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Not all B2B marketing strategies are created equal, and not all of them work. Have you ever wondered why your B2B marketing initiatives are not yielding the expected results? Why is it that in spite of pumping in efforts and resources, you aren’t able to acquire a good enough number of clients? Why won’t your target group respond to a particular marketing strategy in a manner that your team predicted?

 

While there can be a multitude of answers to these painful questions, the reason is that you’re probably still obsessed with traditional inbound marketing strategies. These strategies are centered on targeting a mass audience. This mass audience includes all kinds of people, and there is no way of telling the prevalence of people who fit the bill of your target group. You then keenly wait for the select few out of this mass to reply or reach out to you. These traditional inbound strategies have been implemented by marketers and B2B marketing teams for decades now! Do you know how familiarity breeds contempt? Well, similarly, target audiences have become immune to inbound marketing campaigns. Being bombarded by similar communication has rendered the audience unaffected to any similar attempts.

 

There has to be an alternative strategy that, when applied, can fetch the maximum possible return on your investments.

 

Any B2B organization’s marketing team puts in their best possible efforts to devise plans that reach out to a majority of their prospects. However, all of this goes in vain when their efforts are so callously pushed aside by the target group. The target audience can’t be blamed or labeled as fickle and tough, either. Conventional marketing strategies have hit their peak a long time ago and now, they are steadily getting obsolete and outdated.

 

 

Traditional (Inbound) Marketing Strategies

 

Conventionally, marketers used to reach out to larger groups of audiences through the use of email campaigns. Sometimes they use other media channels, content, blogs or articles. Each of these channels comes with its own set of benefits, no doubt. Each of them has was the best strategy at some point in time – and they probably were! But these media resources cannot be highly personalized or tailored to suit and address a vast community in general.
 
 
It is possible to personalize any marketing communication by adding names and other personal information. But that is pretty much all there is to it. You can’t customize all marketing channels to suit the likes, preferences, and requirements of all your prospects. At least not with the same personalization strategy. The focus must shift to crafting and supplying highly personalized content to your actual target audience. With customized content, each customer receives communication that addresses their interests. Such communication solves the problems that each of them has. You’re offering them precisely what they are looking for, and maybe even more. This acts as an encouragement to them, and they’re highly likely to solicit your services or buy your products.
 
 
In today’s cutthroat business scenario, marketers have to offer a personalized experience if they want to stake their claim on the target market. If not, the business will suffer.
 

 

Account-Based Marketing a.k.a. ABM

 

Marketers and their teams have used Account-Based Marketing techniques for many years now. However, the terminology used to describe it was different. ABM as a term has gained prevalence within the last six or seven years. Account-based marketing broadly means streamlining sales. It changes the marketing teams’ approach toward prospective clients. Such clients get termed as an account. In this case, teams look at accounts rather than targeting a hoard of probable customers. ITSMA (Information Technology Services Marketing Association) put forth the term ABM in the year 2004. A considerable majority of marketers were unaware of the term and its implications to the B2B industry till late 2000.
 
 
 According to ITSMA’s definition, “It means treating individual accounts as a market in their own right.”
 
 
In simple words, account-based marketing is:
 
‘A structured approach to developing and implementing highly customized marketing campaigns to markets of one, i.e., accounts, partners, or prospects. This method includes marketing process and sales initiatives taking a close look at specific business issues facing the target. Subsequently, mapping them to individuals, and tailoring campaigns to address those problems.’

 

Implementing ABM

 

So, how does one proceed with this new B2B marketing approach and adopt account-based marketing?

 

To use a hypothetical situation, imagine someone looking for four-leaved clovers in a field of clovers. Alternatively, imagine being on a farm where only four-leaved clovers grow. Well, if four-leaved clovers were bankable accounts, which field would you rather be in?

 

Similarly, in the case of ABM, you target the most lucrative accounts from the very start of the process and put all your resources and efforts toward marketing your products or services to these accounts. This tactic ensures that your accounts understand that your commitment to serving them is not all talk. Not only will this help your brand’s reputation, but it also sows the seeds for customer loyalty.

 

 Following are some of the critical features (but not limited to) to be implemented while adopting account-based marketing-

 

 Design Account-specific Offers and Campaigns

 

 As stated before, the key component of ABM is developing and creating highly personalized offers and campaigns for each account. As there are considerably fewer accounts or prospects when you implement ABM, it becomes possible to customize ads, campaigns, content, or emails as per each accounts’ likes, dislikes, needs, preferences, and priorities. The personalization ensures that your account values the relationship they have with your organization and leads them to avail of your services and use your products.

 

The product’s quality, the customer’s service experience, the ease of doing business with your B2B firm, and other such factors are undoubtedly important in the long run. However, once your accounts are satisfied with your communication, products, and services, they are highly likely to think of you for their future requirements. At the same time, since your marketing efforts convey that you are adept at understanding their needs, this process also helps you build lasting relations with clients. This encourages them to refer your products and services to others as well. It, in turn, allows you to create trust and brand reputation.

 

Retargeting your accounts

 

Retargeting is as important as account-based marketing is in the first place. Never assume that the end of a sale signifies the end of your account’s viability as a lead. It is very sensible and cost-effective to take up retargeting campaigns to boost sales. Essentially, you don’t have to expel any effort in making these accounts aware of your brand or educate them about your products. Subsequently, you can meet them in the middle of the sales funnel through retargeting.
 
 
When it comes to communication, you should put yourself in front of your subscribers periodically. This is so that they are aware of your continued presence. In today’s world of extreme and aggressive marketing approaches, it’s very easy for accounts to forget you within a fraction of the time. You must reach out to them often do not get out of their mind.

 

How Can Your B2B Business Get There

 

According to Forrester, 75% of buying activity happens before a hand-raise. This just goes to show how crucial retargeting is to a successful account-based marketing strategy.

 

There are various online services you can hire to retarget accounts in a modern context. These services can log the IP address of your concerned accounts. Being a content-driven world, accounts are bound to consume online content on a regular basis. Hiring such a service keeps track of the accounts’ online activity, and whenever they go online, they get served with your ads or content specifically. It builds awareness and image of your brand as well as keeps them well informed about you. The process never allows the account to forget you; hence, they will reach out to you again whenever they are in need of similar services.

 

Depending on past business relations with these accounts is a sure-fire way to earn repeat clients. Thus it’s highly essential for you to keep retargeting accounts even if they have completed the first business with you.

 

Personalization to an Enhanced Level

 

Personalization is the key building block when it comes to the Account-Based Marketing approach. It translates into customizing and creating or designing content, ads, or campaigns in a highly personalized manner for individual accounts. You can even personalize the landing page on your website for various specific accounts. Your ads or campaigns will drive desired accounts to your website, and if they find a landing page highly customized for them, it imparts a lasting impression. More than the impression what matters is the sense of satisfaction the account gets while visiting an optimized landing page that caters to his individual need.

 

A satisfying account is highly likely to feel ‘cared for and to believe that your B2B organization is the right fit for his requirements. After all, you keep delivering an experience that they enjoy. However, there is a thin line between personalization and intrusion. Make sure that your marketing communication artfully stays on the right side of this line.

 

Social Media Intelligence

 

To offer an optimal experience to accounts, you must keep an eye out for recent developments and ongoing happenings at the accounts’ end. An easy way of doing this is to keep yourself updated through the accounts’ social media updates. These updates will provide you with intelligence about their current needs, requirements, and the challenges being faced by them.

 

If you reach out to them with the exact solution in the form of your products or services; it will drive the account to trust you and your brand. This positive experience, again, helps to build long-term relations with the account. Never let your accounts dissolve into oblivion. Keep track of them in every possible way. It is necessary that the exact requirements of your accounts are fulfilled at the earliest. With the bonus of a positive buying experience, your accounts are bound to leave with a lasting positive impression of your B2B brand.

 

Use Old-school Direct Mail Strategy

 

The practice of sending direct emails to executives was left behind after digital marketing came into the picture for B2B marketing. However, the effectiveness of old-school direct emailing strategies remains unaffected. In most cases, executive-level employees don’t have a roaring presence on social media, nor do they subscribe to mailing lists frequently.

 

Executive-level employees play a huge role in buying decisions, especially in the B2B industry. If you send emails directly to an executive, the chances are high that they will make an impacting decision about your offer. Ultimately, if you can satisfy the executive with your service and product offering, you automatically will gain the trust and establish a long-term business relationship with the firm.

 

This old-school direct mailing tactic also falls under ABM, and it has yielded satisfactory results for B2B organizations across the world.

 

ABM aka Inverted funnel strategy

 

Traditionally, inbound marketing used to comprise of attracting as many people as possible through various marketing campaigns. The leads generated through these campaigns were then nurtured using personalized content, ads, or emails depending on their role in the buying cycle. However, the interim nurturing period usually saw almost half these leads opt-out of your marketing efforts. The remaining majority left when they didn’t get what they needed out of your efforts. Only a few of these leads remained at the last stage of the sales funnel.

 

Account-based marketing works just opposite to this standard inbound marketing pattern. You need to flip the marketing funnel upside down to understand this technique. The process through account-based marketing starts with identifying target groups. Look for those accounts out of your target audience that looks promising. Sorting out such prospects is not an easy task, but it’s a lot less pain than using the conventional funnel process. After you’ve zeroed down on who you want to work with, you start designing. Craft rigorously personalized ads, content, emails, campaigns, and other marketing communication for them.
 
 

Is MQLs Worth It?

 

 
The highly personalized material to engage these prospects pays up. In the long run, it turns the prospect accounts into MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads).
 
 
At this stage, the time is ripe for your sales team to jump into the arena. They must deliver an exceptional sales experience to MQLs. If the sales team succeeds in providing everything as per your clients’ requirements, it is great for your business. In this scenario, you are on your way to building lasting relations with these clients. Such clients can even recommend your services to their associates which further prove to be beneficial.
 

ABM vs Inbound Funnel

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Account-Based Marketing awards your marketing and sales team with fabulous opportunities to drive growth and bring in more business. All their efforts and resources bring fruit at the end of the process when they are in possession of the best prospects. In the end, it is worth it when you are ready to cash in on your B2B organization’s products and services.

 

However, these prospects are ready to buy now. If you don’t zero in on them soon, they won’t be as valuable anymore. Moreover, after nurturing with personalized communication, it is necessary that the sales team doesn’t overdo it. Don’t bombard such prospects with tedious sign-in and information form-filling.
 
 
In today’s advanced times, the ABM-qualified leads deserve pampering and prompt service. An immediate call-back from a sales representative should do the trick. Alternatively, they should at least have the option to access a sales representative via a live chat option. This helps them solve any doubts or queries they may have related to your product offering and helps them reach a decision.
 
 
No matter what, the ABM-qualified leads should never slip out of your hands. Importantly, they are the prospects you were trying forever to get using your best resources and efforts.
 

 

The Bottom Line

 

 
As discussed above, an account-based marketing strategy requires you to target the most interested prospects directly. Afterward, will focus on nurturing these leads with personalized content. But, like always, you need to have keen insight into these highly probable prospects first. You need to understand what this client wants, inside and out, before you are anywhere near ready to solicit. It’s not an easy task for your marketing and sales team to get a hold of in-depth lead intelligence.
 
 
To successfully grab hold of comprehensively created lead lists you need professional assistance. A lead generation firm that is solely dedicated to preparing lists of probable clients is the need of the hour. You need a data mining services partner for your specific industry and organization. Moreover, using manual techniques is important.
 
 
 The sole motive of account-based marketing is to personalize content for specific customers. Consequently, if you don’t have the relevant information for personalization you will lose efficiency. All in all, it defeats the whole purpose of implementing ABM.
 
 

How BizProspex Can Help

 

In such a precarious scenario, manual data experts like BizProspex can help you create the perfect high potential lead list in no time. BizProspex performs all types of data-related tasks with proprietary manual methods. This means that we mine, sort, append, enrich, clean, and organize data in a manual manner. We do everything without employing any automated processes or software.
 

The meticulous care and direct human intelligence that accompany Manual Data Services ensure that accuracy rates are as high as 98%-99%! This means that the data, thus processed manually, is almost entirely free of errors, missing information, irrelevant details, or mismatches. The high-quality lead-list ultimately increases the open as well as the click-through rates of your email campaigns ultimately improving your ROI to unprecedented levels.  Manual Data Cleaning services, Data mining ServicesData Appending servicesData scraping services, Email appending servicesSkip tracing, AML sanctions list, PEP List, and Global sanctions database are probably one of the best investments for your small B2B business growth. 

 

Get in touch with them to know more about Manual Data Services.

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