As a B2B marketer, you’re likely familiar with collecting and analyzing data to improve your campaigns. But did you know that you can take this data and transform it into a highly personalized marketing strategy that targets individual accounts?
Account based marketing is already causing a stir in B2B markets for all the right reasons. In this article, we’ll dive into how you can use the account-based marketing strategy as a B2B ecommerce business.
Contents
What is Account Based Marketing Plan?
Account based marketing (ABM) is a marketing approach that concentrates on treating high-value accounts as if they are their own markets. Rather than employing a far-reaching strategy to target a wide audience, ABM focuses on identifying specific clients that hold significant value and customizing marketing efforts exclusively for them.
It’s essentially about giving your most important customers the VIP treatment. By pinpointing the unique value of certain customers, you can go the extra mile to make them feel valued and well cared for.
The Two Types of Account Based Marketing
ABM can be categorized into two main types, each designed to cater to different levels of personalization. These are the individualized and the targeted group approaches.
The Individual Approach
In this one-to-one approach, your marketing team will create customized campaigns for each individual account. This level of personalization allows you to focus your efforts on understanding the unique needs and challenges of every client.
The Group Approach
The one-to-few strategy takes a broader approach by targeting a small group of accounts that share commonalities, such as industry or revenue. This method is particularly effective when you can tailor your outreach to address shared pain points.
What Are the Common Problems Facing B2B Ecommerce Marketers?
B2B e-commerce marketers face unique challenges that can be effectively tackled by adopting an Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy. Let’s take a look at the common issues encountered by B2B e-commerce marketers and how ABM can assist;
Lengthy Sales Cycles
B2B e-commerce transactions often have long and intricate sales cycles. ABM’s focus on building relationships and nurturing leads is ideal for these extended sales processes, helping marketers stay connected with prospects over time.
Communication Difficulties
In an ABM strategy, sales teams often work closely with ecommerce marketers to engage with high-value target accounts. However, communication can be difficult, especially when remote. Using RealVNC’s remote desktop for Mac allows teams to not only communicate with one another but also provide personalized product demonstrations to high-value clients.
Account Complexity
Selling to businesses means dealing with multiple decision-makers and influencers within a single account. ABM’s one-to-one or one-to-few approach enables marketers to engage with various stakeholders individually, addressing their specific concerns and requirements.
Limited Budgets
B2B ecommerce marketers may have restricted marketing budgets, necessitating smart resource allocation. ABM allows for efficient allocation of resources by prioritizing high-value accounts and focusing efforts where they are most likely to yield favorable outcomes.
By leveraging an ABM strategy, B2B ecommerce marketers can overcome these challenges effectively while improving their overall marketing performance.
Top 7 Ways Ecommerce Marketers Can Use Account Based Marketing for B2B
Identifying High-value Clients
A crucial aspect of a successful Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy is accurately identifying your most valuable clients. When we say “valuable,” we mean the level of profit that the account generates for your ecommerce business, and the potential for future earnings. This is at the heart of any ABM strategy.
Identifying your high-value clients is made easier when utilizing customer intelligence solutions. This software will automatically collect data and gain insights into your client’s behaviors, preferences, challenges, and purchasing history. Armed with this information, you can pinpoint the clients who bring significant value to your business and are deserving of extra attention.
To effectively segment your client base, you can rely on customer intelligence tools like CRM systems and advanced analytics to gain a deeper understanding of your client’s needs. Once you’ve identified which clients you want to target, you can begin customizing your marketing efforts to suit their needs.
Personalizing Content
Once you’ve identified your most valuable clients, you can begin to make your content more personal.
Personalization is the main aspect of ABM. It goes beyond simply using client’s first names in emails. You need to create an account-based marketing content strategy that truly resonates with their specific challenges, industry trends, and pain points.
We understand that not every e-commerce B2B business has a marketing team ready to output high-quality, personalized content. If you want to generate an advertising copy instantly, we recommend using AI tools.
Utilizing AI customer experience examples allows your business to generate customized content that caters to each client’s unique requirements. This could include personalized product recommendations, case studies relevant to their industry, or content specifically addressing the problems they encounter.
Tailoring your content in this way improves engagement and fosters trust by making your clients feel valued and listened to – especially important when they’re spending significant amounts of money on your products or services.
Setting up Email Campaigns
Email continues to be a powerful tool in B2B ecommerce marketing and, unsurprisingly, plays a vital role in Account Based Marketing strategy (ABM). Your business needs to create targeted email campaigns tailored for your valuable clients – aligning seamlessly with your already personalized content.
You may want to advertise your latest blog posts or case studies or even promote offers specifically designed for your high-value client.
To do this effectively, segment your email lists based on their specific characteristics, such as industry, job role or pain points. That way, you can devise which of your customers you’re targeting within your specific email campaigns. For instance, if your corporate customer uses a curbside pick-up service, you could advertise your new and improved services to encourage them to place more orders with you.
Additionally, develop an appropriate way to correspond with each client during their buying journey—from initial awareness all the way to conversion and retention. Ensure that your emails provide valuable and relevant information while addressing the unique challenges faced by each account.
Building Custom Landing Pages
Having custom landing pages is a crucial part of your Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy. When valuable clients click on your emails or ads, they should be directed to pages specifically designed for their needs and interests. These landing pages should reinforce the personalized messages from your email campaigns.
Consider creating landing pages that highlight your case studies, success stories or solutions that are relevant to each account’s industry or specific pain points. By conducting A/B testing, you can optimize these pages to increase conversion rates and effectively guide clients towards taking the desired action – whether that’s signing up to your mailing list or contacting you about new products.
To help potential clients find your landing pages organically (through search engines like Google), you may want to consider optimizing your page with SEO. This involves finding keywords relevant to your customer’s industry and implementing them throughout your landing page copy.
You may even want to give your high-value clients the option of calling you directly with a CTA on your personalized landing page. To do this effectively, consider using an automatic meeting calendar with the help of a conference call app.
Personalized Outreach
The combination of individual and group approaches in ABM becomes crucial during the personalized outreach stage.
To target specific accounts on a one-to-one basis, it’s important for your sales and marketing teams to work closely together in order to create personalized messages and offers for each client. This can involve direct communication, follow-up calls, and meetings.
In the one-to-few approach, you have the opportunity to group together accounts that share similarities, like industry or revenue. By crafting tailored outreach messages that address the shared pain points and challenges of these groups, you can effectively scale your efforts while still maintaining a high level of personalization.
Account-Centric Metric Tracking
When it comes to account based marketing activities, it’s important to redefine how we gauge success. Rather than solely focusing on conventional marketing metrics like click-through rates or lead volume, let’s shift our attention toward tracking metrics at the account level. This means measuring the impact of our marketing efforts based on individual accounts.
We should keep an eye on metrics such as account engagement, conversion rates and how high-value clients progress through the sales funnel. It’s crucial to monitor the influence of personalized content and outreach initiatives on account behavior and conversion. By gaining insights from these measurements, we can make informed adjustments to our ongoing ABM strategy and effectively allocate our resources.
Account Segmentation
Segmenting accounts is a critical component of Account Based Marketing (ABM), particularly for B2B ecommerce marketers. It involves dividing your most valuable clients into different groups depending on criteria like industry, company size, location, or where they are in the buying journey.
This segmentation allows you to customize your marketing strategies to meet the unique needs of each group and target them more effectively.
For instance, suppose you have a set of high-value clients in the call center industry. In that case, you can create targeted campaigns that focus on their individual pain points, like poor call center customer retention. By tailoring your approach to their needs, you increase the likelihood of connecting with these clients and driving conversions.
Leverage An ABM Strategy in Your Ecommerce Business Today
As a B2B ecommerce marketer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal in the form of account based marketing.
With the ABM approach, you can develop highly tailored and effective marketing strategies for your most valuable clients. By personalizing the content they receive, creating targeted email campaigns, and designing customized landing pages, you can significantly boost client engagement and drive revenue growth.
ABM strategy allows you to give your top clients the VIP treatment they deserve, leading to stronger client relationships and overall business success.
