Whether you’re new to Account-Based Marketing (ABM) or already using it, it’s essential to avoid common mistakes if you’re to stay on track. ABM is a progressively well-known effective strategy that allows us to target our highest-value, high-potential prospects with utmost precision.
If you have already used ABM as a marketing tactic, there are ways you can improve your strategy to boost your results. They are as follows:-
1. Spamming the list of Accounts
Purchasing lists of target prospects is a common strategy for marketing teams who want to move fast besides generating leads organically. Sales team tend to spam these prospect lists with several outreaches.
While open rates can be high at first out of curiosity from recipients, low click-through and response rates will be observed across the board during tele-calling campaigns.
The reason why it happens is instead of providing immediate value; you assume that there is a pain point and you push a solution. It might result in creating a wrong impression of your company ending up in receiving an “unsubscribe” or spam complaint.
Therefore, it is important to let the recipient have a chance to understand and explore the pain point themselves.
2. Cold Calling
According to HubSpot, only 1% of cold calls result in a successful appointment, which means that 99% of your efforts go waste.
Mobile Phones are getting smarter day-by-day in identifying spam callers. And just like emails, application providers are providing options to report callers as spam.
When doing cold calling, you are forcing your prospects to run through a buying journey that would otherwise take a fair amount of self-research.
It is advisable for the business development team to find substitute ways to reach account-based prospects, such as opt-in campaigns via Social Media.
3. Ignoring SMB Accounts
ABM used to be an expensive, time-consuming and manual process, making it feasible only for large enterprises. With the advancement of technology, it has become easier to manage and scale, making it viable for smaller and medium businesses.
The feasibility of ABM for your organization depends majorly on the business model rather than company size. Hence, any business can use ABM strategy to choose best-fit accounts to target.
4. Using Single ABM Channel
Investing in a single channel for ABM lead generation is not an appropriate approach. Account-based marketing, like other marketing activities, needs a broader view of the buying journey. Also, it is difficult to get insights into the impact of your efforts if you don’t diversify to different channels. Diversification helps find the right channel and messaging mix.
You can also start with a small campaign that needs small budgets in a range of ABM channels. Afterward, an audit of the results should be done every few days, and the budget can be focused on where the impact is the maximum in order to scale.
5. Failing to Deliver Personalized, ABM-Specific Messaging
Delivering generic messages without personalization will fail to generate interest in target accounts. The main aim of ABM is to provide specific, high-value, personalized messaging to a targeted list of accounts.
Tips for creating personalized & specific messaging include:
1. Create content based on prospect’s behavior, job role, challenges faced and preferences. Use buyer persona research to find out the most relevant channels for content delivery.
2. Make sure that the content provides a solution to your target prospect’s problems showcasing the services provided by your organization.
3. Create content keeping in view the target account’s position in the buying journey and further through the funnel.
Conclusion
Remember, all organizations are different, and no two companies will have the same ABM strategies. However, a successful ABM strategy is a targeted effort from both marketing and sales teams. Having a well-researched process in place to profile and reach relevant leads with the right messaging& channels will help you achieve higher ABM success.
