Account Based Marketing – An Important Aspect For Lead Generation
When you run a business, it is important to focus on demand generation. It is essential for better profitability. Though marketing is an integral part of this process, it has been seen for some time that the marketing function is more centered towards inbound marketing strategy.
It worked well in the past, but in the earlier years, the process of inbound marketing has lost its efficiency and effectiveness. Inbound marketing is backdated now and cannot help reach the target audience in several instances.
To beat competitors and remain more frontline, it is essential to adapt newer and smarter methods of reaching target customers.
A new strategy has become quite popular in recent times, which is Account-Based Marketing. It has not only helped marketers to reach customers but to enhance demand generation as well.
Studies say that more than 80% of the companies are using ABM as a strategic tool and have reported a revenue increase as a result, which is an impressive number.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing is the concept of filtering and targeting specific accounts It deals with customers at pre-sales and post-sales levels.
There has been a major drift towards using ABM and more than 40 percent of marketers have chosen it since 2019.
Since the market dynamics keep on changing fast, you also have to alter the strategies and tactics to cope up with the change.
How can this new strategy be used for lead generation? Let’s understand it further.
It is not similar to Inbound Marketing
Marketers have been using Inbound Marketing for quite some time. This traditional method is different from Account-Based Marketing.
Inbound marketing is more effective at the time of demand generation. It deals with the pre-sales acquisition of sales and leads.
Whereas ABM leads with both- the pre-sales stage and post-sales stage.
Similarly, Inbound Marketing focuses on the Mass Acquisition of leads. They may or may not get converted into prospective clients. AMB gives substantial focus on the acquisition of targeted leads.
Why is Account-Based Marketing the right lead generation strategy?
Sales and Marketing functions work together
When you use ABM as the core marketing strategy, you see that the sales and marketing functions are more aligned as compared to the use of other strategies.
In the earlier methods, marketing was developing the leads and handing them off to sales to close the deal. In this approach, both Sales and Marketing functions work together to develop and generate leads.
Not just sales and marketing, but even product development, customer service, and support functions also work together. It results in better coordination and synergy among various business functions.
It helps in revenue generation
Account-based marketing might look costly to implement because you need to do a higher investment of time and resources.
However, it leads to higher conversion rates and a larger average deal size. The deals are more likely to close.
In general, you see a significant increase in the Return on Investment. That leads to increased revenue generation eventually.
It is more effective for high-profile accounts
Account-Based Marketing is a highly efficient way of taking care of high-profile, important accounts. You can connect to the specific accounts that are valuable for you.
In the conventional inbound marketing approach, you might waste your team’s time and energy indiscriminately and miss the accounts that matter most to your business.
How ABM helps the Traditional Lead Generation
Do not make a misunderstanding that Account-Based Marketing is against the traditional method of lead generation. Rather, it becomes a helping hand to it.
Earlier marketing used to create lists of prospects and engage them by launching campaigns. Sales function was considering lead generation as an account-centric process.
ABM integrates both functions and makes the account-centric sales approach. It is more outbound instead of inbound.
Earlier you were casting a huge net in the form of campaigns and pulling as many prospects as possible. It was resulting in attracting several unqualified leads.
ABM defines a narrower market and approaches the leads with outbound tactics. Therefore, only qualified leads are touched, and the possibility of conversion is much higher.
Moreover, ABM targets new high-profile customers but concentrates on the existing customers through up-selling and cross-selling at the same time.