Trends Driving Account-based Marketing
Category: Blog / Tags: account-based marketing, account-based marketing trends, B2B sales
This past year has seen a considerable increase in the trend towards account-based marketing (ABM). As a recent blog post by Sirius Decisions* notes, 2013 saw the term’s first appearance on Google Trends due to its uptick in global searches – and there’s a reason for that. B2B buyer trends are driving changes in marketing’s approach to lead generation. Fortunately, ABM is uniquely suited to meet those changing needs due to its highly-targeted approach which focuses on strategically selected key accounts as markets-of-one.
Consider the following trend-driving statistics:
- 82% of prospects value content targeted to their specific industry**.
- 75% of executives will read unsolicited materials that contain ideas that might be relevant to their business**.
- 67% find content targeted to their job function valuable**.
- 57% is how far along the average B2B buyer is in the purchase decision before engaging a supplier sales rep***.
- 12% is how much of a customer’s total mindshare the average supplier has across the entire B2B purchase path***.
Clearly, getting the right content to the right people is both vital to suppliers and valuable to buyers. However, actually getting their attention and engaging them with that content is challenging at best. Couple this with the ubiquitous (and seemingly ever-more exigent) need to do more with less, and the imperative for a highly-targeted and efficient approach to account penetration is clear.
To this end, ABM operates under the principle of quality, not quantity – it targets the most suitable and likely-to-buy accounts, as well as key decision makers within those accounts. Because of its highly-targeted and prioritized nature, ABM is essentially ‘qualified lead generation.’ Further to this, is the ability it affords to leverage customer-specific intelligence through the customization of messaging for each account, or even individual contacts. This approach “amplifies your content ROI**,” by delivering insightful, highly-relevant, and account-specific content directly to your target audience. As such, ABM is much more effective and efficient than broad-based lead gen tactics with their invariably dubious qualifications.
Underlying the success of any ABM approach are two key factors: current, highly-specific intelligence to inform your content, and a deep, accurate marketing database. Recent research by a subsidiary of SimplyDIRECT revealed that 85% of marketing executives from major technology companies feel that their databases require updating – a clear opportunity for those with a robust database providing access to senior decision makers! After all, getting to “yes” means getting to the right person.
With its unique ability to penetrate target accounts purposefully and precisely, ABM both broadens and deepens relationships within those accounts. Content tailored to provide explicit and customized insights regarding how a particular account can leverage your solution, will resonate and engage prospects far more effectively than traditional lead generation tactics. You can streamline and simplify your lead gen approach with ABM, while penetrating your targeted accounts through precisely the right pre-qualified contacts to achieve success.
SimplyDIRECT’s account-based survey service provides the ideal mechanism to implement your account-based marketing strategy. It enables sales to engage directly with individual high-level executives and to better understand their business and emotional needs and challenges. Armed with resulting customer intelligence sales is then better able to foster a personal relationship by helping prospects meet their needs. Aggregated survey results provide insightful content that marketing needs to further lead generation activities.
To learn more about SimplyDIRECT’s approach please download our account-based survey process infographic.
References:
* Are You Ready for Account-based Marketing? Sirius Decisions blog post, January 2014
** Insightera eBook, Why your demand gen plan needs account-based marketing
