ABM Challenges: What Lags Do Marketers Often Face When Running an ABM Campaign?

Are you ready to level up your marketing game with an ABM strategy? It’s time to get ready to face the obstacles that will come your way and develop a compelling marketing strategy that produces results. An effective ABM strategy takes extensive planning and consideration. From identifying target accounts to tailoring your messaging, each stage has its own set of challenges. But don’t worry; it’s how you overcome these obstacles that will set you apart from the competition.

The B2B marketing environment is becoming more fragmented and dynamic. With the rise of digital marketing platforms, customers now have more freedom and control over how, when, and where they interact with brands. As a result, ABM (Account Based Marketing) is assisting businesses in adapting to the shifting buyer’s journey by considering unique obstacles and focusing on repositioning the most prevalent issues that affect prospects. But what lags do marketers frequently experience when implementing an ABM strategy, and how can they address them wisely?

Account Based Marketing allows B2B marketers and sales professionals to target key accounts and drive revenue. However, there are some challenges that come with implementing an ABM strategy, such as a lack of data or inefficient processes. B2B teams should be aware of the obstacles they may face when launching the ABM campaign.

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Here are some common challenges and suggested best practices:

1. Collaborate Between Sales and Marketing Teams More Vigorously

Aligning sales and marketing teams is the act of bringing these two departments inside a company together to work cooperatively and strategically toward shared objectives. The goal is to increase the effectiveness of marketing efforts and the conversion of leads into customers.

Companies might benefit from aligning their sales and marketing teams in a variety of ways. Here are 3 facts to back up the benefits of aligning these teams:

• Increasing revenue: According to Marketo, combining sales and marketing teams can result in a 209% increase in marketing revenue. This means that by collaborating, both teams can optimize the lead generation process and drive more sales.
• Increased sales win rates: As reported by MarketingPros, aligning teams can result in 38% greater sales win rates. When sales and marketing teams work together, they can provide a uniform and unified message to potential customers, increasing the likelihood of closing purchases.
• More deals get closed: According to Marketo, alignment between sales and marketing teams can improve transaction completion by 67%. When these teams work closely together, they may better understand client demands, adjust their messaging, and deliver a seamless customer experience, which leads to more closed deals.

Takeaway:

Whether the company is new or old, the communication between sales and marketing departments should be as streamlined as soon as possible. This allows people to generate ideas, work together on agreed goals and objectives, and devise tactics for accomplishing them. This collaborative strategy promotes greater communication, coordination, and synergy between the two teams, ultimately leading to enhanced outcomes and performance.

2. Creating the Ideal ABM Stack

Finding the correct tools to effectively execute an account-based marketing (ABM) plan is a common problem when executing the strategy. ABM strategy necessitates a variety of technologies, and selecting and managing them may be a daunting endeavor for any company. Not only can it be costly up front, but it also demands regular training and support to ensure that the technology is used to its full potential.

Takeaway:

Start with the fundamentals and expand as needed. The good news is that you don’t need a complicated tech stack to implement ABM successfully. Your ABM tech stack should evolve naturally with your company, adding components only when necessary. Here are a few key tools to have on hand:

• CRM Tool: A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool allows you to properly organize and access all your contacts. This tool assists you in finding target accounts for your ABM strategy.
• Lead Nurturing Tools: These tools make it easier to send personalized material to leads to effectively engage and nurture them.
• Automated Retargeting Tools: These tools allow you to follow up with leads and keep in touch with them.
• Automated Data Capture and Analysis Tool: An automated data capture and analysis tool gives useful insights to help you fine-tune your ABM strategy.
• Website Personalization Tools: These tools, such as dynamic landing pages, enable you to create a unique and personalized experience for each visitor.

By beginning with these core tools, you may lay a solid foundation for your ABM tech stack. You may lay a solid foundation for your ABM tech stack by beginning with these key technologies. As your ABM activities progress and your organization’s needs change, you may add more technologies to support your growth and enhance your ABM efforts on a case-by-case basis. Remember, the goal is to start with the basics and progressively grow to achieve a successful and effective ABM deployment.

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3. Identifying whom to target

The key to account-based marketing is to identify the best accounts to target at the ideal time. It’s a difficult balance to achieve. Established businesses may already have a large database of present and future customers, which they can use to build their ABM strategy on. Identifying the correct accounts, on the other hand, can be difficult for those who do not have a well-defined target audience.

Takeaway:

Begin with your current customer base. Set up a collaborative session with both your marketing and sales departments to establish your target audience (again, underlining the significance of alignment). Analyze who is actively engaged with your brand and identify any consumer attrition together. You can create a strategy to target similar accounts if you have a strong idea of your present client profile.

4. Determining the ideal budget for ABM

Remember that the Forrester study’s average ABM budget ($590,000) is just an initial estimate; your ideal budget will be determined by your individual circumstances, goals, and available resources. However, determining how to allocate this funding for your ABM approach might be challenging. Determining the best budget for account-based marketing (ABM) entails considering a variety of elements and assessing your present cost structure. Here’s how the procedure works:

Takeaway

1. Things to consider when determining the ABM budget:

You must emphasize both small and large details. So, consult with your sales and marketing teams to determine the aspects that must be considered when determining the ABM budget, as this will assist you in implementing the following points.

• What are you hoping to achieve? Define the objectives you want to attain with your marketing activities.
• Define the number of target accounts you want to focus on as well as the level of engagement and personalization you want to provide.
• Analyze the available internal sources, such as employees, technology, and others, to properly implement the ABM strategy.
• Examine your competitors. Who are your rivals, what industry you work in, and what tools do you need to effectively execute the ABM strategy?
• Examine the industry and competitors to determine the level of investment required to remain competitive.
• Determine the expected return on investment (ROI) from your ABM initiatives and link it with your overall business goals.

2. Examine your current cost structure:

For allocating the money you must give it a proper thought so the ABM strategy execution can be done successfully, and you are prepared for any hiccups. Here are things to consider and should be on the list if you want to make a successful ABM strategy.

• Examine your current marketing and sales expenses to determine where you are overspending or underutilizing resources.
• Examine the effectiveness of current marketing campaigns.
• Identify areas for improvement, such as lead generation optimization, process simplification, and automation.
• Think about the costs of your technological stack, data management, content development, and distribution methods.

3. Determine the money based on what you’ve discovered:

Budgeting based on the insights gained from reviewing your present cost structure requires thorough study and decision-making. Here’s how you can calculate the money based on what you’ve discovered:

• To assess the cost structure, use the data acquired to create an optimal budget for your ABM initiatives.
• Invest for account research, customized content production, targeted advertising, events, and account-specific marketing as part of your ABM plan.
• Budget allocation should be prioritized based on the possible influence on revenue creation and meeting ABM goals.
• Consider the continuous costs of running and expanding your ABM program, such as people, software licenses, and campaign execution.

4. Maximize ROI

Once you have decided to allocate a certain amount of money to the ABM campaigns and strategy, then you must not take measurement of campaign success for granted. You should do the following to get the best results.

• You must regularly monitor and measure the performance of your ABM campaigns in relation to your goals.
• Optimize your budget allocation depending on the results and alter your approach as needed.
• Track the ROI of your ABM activities with analytics and reporting tools, including measures such as pipeline acceleration, purchases velocity, client lifetime value, and revenue earned from target customers.
• Refine your approach over time by learning from the mistakes and success of previous campaigns.

5. Evaluate how will you measure the success of your ABM strategy

To determine how you will measure the success of your ABM efforts can seem a little challenging as there is no standardized method for doing so. But it is possible to measure the ROI by choosing some relevant metrics and here is what you can do:

As ABM is a personalized and targeted approach that is different from traditional marketing tactics so simply considering the metrics like page views, social media likes or shares will not do any good. You must concentrate on important metrics and insights.

Takeaway:

For example, if your ABM strategy focuses on encouraging approval or usage of a specific product or feature, you may measure metrics linked to product usage or feature adoption among target accounts. Second, you may estimate the long-term worth and profitability of ABM customers. CLV provides insight into your ABM strategy’s success in gaining and maintaining high-value clients.

Third, you may assess the direct impact of your ABM activities on revenue production. This can include KPIs such as revenue earned from target accounts, account expansion or upsell chances created, and average deal size from ABM-generated leads. Fourth, you can track how quickly prospects move through your sales pipeline. This metric can help you evaluate how effective your ABM strategy is at sending accounts from one stage of the pipeline to the next.

These are a few metrics that you can consider but it is vital to note that the metrics you track will be determined by your individual business objectives, target audience, and industry. To maximize your ABM approach, choose metrics that connect with your goals, provide actionable insights, and assist you in making data-driven decisions. Review and evaluate these indicators on a regular basis to monitor performance, find areas for development, and promote continual growth.

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6. Choose a method for creating fresh content without exhausting the content development process:

When implementing an account-based marketing approach, providing individualized content for everyone may appear difficult and time consuming. So, when creating content, you may feel like you’re running out of ideas because of all you’ve already done. So, plan out the content carefully, and the best thing you can do is master the art of repurposing current information.

Takeaway:

To meet this challenge, do the following:

• As content creation is a labor-intensive thing, creating large volumes of content catering to the demand of the audience may seem a bit overwhelming. Rather than focusing on producing a large volume of content, prioritize producing high-quality content that is valuable to your audience. You can maintain a higher grade of content while reducing workload by producing fewer but more valuable pieces.
• As ABM strategy is focused on accounts then addressing specific needs and preferences of customers or each target account is important. You must create new and personalized content for each account, but let’s face it that it is very difficult to do so. Therefore, repurpose your content. Repurpose content by converting it to a different format or by adding new information. Recycling content not only saves time but also allows it to reach new audiences who may have missed it the first time around. Repurposing content saves time and effort when compared to developing wholly fresh content. You may swiftly alter and customize current content to meet the demands of unique accounts by repurposing.
• User-generated content can be an excellent means to enhance your content creation efforts while also providing a unique perspective. This technique also encourages interaction and the formation of a community around your business.
• Collaboration with influencers or industry experts might help minimize some of the burden of content creation. They can write guest blog pieces, conduct interviews, or collaborate on content creation with you. This not only diversifies your content but also enables you to reach a larger audience by using their experience and influence.
• Consider outsourcing or delegating specific content generation responsibilities to a dedicated content team if your resources allow. Freelancers, content agencies, or internal specialists can help with workload distribution and bring new ideas and experience to the table.
• Highlight places where you can streamline and automate content development operations. Use content management systems, collaboration tools, and templates to streamline operations, boost efficiency, and maintain brand and messaging consistency.
• Simply creating content is not enough, you must take the feedback of your audience and ask their views on the content. If the audience will engage, they can specify certain points that they want information on and you can come up with unique answers to their questions and develop a whole new piece of content that is more engaging and it will also satisfy your audience. So, it is a win-win situation.
• Simply developing content is not enough; you need to request feedback from your audience and inquire about their thoughts on the information. If the audience engages, they can describe specific areas on which they want information, and you can come up with unique responses to their questions, developing a whole new piece of content that is more engaging while also satisfying your audience. As a result, it is a win-win situation.

You may easily adapt your messaging for multiple accounts by repurposing content without the enormous load of developing entirely fresh content from scratch. This method maximizes efficiency, uniformity, and allows you to successfully utilize your existing content assets.

Final Thoughts:

Account-based marketing (ABM) has been a marketing approach for nearly two decades. However, in recent years, its popularity and adoption have skyrocketed. These are just a few challenges that you can address when planning out your new ABM marketing strategy. But, there are many other challenges to consider as well.

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This article implies that B2B marketers who have not adopted ABM techniques may face financial penalties as they lag the majority of organizations that have effectively implemented ABM. Regardless, the focus is on the fact that it is never too late to begin developing and implementing an ABM plan. Businesses can position themselves for success in a highly competitive market environment by acting now and building an ABM plan.