What’s ABM and Why is it Relevant to Email Marketing? November 06, 2019, | Posted by erin

Marketing in general is constantly evolving, and email marketing is even more innovation-driven, with new strategies, hacks, and tactics coming through the pipeline almost weekly. Account-based marketing (ABM) is something that a lot of marketers have already heard about, but as a strategy it doesn’t get much airtime or consideration. Site Impact likes to take deep looks into all the methods that exist out there, and ABM is no exception; it definitely has strong applications for email, and can be a method to really drive performance in campaigns. So let’s dig in!

What is ABM?

To start with, let’s take a closer look at what account-based marketing actually is. At its most fundamental and basic, ABM is a strategy that looks at key prospects or leads and focuses on them as an audience of one, as opposed to a broad-based approach that tends to look at groups of potential buyers collectively. Essentially, it involves choosing the highest-value customers and directing focus and consideration on them, building strategies around what each of those specific prospects is looking for and what will get them to convert.

How does this approach help email marketing efforts?

Email has been moving away from the blast approach for some time now, and ABM is one way in which to shift your paradigm for how your campaigns should go. Increasingly, consumers want a personal experience from the brands they engage with, and ABM strategy helps to make that a reality. Of course, there are tradeoffs with this approach, as with anything else: if you’re focusing strongly on the “big fish,” there’s the risk of losing out on several smaller prospects. On the other hand: if you get all of the “big fish” prospects, you don’t miss the possibility of lower-value prospects. It’s something of a gamble, but a gamble that pays off.

How to incorporate ABM into your strategy

Of course, it’s possible to use ABM principles and not go whole-hog into it as your sole focus, and in fact it’s a better idea to incorporate the basic systems of account-based marketing into your routine and make yourself flexible to a dual approach. ABM initiatives do require a lot of inter-departmental cooperation, but the payoff is great. Here are some ideas on getting started:

●     Develop a framework for choosing the “accounts” (prospects) you want to focus on

●     Increase communication between your sales and marketing teams, so that they can work together on campaigns and strategy for targeting your key accounts

●     Research who your key accounts are: what are they looking for, how do they travel through the sales funnel, what questions do they need answered to make their purchase?

●     Build a strategy to target and communicate with those key accounts, put together by a combined sales-marketing team

These first steps will put you on the road to a more ABM-focused strategy overall, while you can still maintain reaching out to as many prospects as possible.

Account-based marketing initiatives are a great tool for boosting your bottom line when it comes to email. Even if you don’t necessarily go all-in on the strategy, it can really increase the average spend and boost engagement with your campaigns, and it’s part of the direction that email marketing is going in already. Contact Site Impact to learn how we can help you put this method into practice.