While B2B Inbound Marketing remains essential for philippines whatsapp mobile phone number list generating leads in B2B environments, we find that many marketers want to have more control over this process and accelerate the buying cycle .
This need is the result of an anomalous situation to which marketing departments have contributed (of course, we also include external marketing agencies). In recent years, significant efforts have been invested and different technological solutions have been deployed to capture leads and send to the sales department all those people who have shown even the slightest interest in the offer.
And of course, colleagues in the sales departments have not been very enthusiastic about accepting these leads because of their low value, or because they can contribute little to their commercial objectives (among other things).
At Aeroplano Lab we insist on the important value of good B2B Inbound marketing strategies , but we believe that we must make them evolve towards marketing strategies that are more aligned with the company's business objectives and that are worked on jointly with the sales departments.
This is where Account -Based Marketing (ABM) plays a relevant role. Reorienting part of the economic, technical and human marketing efforts towards achieving business in those accounts that provide the most value is a winning bet.
There is a lot of literature (mostly in English) on ABM , and certainly, we can find a lot of confusion due to the self-interested leadership that is being carried out by technology companies that sell ABM solutions . At Aeroplano Lab we feel comfortable with this definition:
“ ABM is the design and execution of a joint strategy between the marketing and sales areas in B2B environments that seeks to gain in-depth knowledge of the target accounts that provide the most value (both current and potential customers) in order to provide them with a value proposition through personalized marketing campaigns and thus help these accounts solve their needs.”
If you want to know more about B2B Inbound Marketing and ABM, take a look at this webinar we organized last June.
ABM Webinar
So what do Inbound Marketing and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) have in common?
Audience Obsession: Inbound is traditionally obsessed with understanding the pain points of prospects based on personas, this groundwork is crucial and complements ABM’s obsession with data-backed target account lists that correspond to these personas.
Content that facilitates personalized solutions : Both Inbound and ABM recognize that content is “king,” but not just any content that fits the client’s needs will do. It has to solve problems for target accounts and be customizable based on the channels and media used.
Impact assessment and optimization: Both strategies focus on delivering results that translate into growth opportunities, and they complement each other to the extent that ABM helps boost Inbound’s ability to generate higher-value revenue.
Interaction throughout the entire purchase cycle : Both strategies focus on the fact that completing one cycle of the purchase funnel is not enough; once a customer is acquired, the game starts again. It is essential to “engage” and retain customers again.
How can account-based marketing (ABM) enrich your inbound marketing strategy?
In Spain, we do not have a tradition of business surveys that inform us about the state of the art of B2B marketing, and unfortunately we end up resorting to surveys carried out in more mature B2B markets such as the American one. However, the data shown below do not seem so far away if we contextualize them with the recent survey carried out by the Spanish Association of B2B Marketing and Sales or with the IX Study of commercial networks in Spain 2019-2020 by IESE .
ABM b2b marketing advantages
Three adjustments to combine your Inbound Marketing strategy with ABM actions.
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1. Don't just wait for the right audience to find you, find them first.
While inbound marketing works well for attracting audiences through people-based tactics, you can still tweak it to improve its effectiveness . Start by identifying your target accounts ( your ideal account profile or ICP ), the right people in each account, and deploy tactics to find out which visitors are worth pursuing, even before they visit your website.
ABM for small b2b businesses
2. Deploy all your marketing and sales tactics to accelerate the sales cycle.
We are aware that marketing resources are finite and it would not make sense to activate all the artillery for each visitor to the website. Identifying the account, even before they fill out a form, allows us to filter out those accounts of greater value and those that we will work on to advance in the sales funnel.
b2b marketing tactics
3. Don't try to do everything, prioritize if you have too many accounts to work with.
Identifying the accounts that are most likely to convert will allow us to know and prioritize which ones we should direct our efforts toward and be more efficient in allocating budgets.
abe tactic for small b2b businesses
If you want to know if account-based marketing applies to your B2B business, or want to learn more about the topic, please feel free to contact our team by filling out this form.
