With both HubSpot and Pardot bringing account-based marketing (ABM) tools into their platforms, it’s clear that ABM is on marketers’ minds. 

In a world of automation and easy digital access, customers want to feel seen and heard. It’s no longer enough to send the same email to hundreds of subscribers and expect results. In fact, the average click-through rate on emails across all sectors is around 2.62%. 

Often, this reflects struggles with the personalisation and segmentation of your customer base. 

This is where ABM can help boost both your marketing efforts and your sales figures. Because ABM is focussed on building relationships, it requires a tailored approach that responds directly to a prospect or customer’s needs. Using ABM can help position your business better for larger customers that expect a more personal touch to business.

Read more: How to sell into Enterprise using content and ABM

Sales and Marketing alignment

Account-based marketing enables better collaboration across your Sales and Marketing teams. By ensuring that both teams are working toward the same goals and that all customer interactions are documented in an easily accessed and reviewed space (like your CRM), you’ll create a seamless customer experience. 

Collating all of these details will help conversation flow more naturally, even between multiple internal touchpoints. To cut down on miscommunication, both teams should be working from the same single source of truth. This also ensures that team members can always pick up from where the last point of contact left off. 

Aligning your sales and marketing teams is a sure-fire way to decrease friction in the buying process and increase the efficiency of your teams.

Maximise relevance

Account-based marketing means personalising everything for each and every account that you work with. This includes everything from content to communications. Every piece of collateral that is brought to this account should be tailored to their specific needs.

Because of this attention to the needs and requirements of individual accounts, you’ll come across as more relevant and better suited than alternative solutions that don’t take the time to add a personal touch. 

This means that your business will come across as the obvious choice and best fit when it’s  time to purchase.

Consistent customer experience

Developing a consistent experience for your accounts is a key part of ABM. Part of this is because account-based marketing is a long-term style of engagement. Often it can last months or years.

In order to use ABM successfully, you’ll need to create a consistent experience for those you are marketing to. It’s about continually delighting the customer throughout their journey with your company. The goal of ABM is to make each account feel as though they are your number one customer.

Creating these experiences, particularly those that last especially long-term, can be a difficult process. However, with teams dedicated to the success of each account and your sales and marketing teams aligned, you’ll find that this style of interaction can be delivered naturally and very effectively.

Measure ROI

Because ABM relies on keeping a record of all customer touchpoints within one system, measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your activity is relatively straightforward. You’ll be able to see which accounts yielded the best returns for the amount of effort that went into them.

Not only will this allow you to better choose which accounts to focus on long term, it can also help you qualify future prospects. By identifying and targeting accounts similar to the ones with high returns, you may be able to increase the overall ROI of marketing efforts. 

In fact, according to Marketo, 97% of marketers agree that ABM has a “somewhat” or “much” higher ROI than other marketing initiatives.

Expand business

Account-based marketing can help you expand your business in two major ways: retention and referrals. These are some of the most valuable types of ‘new’ business and encouraging growth in these areas is where ABM excels.

Because so much of ABM is based in delighting customers and accounts, many of the accounts earned this way are long-term customers. They’ll sign on to longer contracts or keep returning for your service time and time again. And, as you probably realise, retaining existing customers is far more cost-efficient than obtaining new ones.

In addition to that, happy, long-term customers tend to spread the word. 

By creating loyal customers who are consistently pleased and impressed by their interactions with your company, you can help turn a customer into an advocate. They’ll recommend your services, introduce you to their network and, generally, help your business grow.

This is particularly helpful when starting to expand your target audience. Once you begin to win a few of the bigger customers that you are targeting, you’ll also be opening doors to more clients like them.

Read more: How future growth will be driven by your customers

By employing an account-based marketing approach, you will not only increase efficiency within your teams, but also provide a more tailored, relevant and measurable experience to your customers. These types of consistently delightful experiences can boost your business and help you win even the biggest customers.

If you’re interested in growing your business through account-based marketing, get in touch. We’re always happy to talk!