5 Account-Based Marketing Pitfalls to Avoid

Posted: 31 Oct 2016 06:00 AM PDT

B2B marketing has been touting account-based marketing (ABM) as a key strategy that is helping to fine-tune prospects that are ideal for your solution. The tactic can provide an effective avenue for creating meaningful campaigns that appeal to these prospects, enabling you to increase your conversions.

Just because more people are investing in ABM because of its success rate doesn’t mean all these marketers are moving forward and using the concept of ABM correctly. Part of ABM's effectiveness is its ability to provide very relevant and detailed data. However, there’s so much data that it quickly becomes a complex marketing tool. This complexity has resulted in some common pitfalls like the six listed below:

1. Thinking It’s All About Digital Marketing

While all types of online digital marketing certainly offer considerable benefits in reaching these prospects, many companies often forget about the offline marketing platforms, mistakenly believing they are dead. In reality, many businesses still spend considerable time with more traditional marketing communications where they feel they can develop tangible relationships with companies that can offer them solutions.

Companies in particular and people in general tend to trust the physical presence more than the virtual world, especially when many of the business solutions they are considering come at a high cost or involve a major investment. Look at targeting accounts in specific regions and determine which events in those areas should be added to the strategy in conjunction with your digital tactics.

2. Not Maximizing Value of Existing Content

This is a huge mistake because new content may not be necessary for each of your targeted accounts. Not only does this utilize more resources than necessary, but you also are not maximizing the value from the existing content. Keep your content library organized and review existing white papers, eBooks, case studies and articles for content that can be re-purposed or minimally changed in order to suit various accounts.

There is so much information thrown at us on a daily basis that we cannot catch every noteworthy piece of information; creating the need for a few repeats here and there.

Even something as simple as changing the images that accompany the content can create something new and engaging for different accounts. You may want to add enough content that is relevant to an industry that your new account now represents while keeping the primary benefits in place. I personally do this by publishing daily on our blog.

3. Not Personalizing the Content for Each ABM Campaign

There’s also the risk when recycling content or even creating new content that it will not be personalized to the degree necessary to truly enthrall and delight those target accounts.

Again, the need to keep pristine filing of content so that you will have the ability and option to hone in on the personal challenges of each target and present that information in a way that shows specifically how you can address those personal business challenges.

Be sure to deliver this content in a segmented way through various channels like email marketing, social media, and smart content found on various landing pages. This will add considerable value to each ABM campaign and capture your targets’ attention.

4. Not Developing the Right Infrastructure with the Appropriate ABM Tools

In the rush to benefit from the ABM trend, many companies just ad-hoc campaigns in the hopes they can gain quick benefits. The reality is that a company needs to have the right infrastructure to support ABM campaigns, including the most appropriate tools.

Your ABM toolbox should contain tools like a CRM platform, social media accounts, content promotion tools, a content management system, and a marketing automation platform. I also love tools such as Visme for creating stunning photos. In selecting these tools, look for those that offer third-party integration so you can connect as many ABM tools as possible for maximum efficiency and lift-off.

5. Separating Marketing and Sales Rather than Encouraging Collaboration

Your marketing and sales teams cannot go off and do their own thing because they are missing out on opportunities to collaborate and are creating barriers to identifying the best prospects. Together, your marketing and sales team can become a powerhouse force that shares and agrees to certain metrics that identify target accounts as well as developing and managing more successful ABM campaigns.

The project work involved in an ABM campaign can also be split up amongst the two departments to balance workload and generate the most relevant content.

Consider these mistakes when creating and implementing your ABM strategy and design your campaigns so as to prevent you from losing ROI and to help you strengthen your account relationships.

The Modern Marketing Guide to ABM will help you increase your conversions and lead you away from more pitfalls, allowing you to make the most of your time and resources to create meaningful campaigns.