Looking for ways to get started with account-based marketing?

Remember when you were a kid and you would stand on the edge of the pool during adult swim, eagerly waiting for the lifeguard’s whistle so that you could plunge into the deep end and continue playing “sharks and minnows” with your friends?

Well, account-based marketing isn’t something you can just jump right into, no matter how badly you want to. It is a collaborative approach that engages multiple departments in your company and requires a “kickoff conversation,” strategizing, and lots of planning, as does any new program or initiative.

The first step in the account-based marketing (ABM) process is getting your stakeholders together. The executives in your company will prove to play a vital role in this new venture, and they care deeply about the amount of money marketing spends. Therefore, it is important to Invest your resources the right way, making sure that every dollar marketing spends not only helps to generate sales leads but that those leads translate into revenue.

Let’s use a simple analogy. Say you’re going fishing and you’re hoping to catch a few trout. You can throw a giant net into the water and catch a bunch of fish at once — that may or may not be trout — or you can specifically identify the trout you’re after and reel it in from there.

Now, in the world of fishing, those extraneous fish caught in your net might not be such a bad thing, but step into the shoes of a B2B marketer, and those fish just become clutter in your database — and quite frankly, a waste of your time and money.

Reallocating your resources can make a tremendous difference in this process. These are the main resources you need for account-based marketing:

People: Your employees are the #1 most essential resource you have at your company and it is important that they all collaborate and work together particularly the sales and marketing teams. Creating a dream “smarketing team” will create a strong base for your ABM approach.
Technology: ABM is possible thanks to technology that’s used to identify, target, and engage accounts. Software tools play a key role in ABM.
Money: B2B marketers must have a budget and track the amount they spend. With lead-based marketing, you look at how much you spent on each activity and how many new leads were generated. With ABM, you track the amount spent per campaign at the account level.
Time: This resource is one that there never seems to be enough of. With ABM, you measure how much time you invest in each account (which is best fit for your business) and how quickly it progresses through the stage towards a sale.

Once you have correctly invested your resources, you are ready to continue moving down the account-based marketing funnel and headed directly towards driving more revenue for your company.

Want more information about account-based marketing?

Check out the following resources:

And finally, check out the first chapter of my book, Account-Based Marketing for Dummies. You can download it for free by clicking the banner below.