If your company markets to a very specific audience or has a long sales cycle, Account Based Marketing (ABM) can help focus marketing and sales resources towards the accounts most likely to bring in the highest revenue. But a lot of companies don’t really understand how ABM works and may be kicking off programs that never show return.
That’s why we’re writing these blogs. Most of the information on ABM available today is written by software companies who want to sell their platforms or by agencies who want to sell media buys. The two of us wanted to share our experience from the inside of a fast-growing company kicking off an ABM program with what we’ve learned in our implementation.
Who are we? Deepti is Senior Director of Marketing at Ridecell, the leading technology platform provider for carsharing, ridesharing and autonomous ridehailing and has a 15+ year track record of turning marketing into a powerful revenue-driving force for enterprise and startups. Jackie is a demand generation consultant specializing in helping companies kick off or refine lead generation programs.
Let’s start with a quick definition of ABM. It’s paring down your marketing to the most effective accounts, either by filtering to the right firmographics or creating a named account list of the most appropriate accounts through research.
Why would companies want to use ABM? There are a lot of good reasons:
- Narrowing down the audience means marketers can refine messaging better show prospect benefit and increase personalization so that executions are more relevant.
- ABM means that small teams or companies with small budgets can reduce waste and resources to focus just where efforts are most effective.
- ABM means it’s easier to track ROI on programs
- ABM means closer alignment of sales and marketing
Over our next few blogs, we’ll share ideas of where to start, what resources are needed and how to prove return on the programs. With so many vendors in the market and so many ways to approach ABM, it’s easy to get distracted or to think you need a big investment to be successful. We’re hoping to prove that using smart strategies will create successful programs for companies of all sizes.
Keep an eye out for our next blog on the Seven Building Blocks to Launching a Successful ABM Program.
Authors:
Deepti Tiku, Senior Director of Marketing, Ridecell
Jackie Walts, Principal, Jackie Walts Consulting