Marketing in some form is necessary no matter what business you’re running because if you have no way of getting your products or service out there, you won’t get customers. There are a lot of different marketing tactics, but finding one that works is the most important part. That is why Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a growing marketing strategy for either small or large companies.
Account-based marketing is a marketing strategy that is tailored to be personalized to other businesses or a group of potential customers. The goal is to build a strong connection based on the values of those that you want to reach out to and gain trust by building your knowledge on your potential clients.
Account-Based Marketing is all about getting to know your audience and making sure that you’re not approaching your clients like a number, but as an organization that you’re out to help.
ABM can be approached in quite a few different ways, and it’s important to know because of how effective it is when it’s done right. We’re going to cover a few ways that ABM can be done to give the best possibility of results, so you can have long-lasting business cooperation.
Use a Support / Contact Manager
Whether you have a small or large organization, you want to ensure that you have a single person who reaches out to another brand.
The problem with one executive reaching out to another executive and then passing on the support process to a manager is that you give the notion that the brand that you’re reached out to is just another number. Having a dedicated marketing manager that is still in connection with sales, and content is a much better option; rather than passing a client off to different departments where trust has to be built from the bottom again.
Dealing with a focal contact person ensures that you have a better chance of building trust, whether you have phone calls, emails or face to face communication, dealing with a single person makes sure that the person you’re communicating with stays on the same page.
You can have different departments within your own business that handle specific parts, but it’s vital to make sure that your contact with other businesses stays static. They get their info from other departments and relay that info themselves.
Start selling last
Selling can very well or very wrong, depending on how you approach your selling strategy. Most businesses go directly into selling their products or services, making sense. How else are you going to make money? Other businesses are not always willing to shell out their money immediately because they don’t trust you and don’t know what you’re capable of.
The first thing to do is that you must build a form of trust, and this could mean that you offer your services for free for a while or provide your product for free. Only for a limited time and let your client see what your offering works.
If you’re a manufacturer for household products, you don’t want to go straight info offering what your minimum order quantity is. Perhaps offering data on what is selling with other retailers that you work with, and what are reliable household products that get the best sales may be a better option.
By driving results, you’re giving tangible evidence of what you do, works. Another plus is that you gave a positive impact on the business that you’ve reached out to. Once that’s done, you can provide further details on other tiers of what you’re able to offer, and remember, you’re still doing this all contact and results reporting through just a single person.
Custom-tailored ways of contacting
If you’re trying to contact an executive that is active on different social websites, it’s going to be best to contact them on that specific channel. Most marketers think that simply reaching out through email is the best way to reach someone, but what about contacting them in a more personalized way?
If someone is actively posting on Linkedin, Medium or if they have their website to support their brand, then commenting on a post would be one of the best ways to contact them.
The benefit of doing this makes it so that they not only have support for what they’re posting, but it also makes them curious enough to contact you through email directly if they are interested in what you’re offering. There has been a time where contacting managers have commented on my blog posts to ask about reviewing a product, and I would be emailing them directly to know what cooperation we could work out.
This can then lead to a review for a product and that product then being included in a buying guide about power banks for the Samsung Galaxy S20.
Be flexible and adaptive
One of the mistakes that most brands make when it comes to reaching to other brands or individuals is that they already have a strong identity of who they are and what they support. Other businesses may seem like they have a lot in common with you, but that’s only on the outside, what about internally? It’s best to be a clean slate and shift what you support depending on what your client supports. Within reason though.
You want to be in good standing with other businesses that you could work with, and hold a good reputation of being flexible, supporting the majority and connecting with what will be growing in the future.
For example, your business might have to choose from picking up more support from the younger population or the older population. Perhaps it would be possible to support both but choosing to go with a younger audience because they’re more flexible than an older generation that is cemented in their ways.
