The Impact of Account-Based Advertising in B2B Businesses

As consumers and companies continue to expect more from the brands they work with, account-based marketing, or ABM, has become a vital aspect of online marketing. ABM allows brands to make personal connections with their clients, and in the business-to-business (B2B) sector, this can have a significant impact on the long-term relationships businesses like yours survive through.

Learning the art of account-based advertising can make any brand more effective in meeting clients’ preferences and encouraging more engagement with content and products best related to their corporate needs. See why WebUp prioritizes ABM with our B2B partners and join us in developing new strategies for your success today.

What is account-based advertising?

Advertising has long been the method businesses use to get the word out about their services, and even as it continues to be a crucial part of marketing, the way it’s used has changed. Automated technologies and writing assistants have made it easy for brands to send out mass communications regarding their current offerings and upcoming deals. As such, people are bombarded with dozens of impersonal messages vying for the short time one has.

In other words, if an advertisement or email doesn’t immediately appeal to the reader’s interests, it’s unlikely they’ll do anything more than skim a subject line or remember a vague description of your logo.

Account-based advertising is the process of using personalized ad-based campaigns for a small subset of clients who fit a similar consumer profile. ABM allows you to make a personal appeal to high-value clients that shows them you appreciate them, specifically, and will continue to do so by meeting them wherever they are in their strategies and processes.

ABM is generally reserved for a company’s top clientele, especially in enterprise businesses and large companies, where it’s impossible to create individualized content for everyone. Focusing on the top contributors to your bottom line helps you maximize profitability and increase client retention where it matters most.

The benefits of account-based advertising in B2B scenarios

Creating an account-based advertising strategy can help you improve:

• Brand relevance: Customers, whether they’re individuals or shopping for a large company, want a streamlined, relevant experience every time they buy. Creating a more personal relationship with them allows you to better anticipate their needs and cater to them from the moment they contact you or visit your website.
• Return on investment (ROI): A marketing campaign, regardless of whether it’s personal or impersonal, requires an upfront investment in time, money, and other resources. Account-based advertising helps you make those investments as profitable as possible. When you become more familiar with your clients, there creates a sense of obligation that keeps them working with you for longer and investing more in your business.
• Productivity: ABM strategies demand your marketing and sales teams work together to deliver results, tying two of your most time-consuming processes into one step. This means you can respond to inquiries more efficiently and streamline the buying process, giving clients less time to rethink their decisions and staff more time to meet and exceed expectations.
• Consumer trust: Who are you more likely to trust — a stranger on the street who knows nothing about you, or the local businessman who knows your name and your favorite baseball team? ABM creates a similar sentiment. When your clients feel known at your company, they trust you more to get the job done. Consumer trust leads to firm, longstanding commitments to work together and find solutions to every issue.

How to create your ABM strategy?

The benefits of account-based advertising are well-defined, and integrating it as part of your marketing strategy is easier than most businesses think. There are three main steps to putting your strategy in place:

1. Account profiling and targeting: ABM requires a bit more research than traditional advertising, but the good news is that you already have the information you need. Your first step is to look at the businesses you work with and separate your one-time and low-value partners from your top performers and longstanding customers. This will give you an idea of who you want to appeal to and the types of businesses you can expect to work well with.
2. Aligning marketing and sales teams: Since ABM involves both sales and marketing techniques, these teams must be in sync as you work closely with these accounts. Prior to rolling out your new strategy, your sales and marketing personnel should be on the same page about how you’ll target accounts, which goals are most important, and who is responsible for nurturing leads.
3. Developing personalized content: Like the rest of us, B2B businesses interact with dozens of contacts every day and don’t get around to even more. Personalized content that appeals to a particular business’s services, and pain points, and even calls them out by name is much more likely to gain engagement than boilerplate emails and generalized calls to action.

As you implement account-based marketing, you may find it helpful to dedicate a representative or a few who are in charge of monitoring results through key performance indicators (KPIs) like click-through rates, conversions, and upsells. This tells you how well your plan is working and can also point out areas where you can do even better.

Create a data-driven marketing plan with the experts at WebUp

A well-implemented ABM strategy is the secret weapon for B2B organizations everywhere, but when you’re already thriving with your existing customers, it may be time to reach out for assistance. The staff at WebUp is full of communications experts ready to devise an account-based marketing plan that is tailored to your business and meets clients and potential leads where they are.

Connect with our strategists online, and we’ll start working with you today.

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