What is ABM?
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a highly focused approach to B2B sales and marketing through which target accounts are treated like their very own market and receive tailored messaging.
It involves a deeper level of personalization and relationship nurturing than other lead generation methods, which typically involve approaching many prospects with blanket messaging in hopes that it will appeal to at least one of them.
Effective throughout the lead-generation, lead-nurturing, and sale-closing phases, the ABM approach focuses individualized messages on specific prospective customers that will resonate with their unique requirements and motivate them to engage and convert.
For this reason, it is considered the cornerstone of a successful lead generation program and many businesses use it with their internal sales and marketing teams or outsource to a company that leverages the use of an ABM strategy.
With its rise in popularity, many outsourced lead generation companies are marketing ABM as part of their services. However, we’ve noticed that many companies, while promising the benefits of ABM, are missing calling as a part of the program – which is a key component in creating the personalization and relationship nurturing that makes ABM successful.
What to expect from an ABM program:
If you’re hoping to implement ABM as part of your sales and marketing, the following are basic to the foundation of a successful program:
Research
Spend some time developing account awareness. It takes focused intelligence gathering about a prospect, lead, or customer to lay a foundation for an individualized approach. Identify your primary account targets, learn about the company’s key contacts, what method of communication they prefer, and which of your offers might align with their needs.
Personalization
Make the account feel like an exclusive account or a preferred customer. Take the time to develop a meaningful relationship with the prospect, and work to understand their situation and needs as much as you understand your company’s solutions. This way, you can offer them the right information at the right time. Account-based marketing (ABM), so why would you try to offer the same information to every customer if it is not what they truly need?
Implementation
Execute coordinated sales and marketing campaigns across optimal channels that aim to address specific customers and their individual needs. Working together is key; when marketing and sales can speak the same language and are working toward a common goal, teams see an average of 32% annual revenue growth, while those that are less aligned see a decrease.
Ongoing analysis & optimization
Continue to analyze your account’s behavior with your company over time. Who are they speaking to, and what questions are they asking? What areas of your website are they viewing, and what is their purchasing history? Collecting this information regularly allows you to continue an account-based approach throughout your relationship with your client through understanding their needs and continuing to hone in on their needs.
What might be missing from your ABM program?
ABM relies on prospects feeling that they are a top priority, and this is made so by sales professionals making frequent contact with customers. In today’s age, a large share of sales interactions occur strictly online, and thanks to chatbots and messaging technology, calling is considered by some to be an outdated method of sales.
Many companies that market their lead generation services as ABM do not include calling as a part of the strategy. Yet 65.2% of B2B buyers said that they found value in discussing their situations with salespeople. Calling has always been—and continues to be—a key component to a successful ABM strategy.
If your ABM strategies do not include calling, you are likely missing out on countless opportunities to engage with key prospects that have a high likelihood of converting into customers.
What are you missing if you don’t have calling as part of your ABM program?
Utilizing classic phone meetings and adhering to regular calls as a part of your ABM program allows you to host real-time, one-on-one conversations with prospective customers.
These conversations allow your salespeople to develop a personal connection, build trust with the prospect, and provide that in-depth knowledge and personal approach that is fundamental to an ABM program.
In addition to fostering relationships, phone conversations allow you to better understand if your messaging is hitting the mark, ensure you’re getting in touch with the right people, and offer the chance to educate prospects who might not know your service exists or fully understand it.
How JMS applies our proven methodologies for successful ABM:
Our successful lead generation programs involve contacting targeted business executives via phone and engaging in meaningful interactions that result in highly-qualified sales opportunities for our clients.
This personalized approach to every sales interaction, exercised over the phone, helps prospective customers feel more comfortable with whom they are speaking, shows that their insight is valued, and creates a meaningful interaction that can resonate long past the phone call – all of which support the fundamentals of a successful ABM program.
Working with an expert sales team dedicated to making calls and engaging with prospects at a business level makes targeting specific accounts attainable for businesses that struggle with limited time and resources because we provide executives who have time, business acumen, and resources to do it.
By reaching out to key decision makers through targeted calling, our callers are able to answer complicated, industry-specific questions and assure leads that they understand specific pain points and offer applicable solutions. This is personalization that really cannot be achieved through other marketing efforts that don’t offer an opportunity for back and forth conversations.
Dedicating a team of experienced salespeople to conduct customer-centric sales efforts has a significant impact on the quality of sales interactions. A team can be committed to learning about your target accounts, engaging in frequent communications including calling, getting to the root of prospects’ problems, and offering appropriate solutions at just the right time.
ABM + Calling = A Strategy for Success
Implementing ABM and including calling as a key component to the strategy increases the likelihood of uncovering qualified leads and converting them into customers.
If you’re utilizing ABM strategies but excluding calling from the roster, you may be missing out on countless opportunities to engage with your key prospects and qualifying them as real opportunities. If you’re not utilizing ABM strategies in any way, you’re likely missing out on even more.
Interested in learning more about ABM and our ability to implement its strategies through targeted calling? Contact us to get in touch with our sales experts and learn how we can help you get on the path to sales growth.
Jim
