Benefits of Account-Based Marketing: What’s All The Hype About?

Few things are gaining more traction in marketing than Account-Based Marketing strategies. With 94% of marketers leveraging Account-Based Marketing (ABM) in their strategies and 64% of ABM strategies being launched in the last five to ten years, ABM is becoming an increasingly popular approach. 

So, what exactly is it about ABM that makes it so special? What’s all the hype about?

There are several reasons why ABM is a powerful marketing approach. Here are some of the most impressive benefits of ABM strategies – and why marketers are starting to use them more and more often.

The Benefits of ABM

ABM strategies can be ridiculously effective for certain brands and customer segments. However, we know that you’re a savvy marketer, and any savvy marketer isn’t going to just take our word for it. You need to know that ABM actually works. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the biggest benefits of ABM strategies.

ROI is Much More Obvious

One of the most important KPIs in any marketing campaign is ROI — you need to be making more from your campaigns than you’re spending; otherwise, why bother? According to the 2022 ABM Benchmark study, 72% of marketers say that ABM offers higher ROI than other types of marketing. Moreover, another study found that 60% of companies that implemented ABM saw at least 10% revenue growth within the first year.

This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. With a typical marketing campaign, you’re putting your materials in front of a lot of people in the hopes that some of them will eventually become customers — but it’s hard to tell how far your campaigns are reaching or who exactly is seeing them.

With ABM, you know exactly who’s seeing your marketing materials, what kind of collateral you produced, where you published it, and how much the whole campaign cost you. If it takes $5000 to land a $100,000 contract, you know exactly how much you’re making.

ABM is Much Less Risky

In any normal marketing campaign, some portion of your money will inevitably be wasted. Broadly speaking, eMarketer estimates that between 20 and 25% of marketing money is spent on ineffective channels and strategies. In one extreme case study by Disruptive Advertising, a client was spending almost $50,000 a month on paid search ads that were generating no leads whatsoever. 

Some of the people who see your campaign won’t want to hear it — or simply won’t care. Worse, you might spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on a new campaign only to find that it simply doesn’t resonate with your prospective customers. Every campaign carries some risk.

That risk is substantially reduced with an account-based marketing campaign. With ABM, you know that the people who see your campaigns are interested — that’s why you picked them out. You also know that the materials you’ve built will apply to the next batch of leads that you pick out — if you don’t convert one lead, you can simply find the next contact on the list, tweak the names and numbers accordingly, and proceed as planned.

Clients Like Personalization

When it’s done right, personalized marketing carries a huge appeal for your customers. Email marketing is a great example — even though it’s far from the newest or most exciting form of marketing out there, it still generates some of the best ROI. In fact, according to Hubspot, personalized email marketing can generate a staggering $38 per dollar spent. That’s an ROI of 3,800%.

Since ABM is geared toward a few precise target companies (or even one in particular), you can create ads, landing pages, and other marketing materials with one specific company in mind. They’ll be able to tell that you did your homework when researching them, and they’ll appreciate the personal touch.

Setting and Measuring Goals is Easier

Setting goals before you start a marketing campaign is a crucial first step — if you’re going to be able to tell whether your campaigns are working, you need to compare your results to something.

With ABM, you know ahead of time who your targeted accounts are, and you’re working with a much smaller number of clients. Not only that, but setting goals is much simpler. Your goal might be something as simple as “sign this client,” or it might be something more complex like upselling, cross-selling, or convincing a certain number of your clients to adopt a new product (we’ll go into more detail on goals in a minute). With obvious objectives, it’s much easier to tell whether you’ve been successful.

Account-Based Marketing Is the Perfect Supplement to Your B2B Marketing

While ABM offers prominent benefits to marketing campaigns, it doesn’t have to be a standalone marketing strategy — there’s no reason you can’t target both large numbers of small accounts and the few specific large accounts that would make a huge difference for your business. If you’re in the B2B industry, ABM can be a hugely lucrative supplement to the marketing campaigns you’re already running. Whether you’re just learning about ABM or you’re firmly entrenched in this world, it’s time to take your marketing game to the next level — and ABM may be just the thing your brand needs.