5 Ways ABM Platforms Help to Identify Companies to Target & Market

Account-based marketing, as a term, was coined by ITSMA close to 15 years ago. Most companies are now turning away from the more traditional approaches of marketing and embracing account-based marketing (ABM) as the most effective marketing strategy that yields better returns for every penny you invest. However, one important role of ABM is often not discussed enough, and that is – identifying prospective businesses, before casting the fishnet. This is an important step, if not the most important one, on which the success of your ABM team is based – else you’re going to be barking up the wrong tree!

5 Ways an ABM Platform is better at Identifying Prospective Accounts

Creating a want where there isn’t one, and then supplying to it, may have been an effective marketing strategy in the past. But everyone is getting smarter now, and you need to do more than that to attract clients. If one thing hasn’t changed over time, however, it is human tendencies; and at the end of the day, it is people who run businesses.

For your company to be most effective in terms of generating suitable leads and converting them
into actual sales, you need to take your product or service to someone who either really wants it, or
can benefit from it in unparalleled ways. One of the leading ABM platforms that gets this is
Demandbase. Their approach is far more evolved compared to competitors in the market, giving you
unprecedented results. Here’s how an account-based marketing platform as sophisticated as
Demandbase can help you identify the most-suited customer for your service or product.

Here’s how an account-based marketing platform can help you identify such people.

1. They are NOT shooting in the dark, so they know exactly where to aim.

An ABM platform is acutely aware of what it is that they can bring to a business. They know what your service or product is worth, and what value it can bring to a prospective client. By virtue of this knowledge, they can eliminate irrelevant targets right from the start. Not only does this save funds, it also saves a lot of time wasted otherwise waiting for fish to crawl into your net.

2. They help you know your prospective client very well.

The whole essence of ABM lies in knowing who you are talking to; this means knowing 3 core things about the targeted account (among other relevant ones) how is the account doing, what their pain points are, and how you can bring them value in overcoming their pain points. ABM, as an approach, allows you to invest time and funds in doing this research, which is directly proportional to the success of the strategy.

3. They also help you get to know the people behind the business.

ABM as an approach also facilitates getting to know the people on the other side of the table. This is important because business is, at the end of the day, all about the connections you build (or bridges you burn down!). A thorough ABM team can identify the people in an organisation that are actually going to affect the final conversion of the lead generated, especially by studying the social media presence of the company. This gives ABM an edge over other approaches because not only do they know the company as an entity, but also as a process.

4. They can hence help you go from customer satisfaction to customer delight.

Because they know the targeted account so well. The feeling of being heard is precious, in a world that only wants to talk! The data that an ABM platform collects can help you make your prospective client feel heard. While this may seem a trivial point, it is significant in light of the fact that ABM fosters not just deeper but longer associations. If you bring value to a company that they were not aware they were capable of tapping in the first place, they are going to want to keep you close!

5. Their goals and targets are more structured and precise.

Since they help you know exactly who they want to rope in, ABM platforms can bring focus to your efforts. They can identify in great depth, the strengths and weaknesses of the account, and hence the exact potential of the relationship. This in turn allows you to exploit the knowledge to maximise the ROI not only for yourself, but also for the client. ABM can thus foster true symbiotic relationship between a ‘buyer’ and a ‘seller’.

The way we do business is rapidly changing, and in today’s world collaboration is the only way forward. ABM is one of the few strategies that actually foster true collaboration between sellers and buyers, where everyone wins. Hiring an ABM company to do your homework might hence be one of the wisest decisions you take, especially when trying to target an important account. All the best!