In the world of B2B prospecting, the game has changed. Buyer behavior has begun to mirror what B2C marketers have been dealing with for years: the buyer now controls the cadence of the journey. This is why we now spend a lot more time talking about the “buying cycle” rather than the “sales process.”
Instead of a sales professional seeking out and moving sales leads forward in the cycle, those prospects now seek out information when they are feeling pain or trying to solve a problem. This means that the companies who put out highly relevant content, targeted at the right people, through multiple channels that make it easily accessible, are far more likely to get up at bat once that buying decision is being made.
When it comes to B2B prospecting for a complex sale, Account Based Marketing is an approach that can get you in front of the right prospects at the right time. This means that these sales leads are more likely to convert quickly to a qualified sales opportunity.
Account Based Marketing requires attracting prospects, building awareness and shifting messages to align with the market’s appetite, and this evolution has put heads of marketing in the driver’s seat (or hot seat, depending on how you want to look at it). To help drive your Account Based Marketing program strategy, MarketLauncher has developed the following steps to ensure success.
Define your ideal client profile and use key criteria to build out a list of companies which make up your total addressable market. Apply multiple touches to turn that list of “suspects” into verified stakeholders inside those companies. This may be the most labor intensive part of the process as you navigate through companies to find the individuals who are truly driving decisions around relevant key initiatives. The payoff for this effort is knowing that your message is getting to the right audience. (We’ve kicked off programs for clients where 60 days in we reported that as much as 50% of the contacts in their CRM were not the correct decision maker; which means their previous marketing activity was only reaching half the audience they thought it was.)
After the laborious process of building your audience, use email campaigns and content on your web site to create awareness. This is your opportunity to establish a one-way dialogue as you put relevant information into the hands of these potential buyers. Your goal is to become the trusted resource for all things related to the subject matter.
Through each interaction, collect intelligence so that you can continue to build an account-based profile. Pro-actively identify the key triggers which might indicate a potential buying decision. Communicate and interact with these decision makers by linking relevant information about their pain points with a message about your offering that will resonate.
Keep the dialogue going with personalized touch points to build reputation and trust, and convert to a sales opportunity when it is clear that need and timing have aligned.
Yes, account based marketing takes a lot of effort. Yes, account based marketing requires investments in labor, technology, talent and time. However when you get account based marketing right, you should see faster lead conversion, shorter sales cycles and higher close rates.
Thanks for listening. I’d love to hear your ABM success stories.