Account-based marketing is continuing to show how valuable it is for B2B marketers and as a result more and more are starting to adopt it. ABM takes a personalised approach toward marketing and allows you to tailor the message you want to deliver specifically to the target account. There is so much information that can be found about companies and the key contacts within by using just the internet. Data gathering should be one of the key activities in your ABM strategy for success. During the ABM process you can gather more data on your target accounts and use this data to refine your efforts. Concise and accurate data is important for ABM success for this reason.

1. Personalisation

ABM marketing needs to have a personal touch, so your customer feels valued. The use of customer data is essential to be able to deliver personalised messages. It is important to understand and empathize with the problems that your target accounts are facing. Be confident that you will be able to provide them with a solution. The data you have collected about your target accounts will help you with this and allow for trust to be built.

Identify the key contacts in your target account and build a relationship through personalizsed content and messaging. As this relationship develops and trust builds you will learn more insights about your customer. This information can be added to your database to keep it up to date and accurate.

2. Segmentation

It is important to target the right audience with the right messaging. You will need to segment target customers using data that you know about the account. These segments can include industry, size, number of employees, location and more. The more data you have about your target accounts the better you can segment them. This segmentation will be an ongoing process as you collect more data about your target accounts.

Use these segments to identify characteristics and behaviours that you can use for ABM success. Make yourself familiar with their behaviour as they go through the buyers journey.  With a better understanding of a segment you can plan appropriately and create campaigns that are specifically messaged toward them.

3. Sales & Marketing Alignment

In account-based marketing, the sales team and marketing team need to work in alignment toward a shared goal. Both teams can provide the other with valuable insights about the target accounts as well as sharing important metrics. When the marketing team and sales team share the information they know about their customer, it provides them both with a huge amount of data to work with. It is important for both departments to gather data that is accurate and organise it appropriately. Use this data to then score the suitability of different accounts that could be targeted in your ABM strategy.

With the right data you can communicate to key people in your target accounts with the right message at the right time. The better the data that you work with, the better the outcome will be. If there are errors in your data then you wont be able to target accounts as accurately as you would with the correct data.  As the data is collected it should be organized and stored appropriately so it can be accessed easily. Consider using a contact management database like Hubspot to help you to optimize your data and keep it up to date.