Introduction
70% of B2B marketers are using Account-Based Marketing (ABM) in 2021, 15% more than those using this approach in 2020. However, ABM is not foolproof against various marketing challenges. Now that is one side of the story; let's peek into content marketing. While 94% of companies are using content marketing, only 9% of B2B marketers claim their content marketing is effective, and that is alarming!
The pressing issue is why aren’t companies making much of their content marketing strategies and ABM campaigns? In this blog, we will delve deeper to understand the role of content marketing in ABM and how you can make the best of both worlds. But before going any further, let’s understand what ABM is, how it helps you grow your business.
What Is Account-based Marketing?
Account-based marketing (ABM) is one of the B2B marketing techniques where sales and marketing teams collaborate to deliver customized buying experiences for high-value accounts. From helping you eliminate less valuable company’s way early and streamlining your sales cycle to maximizing your business relevance, boosting your ROI, and expanding your business through account relationships, ABM offers a host of benefits to your business.
Just as important is content for all marketing campaigns, it is equally significant in account-based marketing. A robust content marketing strategy helps you answer your prospects’ questions, develop client relationships, build trust, generate more leads, and drive conversions.
Want to drive the best results from your ABM campaigns? Our experts will tailor a robust account-based marketing campaign that drives your lead generation and increases your conversions. To learn more, connect to our team today!
Role of Content Marketing in ABM
We will now explore to understand how the right content marketing strategy strengthens your ABM campaign and yields better results.
1. Aligns Sales and Marketing Teams
Today, cross-team collaborations have become the norm in the business world. This has allowed teams to glean better insights and has become a key contributor in spurring innovative ideas and driving the overall growth of any business.
The level of transparency and alignment that ABM offers B2B marketers and sales professionals is second to none. From ensuring that everyone is focused on the same set of business goals, understanding the roles of internal stakeholders and the KPIs each team needs to track, the right content with ABM boosts everyone's efforts and yields the anticipated results.
Let’s understand the scope of the marketing and sales teams while using the ABM approach:
Marketing
The goal of the marketing team is to market your business offerings and not sell them. Their scope of work should include introducing your brand and nudging the prospect to move down the marketing funnel from awareness to consideration stage. And, the best way to accomplish this task is by educating the prospect through content marketing.
Sales
The job of the sales team is to sell business offerings to the prospect and close the deal. Now that the marketing team has interacted with the chosen prospects, they have the respective client data. The sales professionals can utilize this engagement data that the marketing team collated, and tailor their conversations that lead to more conversions.
2. Connects You with the Right Prospects
Now that we learned the scope of marketing and sales teams, the next step in ABM is to target the right customers and introduce your brand to them. And, cross-collaboration between the sales and marketing teams makes this possible. Once the client list is decided, the marketing team takes things forward through content marketing.
Content marketing when combined with ABM becomes account-based content marketing. While the purpose of content marketing is to create content to educate the audience and stimulate their interest in your products and services, account-based content marketing concentrates on creating content for specific accounts or prospective clients.
In B2B marketing, ABM becomes an additional lens that will direct your team's focus by working on the appropriate accounts. With this duo, teams can nurture and nudge the prospects better. This mix helps you to take a giant leap in the right direction.
3. Shows the Prospect How You Can Add Value to Their Business
An essential aspect of content marketing in ABM is to provide the prospect with trusted and relevant information. By doing so, you can become a dependable advisor in that specific niche, position your business better, and form a strong foundation when your sales team interacts with them.
4. Assists in Tailoring Content Specific to Each Buyer’s Journey Stage
If generating leads is your top priority, then you can focus on creating content that educates the target accounts. But the goal of ABM is to narrow down your focus and create content that is relevant and relatable to your prospects. Another crucial aspect of content marketing is knowing when to deliver relevant content. Understanding the buyer’s journey will help you accomplish this goal. Putting this to practice consistently will equip your sales team to converse with your target accounts better.
Some questions that you need to ask yourself before getting started with your ABM campaign are:
Awareness Stage
How does your content solve your client’s problem?
What value does it add to their business?
Why should they consider what your business is offering?
What misunderstandings are they likely to have regarding a specific topic?
Consideration Stage
What are the main advantages that influence a client?
What are the disadvantages that put your potential customers off?
What factors compel a client to purchase a solution?
Decision Stage
What makes a product offering stand out?
What kinds of proof are the potential clients looking forward to?
Who needs to be involved in making the ultimate decision?
Answering these questions will help you stay on course and nudge the prospect down the marketing funnel while delivering great customer experiences consistently. Also, having research and data about your target clients will help you answer these questions better and positions you as a leading solution provider.
5. Helps in Diversifying Content
With the ABM campaign strategy, your audience expands to key decision-makers spread across various teams. Therefore, sticking to one content type doesn’t help at all. Repurposing content is one of the best B2B marketing techniques to present the same content in different formats and cater to the needs of a broader audience spectrum. Practicing this helps you diversify your content, reinforce your message, create content that is digestible by various audiences, and further refine your process.
Account-based Marketing Is Incomplete Without Content (Conclusion)
In the ever-changing business atmosphere, account-based marketing is continuously evolving, but one thing remains constant. That is a strong content marketing strategy. Therefore, partnering with a digital marketing agency that understands the power of content marketing in ABM will help you accomplish your business goals faster and better with minimal expenditure.
The experts at SunYello can help you chalk out a strategy that will put you ahead of the competition, gain more customers, and make your business thrive. Connect with our team today!