helps you attract targeted customers, and then ABM spins the wheel so you can win and delight those customers with a great customer experience. Inbound marketing is the foundation of a strong ABM strategy — ABM generates revenue by targeting high-value accounts and providing effective resource allocation. With this integrated approach, you will attract a larger group of leads than you would if you used just one method. Your content has two advantages: you can create and use content that serves your ABM and revenue strategy (for example, you can create a personalized case study for a target account you share on your website). Software, such as HubSpot’s account-based marketing tool, is available to facilitate the complementary implementation of ABM and inbound strategies. 🧡TLDR: Combine ABM with inbound marketing for better growth. ABM’s account-based marketing structure works differently from the traditional sales funnel. Although ABM can be applied in different industries and types of business, a common framework must be followed to ensure its effectiveness. The key components of an account-based marketing system are: Aligning Marketing and Sales The working relationship between sales and marketing organizations has been mentioned several times in this article because its importance cannot be overstated. Marketing and sales need to be on the same page to have a comprehensive approach to ABM and ensure target customers have an engaging shopping experience. When implementing ABM, sales and marketing organizations must agree on allocating resources for each target customer, assigning the customer roles and responsibilities to ensure a smooth transition between marketing and sales activities, and determining how they will measure the success of their efforts. Account Qualification How does your company determine what constitutes a high-value account? Creating the perfect customer profile for the accounts your company targets is an essential component to answering this question and creating an ABM framework. It’s important to remember that marketing and sales should also be included in these conversations. Consider these factors when determining what’s right for a potential account: Financials: Given your company’s sales goals, consider how much revenue you can generate from the account. Scalability: Based on what you know about the potential account’s business performance, is there an opportunity to grow the account in the future? Consider additional offers from the company to maintain and grow your account. Competitive environment: Who are your competitors selling to? Understanding who is in the market for products and offers similar to yours can help you identify future account opportunities. Approach to the market. It’s time to create a go-to-market plan that aligns with your marketing and sales approach and aligns with which accounts are targeted. Get a full understanding of how a new customer moves through the sales process using an ABM approach. As you prepare to go to market, you may find areas of friction that need to be addressed or areas of poor communication that can be strengthened. Additionally, because a personalized experience is so important in account-based marketing, your team will want to find additional ways to add value to these accounts and deliver a premium experience. Account-Based Marketing Strategy To get the most out of your account-based marketing approach, you need the right strategy. Consider following these steps to create and implement an effective account-based marketing strategy. 1. Build alignment between your sales and marketing teams. Aligning marketing and sales is crucial to successful account-based marketing. The customer must proceed seamlessly from purchase to final sale to create a tailored shopping experience. To develop the synergy between marketing and sales, both organizations need to find a middle ground with clear communication and ensure that the marketing team gets leads that the sales team can sell to appropriately. If you’re new to ABM, you only need a small team of marketer and salesperson working together to identify target accounts and sell to them. As your efforts increase, prioritize your marketer supporting additional resellers, as a marketer can usually keep up with up to 10 resellers and each reseller can manage 10 accounts. 2. Do research to identify accounting units. When aligned with their marketing and sales vision, organizations can work together to ensure your company is targeting the right account staff. This usually starts with a research phase to determine which accounts to maintain. When defining customer characteristics for an account-based marketing approach, marketers should consider: their ideal customer’s mission, vision, and business goals. If any high-value accounts interfere with your company’s inbound approach. Current stage of business maturity, company size and growth trajectory. Income model and expenditure models. Tools and platforms currently used by their ideal customers. While there are countless ways to identify key accounts, the most important thing is marketing and sales agree on which accounts to target. According to HubSpot Academy Professor Kyle Jepson, “If your marketer is targeting one company listing and your salespeople are working with another listing, you are plunged into account-based chaos.” 3. Create charts of accounts. Once you’ve determined which accounts to target, it’s time to create charts of accounts. This requires marketing and sales teams to work together to identify the leads they need to attract to reach their target accounts and what content they need to produce to connect with those audiences. When creating a chart of accounts for your ABM strategy, keep these best practices in mind: Charts of accounts for different customers may have some similarities, but each plan should be tailored to the needs of that account. Each chart of accounts should address these two questions: Who is involved in this sale-purchase decision (e.g. decision maker, influencer, attorney, inhibitors, end users)? What content does each member of this buying committee need? 4. Attract contacts associated with target accounts. Ideally, using an inbound technique will help you attract people associated with your target accounts. If you need additional people, your next step is to identify where your ideal people currently find solutions to the products or services you offer and make sure your company is visible and represented in these areas. Places where you can meet people include events, industry publications such as newsletters and newsletters, and targeted ad placements. It can be fun trying to make your company visible
Account Based Marketing Plan Template
Account based marketing vendors, account based marketing channels, account based marketing template, account based marketing plan, account based marketing ideas, account based marketing demandbase, account based marketing strategy template, account based marketing framework, salesforce account based marketing, account based marketing tips, account based marketing tactics, account based marketing platform
