In today’s digital landscape, businesses need to be more strategic than ever when it comes to marketing and sales. Blanket approaches just don’t cut it anymore. There are too many potential customers and too much noise. Companies need to get personal and targeted.

That’s where account based marketing (ABM) comes in.

ABM focuses marketing and sales efforts on a clearly defined set of target accounts. The goal is to tailor messaging and outreach to resonate with each account. It’s an orchestrated effort across the entire customer journey to turn targeted accounts into long-term, high-value customers.

Done right, ABM can be tremendously effective. Research shows that ABM delivers close rates at more than double the average and reduces churn by over 50%. The targeted accounts generate over 306% larger deals on average.

But ABM isn’t easy. It requires alignment across marketing and sales. There are strategic decisions to make on which accounts to target and how best to engage them. Once you commit to ABM, you need the tools, content, and expertise to execute.

Let’s break it all down so you can decide if ABM is right for your business and how to approach it.

What is Account Based Marketing?

Account based marketing represents a major shift from traditional marketing.

Rather than casting a wide net hoping to capture leads, ABM goes after specific, high-value accounts. Every aspect of the marketing and sales process – from messaging to channels – is tailored with one of those accounts in mind.

ABM brings marketing and sales together around the shared goal of landing enterprise deals. Both teams work together to identify target accounts, coordinate engagement, and develop account-specific content and campaigns.

While ABM has traditionally focused on large enterprise deals, its principles can be applied to any B2B company targeting multiple stakeholders within accounts. Even companies selling to SMBs can benefit from more personalization and orchestration.

No matter the business model, ABM puts the focus on the account rather than individual contacts. The goal is to engage multiple stakeholders as they move through the buyer’s journey as a coordinated group.

This account-based focus allows marketing and sales to align around the metrics that matter most – account engagement, pipeline, and revenue. Activities across the funnel contribute to those big-picture goals.

Done right, ABM provides a more predictable and effective path to revenue than traditional funnel metrics like leads and conversions. But ABM requires operational and cultural changes that aren’t easy, as we’ll discuss shortly.

ABM vs Traditional Marketing: Key Differences

Let’s look at some of the key differences between ABM and traditional marketing approaches:

• Targeting – ABM focuses on a small set of high-value, strategic accounts. Traditional methods target a broader audience based on personas and buying stages.
• Personalization – Every ABM interaction is personalized to resonate with a specific account. Traditional marketing takes a more generic, one-to-many approach.
• Stakeholders – ABM engages multiple stakeholders within an account. Traditional methods often focus on individual contacts.
• Strategy – ABM requires tight alignment between marketing and sales around target accounts. Traditional methods tend to operate in silos.
• Content – Content is developed with specific accounts and buying groups in mind. Traditional content uses more generic buyer personas.
• Orchestration – ABM orchestrates targeted outreach across channels. Traditional methods rely more on one-off tactics.
• Metrics – Pipeline and revenue generated from target accounts dictate success. Traditional metrics look at leads, clicks, and conversions.

The overall goal of ABM is to provide a coordinated, personalized experience to accounts that matter most to the business. It’s a comprehensive shift from casting a wide net to going deep on your ideal customers.

But fundamentally changing marketing’s approach requires buy-in across the business. Let’s look at some tips on getting stakeholders aligned.

Gaining Alignment for ABM Success

For ABM to reach its full potential, the entire organization must buy into the approach. Cross-functional alignment ensures everyone is working towards the same goal: winning targeted accounts.

Here are some tips on getting aligned around ABM:

• Educate – Provide training on ABM principles so everyone understands the approach. Discuss benefits, metrics, and required changes.
• Set shared KPIs – Establish account-focused KPIs like pipeline generated and revenue growth from target accounts.
• Create account plans – Develop coordinated account plans and share them across functions to align engagement.
• Communicate results – Consistently share progress and wins on target accounts. Track how ABM activities influence the accounts.
• Incentivize success – Consider tying individual incentives to the shared goal of winning target accounts.
• Embrace experimentation – Take an experimental approach to ABM. Test and refine based on account engagement and wins.
• C-level mandate – Secure executive buy-in. This ensures ABM gets resources and company-wide adoption.

With a strategic approach, it’s possible to get all functions – sales, marketing, and customer success – united around landing target accounts. But this level of alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It requires leadership, communication, and a collective focus on account-focused metrics.

When everyone is bought in, the magic of ABM happens. Sales has marketing support in engaging accounts. Marketing understands which tactics and content resonate. They work together to build targeted, multi-touch campaigns.

Next, let’s explore how to structure that orchestrated outreach.

Orchestrating ABM Campaigns

ABM campaigns are orchestrated across channels to engage accounts where they are active. The goal is to serve relevant, valuable experiences to move accounts down the ABM funnel.

Here are some tips on orchestrating ABM campaigns:

• Map account touchpoints – Understand the social, web, and advertising platforms where your accounts engage. Meet them in those channels.
• Personalize outreach – Use targeted display ads, tailored social posts, and account-specific email campaigns.
• Develop content – Create content that speaks to the pain points and needs of each account. Deliver value.
• Leverage intent data – Capture intent signals like searches and monitor for account activity. Engage promptly when accounts show interest.
• Schedule multi-channel outreach – Plan integrated outreach across channels to reinforce messages.
• Automate campaigns – Use account data and rules to trigger actions – emails, ads, notifications – when accounts hit certain milestones.
• Provide sales support – Arm sales with targeted content and cadences for their account outreach.
• Track engagement – Monitor account response across channels – form fills, content downloads, site visits. Optimize based on performance.

The goal is an integrated experience where accounts receive consistent, tailored messages as they move from early research to considering solutions.

When accounts show intent, marketing and sales pounce by delivering value. When they go quiet, nurture campaigns and keep your brand top of mind.

The technology exists to orchestrate ABM at scale across accounts and channels. But content remains the foundation of any ABM campaign. Next, let’s explore ABM content best practices.

Developing Content That Resonates

Highly targeted, account-centric content is the fuel that drives ABM’s success. To maximize impact, ABM content should:

• Offer value – Go beyond the sales pitch and provide valuable insights accounts want. Demonstrate thought leadership.
• Focus on pains and needs – Tailor content to each account’s pain points and needs based on research.
• Leverage triggers – Develop content mapped to triggers in the account’s buying cycle – budget planning, contract expiring, new initiative.
• Mix formats – Combine long-form posts or guides with snackable infographics, charts, and videos based on account preferences.
• Promote engagement – Make content interactive with assessments, calculators, questionnaires, and worksheets.
• Use visual storytelling – Incorporate visuals and visual storytelling tailored to resonate with specific accounts and contacts.
• Customize where possible – Consider custom whitepapers, case studies, and even videos spotlighting accounts.
• Localize material – Adapt global content with localized data, examples, and terminology that fits each account’s region.
• Keep messaging consistent – Maintain brand consistency while personalizing content to each account. Avoid generic messaging.

The goal is to serve a steady stream of relevant, valuable content tailored to where accounts are in their journey. When they indicate interest, you quickly react with related offers.

This account-focused content approach requires tight collaboration between marketing and sales. Next, let’s look at some tactics to align around content.

Marketing and Sales Content Collaboration

For ABM content to hit the mark, marketing and sales need to be in lockstep. Some tactics to drive collaboration include:

• Meet regularly – Schedule recurring syncs between marketing and sales to ideate account-specific content.
• Share account insights – Sales provides real-time account feedback. Marketing offers performance data on content.
• Maintain an editorial calendar – Plan content around buying signals and milestones for each account. Coordinate campaigns.
• Develop aligned workflows – Streamline hand-off of sales-approved content to reps for their account outreach.
• Leverage shared templates – Create templates – emails, social messages, ads – where account content can easily be personalized.
• Track performance – Analyze content metrics by account – downloads, clicks, conversions. Optimize based on what resonates.
• Repurpose top content – Turn popular content into multiple formats – blog, video, podcast – to maximize reach.
• Keep CRM updated – Log content shares, email sends, and meetings by account so all teams have full visibility.

With robust processes in place, marketing and sales can work together to continually test and refine account-specific content that moves deals forward.

But even with great content and execution, measuring the impact of ABM comes with challenges. Let’s explore some options.

Measuring Account Based Marketing Success

For ABM, the standard campaign metrics like impressions and clicks don’t provide a clear picture of performance. You need visibility into what matters most – account engagement.

Here are some metrics that can help gauge ABM effectiveness:

• Target account list penetration – Percentage of target accounts engaged through campaigns. Shows how successful outreach is at hitting the accounts that matter most.
• Account engagement – Opens, clicks, content downloads, assessment completes, meeting booked by each account. Indicates their level of interest.
• Marketing influenced pipeline and revenue – Amount of new pipeline and booked revenue tied back to marketing campaigns and content. The true measure of ABM success.
• Account scores – Scoring accounts based on engagement to prioritize sales follow-up and nurturing.
• Account conversions – Signups, demos booked, free trials started, deals closed. Activity that moves accounts down the funnel.
• Account lifecycle stage progression – Accounts move from early awareness and interest stages to consideration, decision-making, and expansion. Shows positive momentum.
• Lower account churn – For installed accounts, lower churn and improved retention year over year indicate greater satisfaction.

Tracking metrics at the account level provides tangible evidence that your ABM approach is working. Activity turns into conversations. Conversations convert to pipelines. The pipeline delivers revenue.

However, measuring performance is just part of the ongoing optimization needed for ABM success. Next, we’ll discuss how to continually improve and adapt your approach.

Tuning Your Account-Based Marketing Engine

The most effective ABM programs take a test, learn, and refine approach based on account data. Some ways to keep optimizing include:

• Review target account list regularly – Add promising accounts showing intent. Cut unresponsive targets based on performance data.
• Analyze engagement – Review account engagement metrics. Double down on high-performing content and channels.
• Tap into new intent signals – Incorporate new data sources – like LinkedIn activity – that provide account intent signals and trigger outreach.
• Watch for shifts in preferences – If accounts increasingly engage through a new channel or format, adapt your outreach mix.
• Make messaging adjustments – Test new hooks and angles if current content isn’t resonating with accounts.
• Talk to your champions – Interview friendly executives and contacts at accounts that have converted to uncover what worked.
• Monitor for red flags – Note declines in account engagement and diagnose the issue to get back on track.
• Find lookalike accounts – Use data models to identify new accounts that share attributes with your dream accounts.

With a test-and-learn approach, you’ll get more adept at crafting account experiences that resonate and convert. ABM success breeds more success.

Now that we’ve covered the what, who, how, and why of ABM, let’s wrap up with some final thoughts.

Accelerating Growth with Targeted Account Strategies

Here’s what it comes down to – account based marketing works. ABM provides a more predictable path to revenue by focusing energy on the accounts with the greatest potential.

The data shows it. Research from ITSMA found that ABM delivers close rates at over 2x traditional marketing and reduces churn by over 50%. More than 90% of marketers surveyed believe ABM positively impacts sales pipeline.

But ABM isn’t a quick fix. It requires executive commitment, tight coordination between sales and marketing, and a focus on engagement over vanity metrics. With a sustained, strategic approach, ABM can transform how you attract, engage, and retain accounts.

Now is the time to start having the ABM conversation within your own company. Get executive support. Outline your pilot. Begin the hard work of aligning stakeholders and processes. And commit to a focus on quality account experience over quantity of noise.

Leading with ABM today will mean a more predictable pipeline and accelerated growth tomorrow. The accounts are out there – it’s time to win them over.