Account-based marketing (ABM) is a marketing approach focused on identifying, targeting and engaging a set of high-value accounts by creating personalised messaging and customer experiences. These may be current customers where you can measure and model their potential future value, or new business opportunities where market trends, customer need and product-fit indicate they should be a profitable customer.

In part 1 of our blog series about account-based marketing we’re going to look at how an ABM approach can deliver substantial return on investment.

Targeted and carefully considered interactions with your prospects and customers will have a direct impact on your performance metrics across marketing and sales. You can expect:

• Higher conversion rates: prospect to lead, and lead to sale, within your target accounts. Tailoring your approach to an account's needs, wants and the personalities of the decision makers can drive a 25% rise in conversion rates from marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to Sales Accepted Leads (SALs)*. These accounts are much more receptive to a sales conversation with overall conversion rate improving 17% from SALs to sale*.

• Shorter sales cycles: your sales team can be more efficient because prospects and leads are further down the funnel when they interact. This means less time is required to sign off on a deal. 

• Higher average order values: when multiple decision makers and influencers throughout the business are persuaded that this purchase will deliver good value, they are more open to the idea that a greater investment means a greater return. The average order value could increase 13%*.

• Higher retention rates and greater lifetime value: not only will targeted messaging support efficient and successful renewal and rebook conversations, but a sophisticated ABM approach provides the intelligence that informs better product-alignment to key customers, adaptive pricing power and overall relationship management.

With these in mind, it’s clear to see how ABM, with a 28% increase in overall account engagement*, has an exciting role to play within a marketing strategy.

And appetite for ABM is growing. 39% of marketers* spent more on ABM in 2023 compared to 2022. With the rise of AI helping companies to prioritise key accounts based on demographic and behavioural data, it’s little wonder that ABM is getting a lot of interest from event and subscriptions marketers in 2024!

EVENTS: ABM helps you deliver a better event experience

ABM in events marketing should be a strategic priority. Events are unique in that the product only really ‘exists’ when everyone turns up in the room. The participants of the event are equally part of the product. 

Your attendees won’t return if ‘who’s in the room’ doesn’t meet their expectations and needs. This requires you to target the right brands, and the right individuals, many of whom are senior representatives with busy schedules and multiple similar event participation offers. ABM offers you a way to stand out from the crowd with a personalised, thoughtful touchpoint. 

Your sponsors and exhibitors won’t rebook if they don't meet their prospects. This alignment needs to be achieved on both the company level - bringing their target accounts into the room - but also at the individual level so that you are attracting the decision makers that your commercial partners want to meet. A high volume of leads is a great start, but sponsors and exhibitors will soon question the value if they don’t build sufficient pipeline off the back of the event. If you offer inventory which allows sponsors to have smaller, more intimate or bespoke networking opportunities with delegates, then ABM is a critical lever to securing sponsorship revenue because your marketing teams likely need to deliver a wishlist of specific delegates.

SUBSCRIPTIONS & MEMBERSHIPS: ABM lays the foundation for product-led growth

ABM, when applied to subscription and membership models, supports a commercial framework for growth. Oppositely to events, it’s not the interaction between companies which is as influential, it’s the interaction within companies which is key to growth and retention. Therefore, getting your product in front of, and being used by, your Ideal Client Profiles (ICPs) is the 20% of the 80/20 rule that you want to focus on. An ABM approach has been seen to lead to 13% higher web traffic from target accounts*. 

Number of users and usage (frequency/ pageviews per visit etc.) are amongst the most important metrics to regularly monitor as they indicate the likelihood of retention and the potential change to order value at contract renewal. Whether your model is focused on volume of users and frequency of visits e.g. news-based publications; or access to the platform at key times, accompanied by depth of content e.g. consultancies utilising intelligence platforms - the commonality is that the users are deriving value from your content. This increases the internal advocacy for your product, which will be paramount at the point of renewal. The best scenario is that your content is disseminated throughout the business. This is the basis of product-led growth. A user wants to share a news article, an insights report, or key charts with colleagues, but limited licences prevent the efficient sharing of information. This can lead to mid-contract upgrades as well as an increase in the net revenue at next year’s renewal. With deeper penetration throughout the business, your product becomes stickier for that company and the Lifetime Value of the customer increases.

ADVERTISING REVENUE: ABM to drive advertising revenue

Just as delegates and sponsors are happier when there’s relevant alignment, the same goes for subscribers and advertisers. With a more targeted approach to building your readership within key accounts, sectors or industries, you have a better offering for advertisers. You can provide greater insights about the content-consumed by the prospective companies they want to be seen by and you can collaborate on advertising that will resonate. This approach can result in higher click through rates on digital advertising by up to 20%*. This may even help you increase your advertising inventory because you can achieve the necessary impressions or clicks from more targeted and personalised ad delivery to particular readers.

PRODUCT ENHANCEMENT: ABM provides intelligence to refine your offering

While ABM has a primary purpose in commercial performance - delivering greater revenue, in a shorter time frame, with greater resource efficiency - ABM can also provide intelligence and insights that allow you to further refine your product, your pricing and your promotion tactics.

By monitoring the engagement of your key target accounts - both customer and prospects - you can learn more about:

• Pricing sensitivity/ opportunity - for example, if your customers, by company, are renewing at close to 100%, this indicates that they are happy with the service and see value in your offering. There may be an opportunity to push the pricing further as this would be accommodated by your customers. 

• Product-market fit - if you are struggling to renew companies, or to increase prices where renewals are occurring, then you may want to reconsider your product-market fit. What product development or content innovation would offer your customers a service which they perceive greater value in?

• Accurate Account Targeting or ICPs - if you are churning some clients but increasing the order value with others, take the opportunity to reassess your ideal client profiles. Deep dive into those that are increasing their investment and identify their key characteristics - demographically, firmographically and their market needs. Finding lookalike clients will help improve your retention rates and prevent time being wasted on renewals of mis-aligned companies. You are now shifting more of your customers into the “20% zone” which will renew and increase their investment with a lot less input from your side.

From improving marketing and sales metrics, to enhancing product development, account-based marketing has the potential to light up your business growth in 2025.

*Stats in this article: https://www.gartner.com/en/digital-markets/insights/account-based-marketing-trends

---

If you need support with understanding where an ABM approach could fit within your business, or where to initially deploy it to showcase its value to stakeholders, contact MPG today. We have extensive experience with establishing ABM strategies and can help you ensure ABM achieves great results.

GET IN TOUCH

 

.