It’s the term you’ve heard at marketing conferences everywhere, and now you’ve finally asked yourself: ‘What is Account-Based Marketing?’

 
So let’s cut to the chase…

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on individual key accounts, instead of broader generalizations of account types.

Who uses it?

This is becoming more and more common practice for enterprise-level businesses.

How does it help?

Traditionally marketing has always organized itself by industry of solution. By focusing your efforts on the accounts you consider most important, you’re able to tailor a message directly to their needs and align your marketing efforts accordingly.

How do we do it?

ABM is a joint effort between sales and marketing teams; making the alignment between the two increasingly important.  Firstthe key accounts need to be carefully identified and justified. After this is complete, you must do some reconnaissance work on these accounts and define their pain points and the direction in which they are currently moving.

Next comes the most important part of ABM: Creating high quality targeted messaging and quality. To do this you must consider your key accounts buyer journeys and offer content that is going to keep them engaged and coming back again and again.

Now you must consider how your content will be seen. Email? Social? Paid Search?

Keep an eye on analytics, look out for buying signals and get sales ready to pounce when the time is right.

I’m ready! What else do you have?

Check out our Account-Based Marketing Guide to get a better step-by-step understanding, or learn more about the initial Foundations of ABM to gain a deeper understanding of how to get started.