Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategy that focuses on personalized marketing programs to strategically approach the key decision-makers of the high-value accounts and deploy highly targeted content to convert those accounts into paying customers.
ABM helps drive business growth and impact by treating the individual high-value accounts as markets in their own right.
Even as the COVID pandemic disrupted the business economies across the globe, ABM continued to deliver as a core marketing strategy for the B2B marketers and delivered substantial business results.
According to ITSMA, ABM accounts for 27% of the total COVID-adjusted marketing budget for the marketers; which signifies that it continues to deliver magnificent results even during unprecedented times.
In this blog post, we will unveil the ABM trends for 2021 to help marketers adopt the best approach for continued success on the road to the next normal.
Trends in ABM in the year 2021 will be based on the following timeless principles which lie at the very core of the ABM conception:
1. ABM Transcends Beyond Lead Generation
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is not just about lead generation but also involves a strategic focus on omnichannel reputation management, building relationships with potential customers, and achieving revenue goals.
2. The ABM Lifecycle Involves Continuous Collaboration
ABM encompasses strong sales and marketing collaboration. The tight partnership and integration between the sales and marketing teams ensure that there are optimal sales closures and the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals of the organization are easily defined, measured, and achieved.
3. Using Data to design Hyper-Personalized Customer Experiences
If customers get the same experience throughout and inside-out messaging, it's not ABM. An effective ABM program leverages tailored and personalized programs and campaigns based on deep customer insight.
2021 is going to be an era of digital transformation, the one wherein the trends in ABM will emerge and evolve to drive strategic business impact, growth, and success.
ABM programmers must discover and seize the new opportunities on the road to the next normal and must effectively leverage those opportunities to thrive in the year 2021 and beyond.
Here are the 5 ABM trends for the year 2021 that highlight the new opportunities for the ABM-ers as B2B buyers accelerate business transformation in the dawn of the next normal post the pandemic crisis:
1. Embrace an Agile ABM Strategy
In the year 2021, ABM trends are likely to be driven by an acceleration of agility.
ABM-ers must understand that to address the unprecedented developments in the B2B ecosphere, business, markets, and the society at large they would need to embrace agility.
The following is a sneak peek of the likelihoods that might shape the ABM dominion:
- The conventional ABM tactics may change and new trends may emerge
- The account-priorities will be shifted with different coverage models
- To tap into the new markets & to sell to the new types of buyers, strategic ABM modulations must be done
2) Amplification of Account Insight
Account insight lies at the very core of ABM. Most ABM-ers rely on data-driven insights to select accounts and run campaigns. Accordingly, ABM-ers require to make wise investments in the fields of data and analytics.
To come up with hyper-tailored strategies to support and nourish the nuanced accounts amid the pandemic, gaining vital data-driven insights about the high-value customers becomes more important than ever before.
The ABM trends in 2021 would corroborate all-encompassing investments to ABM insights including:
- Account insight
- Insights from Intent Data
- Engagement Insight
- Prospect Insight
- Business Intelligence, and
- Predictive Analytics
3) Stronger Marketing and Sales Collaboration
Marketing and sales collaboration is a characteristic feature of any ABM program but in 2021 this will not be more important for ABM-ers than ever before, but also will be more challenging.
Drifting away to the normal post the disruptions of 2020, there will be constant pressure on bridging the gap between the marketing and sales endeavors for effective collaboration to occur. Both the marketing and sales would need to adapt quickly to the new ways of working and engaging with the customers.
The ABM programs that are closely aligned with the sales are more likely to contribute to the revenue and other core bottom-line goals of the organization as:
- They are closely aligned with the sales and marketing model
- They have mastered the art of working closely with the other teams since the pandemic, and
- They have ensured a high customer satisfaction level as a result of the collaboration
4) Towards a Blended ABM Strategy
The year 2021 will be a year when the trends in ABM will witness the blending of at least 2 of the 3 types of ABM viz. one-to-one ABM, one-to-few ABM, and one-to-many ABM. Actually, all the 3 types of ABM can help the marketers achieve their marketing goals.
While a single ABM program is unlikely to be more effective than another, blending at least two types of ABM brings balance and breadth and ensures depth of coverage across various groups of priority accounts.
The ABM trends in 2021 will behold the most effective ABM programs to invest in a blended approach compared to other programs.
5) ABM Analytics: Mind Your Metrics
To optimize their ABM strategy, the ABM-ers need to clearly define, measure, and optimize their ABM metrics, a process called ABM analytics.
For assuring the optimum utilization of the resources amidst the unprecedented times opting for an analytical approach becomes imperative. Metrics and KPIs substantiate the effectiveness of the ABM approach to demonstrate the bottom-line business impact.
The top ABM metrics are generally designed to measure the 3 primary goals:
- Customer Relationship Management / Engagement
- Revenue Goals / ROI
- Omnichannel Reputation Management
Remember, you can't optimize what you can't measure so you ought to use the right metrics, more significantly those that bear direct correlation with the ROI (Return on Investment).
Regular program-level communication and employing management dashboards are some of the best ways to bring ABM analytics into the equation and deploy it the right way.
Wrapping Things Up
Recovering from the extreme pressures of 2020, the ABM trends will continue to evolve in the year 2021. Employing the above 5 strategies will help marketers accelerate their success in the next year and beyond.
Marketers employing ABM programs continue to generate substantial business results across the 3 R's of marketing impact viz. Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue.
Strategic ABM enables business development, with targeted relationship and reputation management, the development of account-based sales endeavors, and the branding endeavors at large.