“ABM”. No, it isn’t a new term for AI or an abbreviation for a Kardashian-approved ab workout. ABM is actually a marketing concept that dates back to the early 2000s, coined by Momentum ITSMA, a business growth consultancy.

While ITSMA may have been the first experts to put momentum behind this style of B2B marketing, ABM, no doubt, has gone through many iterations since it was first introduced to the marketing world over 20 years ago. So what does ABM look like today? Read on to discover some basics of account-based marketing.

A Brief History of Account-Based Marketing

The origin of account-based marketing can be traced to 2002. In the 90s marketing was more about quantity over quality; throwing ideas at the wall until a concept stuck with consumers. This style of marketing was called “full court” marketing. Marketers would try to reach their ideal customers through any means necessary: tv, phone calls, personalized emails, in-person meetings, even snail mail.

Then in the 2000s, there was a shift to a more personalized approach. Accenture created a style of marketing called client-centric marketing in which all marketing was handled by account managers. This approach allowed marketers to be much more focused, placing the client at the center and building out their marketing strategy based on the client’s unique needs.

It isn’t hard to see how account-based marketing grew from this concept. In 2002, the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) began researching the role of account managers in marketing. Based on the findings of this research, they coined the term “Account-Based Marketing”, a highly personalized style of marketing that today is widely used in B2B marketing.

What Is Account-based Marketing?

So, what exactly is account-based marketing? It is a style of marketing used predominantly by B2B marketers that focuses on marketing to specific, high-quality accounts as opposed to a general “customer”. ABM uses three phases: program planning, account-specific planning, and program assessment and it requires deep collaboration and alignment between sales and marketing teams through every phase.

Difference between client-based marketing and account-based marketing

At this point, you might be wondering what distinguishes account-based marketing from a more traditional marketing strategy, like client-centric marketing.

Think about it like this: client-centric or client-centered marketing (CCM) focuses on building loyalty and engagement with existing clients. It involves broader strategies and ultimately aims to reach a wider audience. The communication strategies are broad as opposed to high-personalized.

ABM, on the other hand, targets a much smaller pool of high-quality accounts. Therefore, the communication strategy for ABM is much more tailored to the specific challenges of one or a handful of businesses with high ROI potential. This is what differentiates ABM from CCM and it also makes the account-based marketing framework an incredible tool for B2B outreach and business growth.

Examples of CCM and ABM

While these two marketing concepts can be nuanced, distinguishing between them is relatively straightforward when compared side-by-side. Think about traditional marketing like fishing with a fishing net and account-based marketing like adorning a fishing hook with a specific type of bait for a specific fish.

With account-based marketing, and more tailored messaging for your audience, are more likely to increase engagement and captivate an audience over time. 76% of marketers say that account-based marketing generates more ROI than any other marketing strategy.

The Three Main Types of Account-based Marketing

There are three main types of account-based marketing that organizations can use to connect with their clients and prospects. They each have their time and place in a B2B marketing strategy, and some organizations may decide to take an even more personalized approach.

One-to-One Marketing: Strategic ABM

One-to-one marketing is a strategic approach that prioritizes building deep, personalized relationships with high-quality clients. By focusing on cross-selling, upselling, and tailored campaigns, this method enables businesses to enhance customer satisfaction and drive revenue growth.

This requires marketers to identify the unique challenges their clients face either through the creation of detailed personas and product research. This style of ABM is also resource-intensive and requires a large, dedicated team, big budgets, and a lot of time—one-to-one marketing can take months if not years to convert clients.

One-to-Few: ABM Lite

This style of ABM requires marketers and sales teams to focus on a handful of second-tier accounts and categorize general challenges and goals across these clients. This ABM framework requires marketers to find similarities between a handful of clients whereas one-to-one marketing establishes the differences—what makes one high-quality account unique from the others?

One-to-few marketing is a great option for marketing teams that are working with a flexible budget and are open to integrating new tools into their repertoires. ABM lite can still require marketers to create highly targeted campaigns, however the content of those campaigns is based on group characteristics.

One-to-Many ABM

One-to-many account-based marketing takes many of the central concepts of ABM Lite and simply expands on them. So, instead of targeting a small number of accounts, this type of account-based marketing targets 50 to 100 accounts at a time.

Marketing or sales teams employing one-to-many ABM will often use a customer relationship management (CRM) system like Hubspot or Salesforce to automate outreach to those accounts.

Like one-to-few and one-to-one ABM, one-to-many ABM or “Programmatic ABM” as it’s sometimes referred still uses targeted messaging meant to speak directly to the unique but shared challenges of the targeted accounts.

Creating an Account-based Marketing Framework

So, if you’re a business curious about adopting one of the three main types of account-based marketing, there are a few steps you need to take to get started.

1. Identify the companies you would like to target

Use the tools in your arsenal to your advantage to get started with your ABM strategy. Data will be your friend throughout this process.

Start by taking a look at your CRM and prospecting software such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Dealfront or even Google Analytics, if you have robust tracking set up.

As you go through the data, discover which users are engaging the most with your site’s pages or your email marketing campaigns. This will give you a sense of your enterprise accounts. Create a list with all of these contacts and segment the data.

2. Segment the data and rank your prospects

Once you’ve established your most-engaged prospects, it’s time to organize and segment that data. This is also where cross-team collaboration between sales and marketing comes in. Divvy up the list between the members of the sales and marketing teams and research every prospect in the list of enterprise accounts:

Visit the prospect’s company website.
Find the company’s LinkedIn page.
Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Salesforce to research leads.

Time to get creative: create a ranking system and assign every prospect a quality rank. Maybe your team considers high-quality leads to be individuals who have downloaded a whitepaper, or users who have read a case study.

Gather their contact information such as email, phone number, and include any notes about the contact, perhaps from previous sales conversations or comments they’ve made on LinkedIn—these notes will be incredibly important as you create marketing collateral.

3. Create content based on the accounts you’ve segmented

Now that you have your list, it’s time to create content. Determine all of the marketing channels you want to use, i.e., email, social media, blog posts, podcasts, YouTube, etc. and create relevant content for your prospects.

What does this mean? You and your team may have to do a few exercises or hold a few meetings to jot down all of the challenges the accounts in your list face on a daily basis. This will act as the foundation or reference material for the content you need to create.

For example, Prophia, an AI platform for CRE portfolio data, analyzed its CRM and lead management systems to compile a list of property managers currently sitting in their pipeline. The team had a brainstorming session to jot down all of the challenges property managers may experience throughout their year to find a prevailing theme.

The team discovered that CAM reconciliation was a recurring issue across various building classes (retail, office, etc.). This insight inspired them to develop a multi-channel content strategy, including:

An Online Webinar: A live, interactive session to delve deep into CAM reconciliation best practices and how Prophia can streamline the process.

Email Marketing Campaigns: Targeted email sequences to educate prospects about the benefits of automated CAM reconciliation and nurture leads throughout the buyer's journey.

A Customer Marketing Campaign: Prophia collaborated with a client, one of the platform’s top property management users, to create testimonials. They also circulated materials about using Prophia for CAM reconciliation to current users.

Long-Form Content: In-depth blog posts and whitepapers that provide comprehensive guidance on CAM reconciliation challenges and solutions, positioning Prophia as a thought leader in the industry.

Prophia’s CAM rec LinkedIn campaigns garnered 30,000 impressions. 50 property managers signed up for the webinar and Prophia successfully engaged a number of high-quality leads after the virtual event. This is ABM at its finest.

4. Optimize content based on the marketing channel

Now that you have a list of prospects and they are segmented and ranked accordingly, it’s time to think strategically and make that content as compelling as possible.

A great place to start is to consider the platform where the content will be shared. For LinkedIn, engaging visuals like infographics or videos can be effective. For email campaigns, focus on compelling subject lines, clickable links, and personalized messaging.

To further enhance your content's impact, leverage seasonality and personalization. Prophia's CAM reconciliation campaign played on a post-holiday theme using the phrase "it’s the most wonderful time of the year" in a playful GIF in their email header. This creative approach, combined with personalized messaging, resulted in a 17% open rate, well above the industry standard.

5. Record your results and repeat your successes

Even after launching your ABM campaigns, the work isn't over. By leveraging analytics tools like Hubspot, Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Google Analytics, you can gain valuable insights into campaign performance.

Key metrics to track include:

Email engagement: Open rates, click-through rates, and reply rates
Social media engagement: Likes, shares, comments, and post impressions
Website traffic: Page views, time on site, and bounce rates

Use these insights to:

Refine your messaging: Adjust your content to resonate better with your target audience.
Optimize your channels: Prioritize the most effective channels for reaching your ideal customers.
Personalize your outreach: Tailor your communications to individual accounts.

Remember, ABM is a long-term strategy. By consistently monitoring and refining your campaigns, you can drive significant impact for your B2B marketing efforts.

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Understanding the Basics of Account-Based Marketing (With Examples!)