According to the Digital Marketing Institute 84% of marketers who measure ROI say that account-based marketing delivers higher returns than any other marketing approach.  With this in mind, it is important to recognize that return on investment can be difficult to measure in account-based marketing. Account-based marketing requires a lot of effort in order to establish a relationship with a point of contact. This is because ABM is very personalised.

As your customers move through the buyers journey you learn more about them and you can use this to further personalize your messaging toward them. This personalization makes your customer feel valued and can encourage them to engage. As a result of this engagement you can continue to collect data about them in order to improve their experience.

A challenge that marketing teams have always faced is measuring and reporting the return on investment from their efforts. Account-based marketing is no different, especially because of the high amount of effort that is involved. So, how can you recognize if your Account-based marketing efforts are paying off?

Use these guidelines to measure ROI from your account-based marketing efforts:

1. Set A Goal

This is the easiest way to recognize if your strategy has been successful. Just ask yourself, did we meet the goal we had set out for ourselves? Have we reached or better yet, surpassed our KPI goals?

When setting this goal be sure to use the SMART framework to set realistic goals that are suited to your business needs and team’s abilities. A simple example of a goal could be to increase ABM leads by 8% over a 12-month period.

2. Set A Realistic Budget

Put a suitable budget in place that will accommodate what you want to do without bankrupting your business. Work with your finance department on this step, if necessary. Often with Account-Based Marketing, you will have to figure out your needs before setting aside funds.

Assign a fixed cost to each piece of content that will be included in the strategy – include labour costs, publication costs and advertising costs. Try to have these figures as precise as possible to help measure the ROI of your account-based marketing accurately.

3. Measure The Metrics

Measuring leads and conversions is important but also take a step back from these and look at engagements, impressions and brand sentiment. These key performance indicators are important for account-based marketing, but they can be harder to measure.

Have benchmarks set out as goals for you to work toward. These benchmarks could be taken from previous strategy outcomes that you want to improve on.

Measure these metrics as your ABM strategy is ongoing in order to form an idea of your customers behaviour. By identifying the way your customers are interacting with your strategy elements then you can form a road map for your own understanding of the journey to conversion. This road map will then help you to forecast conversions. Use the information you acquire from monitoring behaviour to identify what content is performing well and what isn’t and then improve on this!

4. Refine Your Strategy

As mentioned in the previous step, monitor your content to see what performs best and what doesn’t perform well. Use this information to then adjust accordingly. The same can be said for the strategy overall. If there is a stage in the strategy where you have noticed a high number of drop-offs, then you need to identify the problem and fix it. By repeating this you will refine your ABM strategy and become experts on your customers behaviour.

Once you have completed these steps your ABM strategy should be performing well with the accounts that you have targeted. By measuring the key performance indicators and other metrics you should be able to measure the ROI of your account-based marketing efforts accurately.

Get in touch with the team at GrabSome to discuss ABM goals for your business!