Over the past few years, Account Based Marketing or ABM has become a go-to approach for B2B marketers and is today an essential tool in any marketing strategy. A successful ABM campaign uses powerful marketing insights and data to drive success by customer account, but it’s ability to do so is only as strong as the data and insights used to support it.
Remind me, what is ABM?
There are three main types of ABM: one to many, one to few, and one to one, and all rely on data as well as targeted content marketing. A successful ABM campaign will deliver quality content and targeted activities to key contacts in an account. There are numerous benefits to be found in ABM, such as the ability to focus in on accounts that are likely to generate the highest return on investment (ROI), deliver high-impact personalised messaging, deepen customer relationships, and increase the alignment between sales and marketing [1].
Successful ABM requires deep-dive data driven reports on customers that help inform the strategy to adopt and the approach to take. These insights assist marketers in understanding the contacts to target and the opportunities they present.
Data and insights: the ABM backbone
ABM is reliant on accurate data and insights, so up-to-date and high-quality information is integral to it. While many marketers have already understood the benefits and adopted ABM activities, the data and insights upon which their strategy is based may now be out of date or even expired as a result of the pandemic. ABM based on poor quality data and insights can even have a detrimental effect on marketing activities due to incorrect targeting, irrelevant messaging and wasted time and effort if content doesn’t reach the individual it was intended for.
Given the massive upheaval caused by the pandemic over the past couple of years and enormous shifts in working arrangements across many businesses, it’s essential that the information you use to support your ABM programme is still relevant, reliable, and high-quality. Your ABM can’t just be business as usual. The world has changed, so your ABM activities and data need to be sense checked and viewed with fresh eyes.
Re-energising ABM to unlock opportunity
It may be time to re-energise your ABM by reviewing your contact data. It’s highly likely that if you mapped your contacts for ABM pre-pandemic, that some of these will have changed, or the organisation may have even been re-structured. On the other hand, it’s also possible that new markets may have opened up, so by revisiting and refreshing your ABM data you may also be able to unlock new opportunities. Through gathering new insights, you can inform the content marketing and communications you create to deliver a message that will truly resonate with your ABM targets. And importantly, ensure that the right message is communicated to the right person in the right way at the right time.
Be future ready: Seven key areas for 2022
We’ve put together a guide on seven key areas to help marketers plan for growth in the future. Our guide provides prompts to help plan for success, including using data to support digital marketing, content, sustainable marketing, realigning sales and marketing, and ABM.
