If you want to incorporate ABM into your traditional marketing strategy, it’s sensible to start small.
At Ambition ABM, we understand that venturing away from a familiar ‘one size fits all’ marketing strategy to adopt a more considered, personalised and focused approach (with more resources devoted to pursuing less prospects) can be daunting.
Many of our new clients want to put this alien concept to the test before allocating a bigger chunk of future marketing spend to ABM, and we’re always happy to convert them to a smarter way of marketing – the proof is in the profits!
ABM comes in several forms
A common misconception about ABM is that there’s only a single type, a 1-2-1 approach that involves allocating a huge budget to one client, an ‘all of your eggs in one basket’ scenario, with great potential rewards coupled with great potential risks.
Not so.
Many of our clients go on to use 1-2-1 approaches very successfully, as part of their marketing mix, but most kick-off their ABM experience with a pilot scheme that can be scaled to reach as many of their accounts as possible on a modest budget – spreading the risk without losing the benefits of a personalised approach.
This can be achieved in two ways:
- By targeting prospects in a particular industry;
- Or by identifying and grouping together accounts with common sales triggers, regardless of sector.
We call this a ‘cluster’ or ‘1-2-few’ approach and it’s a great introduction to ABM for newbies who want to prove the concept before introducing other strategies and investing further resources.
What is 1-2-few ABM?
1-2-few ABM is regarded by some in the industry as a dilution of ABM in its purest form – a sophisticated, targeted and highly personalised approach that pursues the development of one key account, per campaign.
As we see it, the core principle of ABM is seamlessly integrating marketing and sales processes so that businesses can do less, do it better and yield better results.
This can easily be applied to a 1-2-few or even a 1-2-many approach, providing it’s done in tandem with an experienced ABM company who can offer consultation that keeps your campaign in check and on track, as it scales.
ABM programmes have many moving parts and can fail at many of the same points as traditional marketing campaigns. Specialist professional guidance will help you manage the complex process of scaling your ABM approaches, ensuring that each campaign has clearly defined and tightly controlled objectives, processes, incentives and shared accountability, as it’s rolled out.
The name of the game is to provide a seamless customer journey – whether this is for one prospect or many.
There’s no escaping from the fact that high quality account management is expensive, in terms of both labour and capital. Scaling our ABM approaches makes sense, especially for companies with modest budget but big aspirations.
It’s also inescapable that ABM, as a concept, involves highly personalised, high value human interaction. Scaling this is not without its challenges, which is why we’re on hand to manage your campaigns with the right technology and processes to reach out to the many, while crafting your communications to feel like they’re for the few.
If you want to incorporate ABM into your marketing strategy, then get in contact with us today.
