More and more businesses are implementing account-based marketing strategies for growth. That’s because account-based revolves around targeting specific, often high-value leads and customers, creating the need for a more personalized approach. In the past, this personalization meant a higher cost for companies, but thanks to technological advances, not only is the cost much less than before; it’s a lot more scalable.
With so many businesses already using an account-based strategy, it’s become obvious that an all-hands on deck, go-to-market approach is necessary, according to a recent survey conducted by TOPO of more than 150 practitioners at leading account-based organizations. This means that in order to make account-based marketing work for your business, you must leverage a coordinated effort across your entire organization to figure out the data, tactics and resources you need to drive engagement and sales, and ultimately, find more business and increase growth.
Here are the benefits of an account-based strategy, along with some guidance on how to orchestrate it across your marketing, sales and customer success teams.
Results That Matter
You and your business need a powerful system that can not only keep up with the times, but also produce next-level results. Now that we have data at our disposal, we know that account-based marketing does just that.
According to the TOPO survey, account-based marketing produces far better results than traditional marketing, yielding an 80 percent higher customer lifetime value, an 86 percent higher win rate and a 76 percent higher ROI. In fact, one out of every five accounts targeted creates a realistic, new sales opportunity—an unprecedented rate of efficiency.
Specific Targets = Less Time Wasted
In business, our time is so important, and key to growth and success. When it comes to traditional marketing, we are often spending a lot of time and effort on things that don’t maximize our value and profit. But, with account-based marketing, that’s not the case.
Because account-based marketing is so targeted, we remove a lot of the unnecessary time suck, honing in on our target and planning and executing accordingly.
Personalized Optimization Means Greater Focus and Measurable Metrics
With such a targeted approach, your messaging, communications and overall marketing campaign are geared toward one audience. That allows you and your staff to spend all of your strategy and time on a certain focus, creating a stronger likelihood of success.
You are also able to measure metrics and track goals at a higher level. As you look to find the right formula for long-term growth, drawing conclusions becomes easier.
Moving Forward: Next Steps
Now that you’ve seen some of the benefits to account-based marketing, it’s time for some actionable advice to move forward and orchestrate your own coordinated effort across your marketing, sales, and even customer success teams. Here are some key tips.
- Elect a leader. A successful account-based marketing strategy starts with choosing a great leader. According to the survey, 69 percent of the most successful account-based organizations now have a dedicated leader.
- Develop a strong Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). An ICP represents the attributes that determine if a customer is the best fit and highest value for your account-based targets. The survey found that more than 80 percent of the most successful account-based organizations believe they have a strong ICP. Moreover, an ICP is a fundamental element of the foundation of your account-based strategy. Reaching a strong ICP requires you to think qualitatively and quantitatively – gathering information and thoughts from your stakeholders and finding and evaluating data from leads and customers.
- Don’t target too much at once. You must set goals you can realistically achieve. That means aligning your expectations with reality. The reality is that organizations only go after 38 percent of their targeted accounts at one time. So, be cautious and judicious about the accounts you select to pursue – the more accounts you target, the greater level of difficulty there is for producing the results you desire.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel. While account-based marketing represents a new, exciting and successful path to success, you don’t need to start from scratch when it comes to your marketing and sales development strategy. According to the survey, the top five tactics for strategic account-based success are SDR (sales development rep) outreach, digital advertising, direct mail, marketing email and events – all practices that already exist today in most businesses. It is how you bring these elements together that defines your success.
Every business is different, so you will have to develop and execute these strategies in a way that best works for you. However, this is a good start and an opportunity not to be missed. Account-based budgets are only growing, and doing so at a fast rate, with companies increasing their spending in 2019. This means being willing to invest in new technology and data to ensure your account-based endeavor is scalable and ripe for success.