Word of the Day: account-based marketing (ABM)

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms | October 1, 2018 account-based marketing (ABM) Account-based marketing (ABM) is a business-to-business (B2B) strategy that focuses sales and marketing resources on target accounts within a specific market. Instead of broad-reaching marketing campaigns that touch the largest possible number of prospective customers, an ABM strategy focuses resources for the book of business on a defined set of named accounts. An important goal of ABM is to identify employees at a specific company who are researching products and services and then customize sales programs and marketing messages to meet the needs of buyers and influencers at that company. In the past, this was expensive; it required a lot of work and many components had tasks that needed to be done manually. Today, however, marketing automation technology and customer experience management software can automate much of the tedious, time-consuming work involved in mining potential customer data and personalizing marketing messages. One of the benefits of an ABM strategy is that it makes it easier for a vendor or service provider to see how money the company is spending on marketing translates directly to closed sales and revenue. By aligning sales and marketing resources and targeting accounts have been pre-qualified, an added benefit is that marketers begin to think a little bit more like sales representatives, focusing attention on the best way to bring a potential customer to the table and generate revenue. According to The 2015 State of Account-Based Marketing Study conducted by SiriusDecisions, 92 percent of companies recognize the value of ABM and see the strategy as a 'must have' for B2B marketing. The study also found that large companies are currently the biggest users of ABM, but small companies are the most aggressive testers. How account-based marketing works Although each business that initiates ABM will focus attention on the needs of their specific customer base, there are some parts of the process that are common to all. Align sales and marketing teams. Mine data to identify named accounts. Determine who the decision makers and influencers are at the named account. Personalize messaging to address the named account?s business challenges and needs. Identify which communication channels will be used to message the named account. Evaluate the effectiveness of messaging and sales efforts and make adjustments as necessary. Quote of the Day "Marketing focuses all of their resources, budget and campaigns against a very specific list of target accounts to directly support the sales effort." - Josh Garland Trending Terms book of business marketing automation content marketing named account demand gen buying signals Learning Center Comparing the top marketing automation software vendors Navigating through all the marketing automation software vendors can be tricky. Get a breakdown from experts on market leaders like Eloqua, Marketo and Pardot. This is the year CRM AI remakes sales automation The hype behind CRM AI for improving sales automation has been very noisy. Next year will be the payoff, as AI-driven processes become part of everyday workflows. Salesforce enters account-based marketing space with Einstein ABM Einstein ABM offers insights on data within Salesforce, but third-party data providers are still needed for full scope. Is account-based marketing right for your company? If your company has qualifiers, such as a narrow target market, then account-based marketing might work for you. Here's a close look at eight steps to get it right. Adobe acquisition of Marketo could shake up industry An Adobe acquisition could be coming. But while no deal has been confirmed by Adobe or acquisition target Marketo, the potential move could lead to Adobe moving in on the B2B space and, possibly, even Salesforce. Quiz Yourself I requested copies of the marketing report for other team members and ____. a. me b. myself c. I Answer Stay in Touch For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed! FOLLOW US About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2018 TechTarget. All rights reserved.