Did you know that research recently published by Forrester showed that sales and marketing teams that use an Account Based Marketing (ABM) approach to their activities are 6% more likely to exceed their revenue goals than teams who adopt other tactics to hit their targets?
But what exactly is account based marketing? And how can you leverage HubSpot to make sure your sales and marketing teams are really working together to maximise your investment in the system?
Fear not, read on for a deep-dive into exactly why account based marketing could unlock business success.
So what even is ABM?
Account based marketing is one of the fastest-growing trends in the B2B marketing industry for a good reason. In the past, marketers have tried to broadcast generic messages to the biggest audiences possible. Almost by definition, these messages have had to appeal to large numbers of people at once and can never address the specific issues that a single customer might have.
In contrast, ABM tactics aim to use data and technology to identify high-value prospects or accounts (i.e those who already have a strong interest in the products and services you’re selling) and then deliver personalised marketing communications across various channels to the key decision makers within these organisations.
This is where some of HubSpot's new Breeze AI tools come in. The new software means your teams can build pipelines and close deals with AI-assisted ease, ultimately transforming leads into loyal customers.
In particular, sales teams we work with are already loving several features including:
- Predictive sales forecasts
- Guided selling
- AI-powered sales reporting
What’s more, the new Breeze Prospecting Agent can analyse your CRM data and automatically identify high-value accounts, saving your team valuable time and resources.
Breeze AI makes it easier to execute an effective ABM strategy because it helps your teams have the tools and insights they need to deliver the right messages and the right times to the right people of your key accounts. Because when you’re able to use AI to treat each customer as an individual, you can personalise their buying journey and achieve incredible results.
“When two marketers are competing for the same customer’s business, all other things being equal, the marketer with the greatest scope of information about that particular customer - the marketer with the most extensive and intimate relationship with that customer - will be the more efficient competitor." Peppers & Rogers, 1993
And how can ABM help my business?
By aligning both sales and marketing to the same goals, your business can increase sales opportunities and prioritise the accounts that are more likely to convert. In turn this can deliver:
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Better Return on Investment
By specifically targeting accounts you know are high value you’re removing many of the costly and time consuming elements of the regular sales process. No more days of desk research and networking. Instead use AI enrichment, real time data and smart insights to make sure your teams are doing the right work at the right time to close the most valuable accounts. -
Deliver a personalised customer experience
When you know more about your customers, you can do more to build out a tailored strategy that gets a specific buyer over the line. That means you can build trust with prospects and develop an approach for personalised campaigns so your sales teams can have more meaningful conversations with more people. Luckily Breeze AI now makes personalisation at scale a reality for everyone. The Breeze Content Agent can generate targeted emails, website copy, and even social media posts tailored to each account's specific needs and interests; providing a level of personalisation that can significantly improve engagement, build stronger relationships and generate more sales -
Uncover revenue faster
When your sales and marketing teams are aligned on a mission to deliver ABM, you’ll be amazed at the opportunities that reveal themselves. The detailed data analysis and reporting that a CRM delivers means that you’ll be able to accurately forecast and discover new revenue opportunities. Plus with Breeze Intelligence, you can go beyond basic reporting for even better results. Its AI-powered data enrichment gives you a 360-degree view of your accounts, revealing hidden opportunities and enabling more accurate forecasting. When you use AI to start targeting individual accounts, you’ll be amazed how easy it is to measure the return on investment and drive improvements.
How HubSpot can help make ABM a reality in your organisation
Luckily, a powerful CRM like HubSpot makes it relatively straight-forward to implement an ABM strategy.
First, you can use HubSpot’s analytics tools to identify and target your existing accounts that have the biggest potential upside. By using actual data from your own sales history you’ll be able to eliminate and disprove assumptions that might have been holding your business back from achieving its potential. Once you understand exactly what your best customers look like, you can start to plan out a marketing strategy that you know will work for them.
Then, it’s all about personalisation. Hubspot’s integrated marketing functions mean you can advertise directly to your target accounts, without waste. Imagine bringing key decision makers directly to your website with personalised email marketing, LinkedIn email sequencing, paid social media, SEO, content marketing.
Once you’re bringing the right people to your site, Hubspot makes it easy to engage and convert. By looking closely at your traffic data, you can start to see hidden insights into what information helps specific customers commit to a sale. And by tracking users across your site and activities, you can get even more data to use to build your campaigns. Then use personalised landing pages, smart lead-flows and even chatbots to help you make sure your customers are having the conversations you want them to be having, at exactly the right time. Again, Breeze AI now supercharges HubSpot's marketing capabilities.
Imagine using the Breeze Social Media Agent to create hyper-personalized social media campaigns for each target account, or leveraging the Breeze Content Agent to generate tailored landing pages that speak directly to their pain points.
Finally it’s time to close! Thanks to the smart data, AI insights and personalised messaging HubSpot has delivered, your sales teams will know exactly when they should be picking up the phone (and exactly what to say). The improved Sales and Customer Success Workspace in HubSpot, now powered by Breeze AI, gives your sales team all the tools they need to close deals efficiently. From automated task management to AI-powered insights and recommendations, your team can focus on building relationships and closing deals, while Breeze AI handles the rest.
And because HubSpot makes it easy to record the outcomes of conversations and attribute sales to activity it’s simple to see how your account-based marketing and sales strategies are performing and adjust to deliver even more growth.
Next steps…
Hopefully we’ve demonstrated why ABM could be the way to bring even more growth to your business. But what are the practical steps you can take today to actually start seeing this upside?
If you’ve not yet put an ABM strategy in place within HubSpot, we’d suggest you start by downloading our FREE GUIDE “How To Target Key Accounts With Account Based Marketing”, which contains a handy planning template to begin planning your account-based marketing strategy right away.
Alternatively, if you’ve invested in HubSpot to align marketing and sales and begun a digital transformation project to bring ABM into your organisation, but are yet to see any real ROI, ProsperoHub could help. Our experts can deliver a growth strategy tailored to your business, add focus to everyday sales and marketing operations, and even develop a fully realised lead flow strategy that generates more revenue.
