Will the recession affect account-based marketing is a question we are hearing and based on experience all we can say is marketers, fasten your seatbelts! We are about to enter a rollercoaster and it may be a bumpy ride! A market downturn will result in challenging market conditions. It will force companies to come up with innovative and cost-effective market strategies. The intelligent marketers will come out victorious!
Let’s look at how a recession affects account-based marketing (ABM).
Despite the changing environment, displaced work teams, stalled pipelines and overall economic uncertainties, one thing is more certain than ever – marketers need to contribute to revenue generation. The fact is that account-based marketing (ABM) has become even more critical.
For those that are not familiar with account-based marketing (ABM). ABM is the process of orchestrating marketing activities to appeal to high value target accounts and those individual decision-makers within a business. What are they trying to achieve? What are their needs, challenges and opportunities? What is their vision? And what is their business strategy?
ABM is everything from research and proposition to messaging and creative output. It’s shaped around individual enterprise accounts, and the teams or individuals within it who make or influence the purchasing decision. Enterprise accounts have long, and complex buying cycles and typically involve large groups of decision-makers. ABM has a laser-like focus on their needs and using the account’s language, it enables ABM practitioners to deliver a message that’s hyper-personalised, highly relevant, and more likely to resonate.
ABM has been a priority for B2B organisations for years because it delivers proven results. It delivers higher returns, strengthens and builds relationships, and helps to close complex deals. Research by Forrester found that 87% of marketers that measure ROI say that ABM outperforms every other marketing investment!
At a time such as a recession, focusing and investing in the ABM strategy that will deliver the best performance and return for business, will prove more beneficial for organisations in the long run.
Another reason ABM is important in a downturn is that as marketers, we are also familiar with the 80/20 rule. Whether it be 80% of your organisations results come from 20% of your effort, or 80% of sales come from 20% of your products or your top 20% of accounts represent 80% of your profit. These insights have helped to get the best return on your sales and marketing investments. Rather than spreading valuable marketing budget across thousands of prospects and customers, the most profitable ABM programs go deep with cross-sell campaigns on the 20% of key accounts that already generate 80% of revenues.
With an ABM account expansion strategy, you can significantly improve sales and marketing ROI considerably. By focusing your ABM efforts on a fewer number of accounts, this results in a positive impact on strategic relationships, expansion of business opportunities and overall, improved measurable impact with existing accounts, rather than trying to garner new accounts.
ABM marketers find that going deep on their top key accounts, engaging the extended buying units and expanding revenues with new products and services is proven to be more profitable than winning net new accounts. Focusing on the 20% of your accounts will help you cut marketing wastage (which in turn will save costs), improve key account experience, and cross-sell new strategic product lines more efficiently.
If you are looking to recession-proof your marketing, protect your organisation from the market downturn and want to find out more about account-based marketing (ABM), then contact us here.
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