If you’re not automating your account-based marketing (ABM), your work cycle probably looks something like this: you first put your initial list into an Excel sheet, manually editing and organizing every cell; then you check your list with others who provide feedback, before manually adjusting the list based on what they say; then you code the settings and routing data into your ad sets; then you upload the list into your marketing channel; and, finally, you review and track each campaign personally, adjusting and repeating as necessary.
With marketing automation, most of that list becomes unnecessary.
While ABM is inherently a specific, deliberate, finely-targeted approach to B2B marketing, you should not assume that such a level of specificity demands a hefty amount of personal investment in the grunt work. Modern savvy marketers are playing the game several steps ahead by utilizing marketing automation to speed up the process.
Marketing automation is typically regarded as a broad-scale strategy for garnering and nurturing consumer leads, but in truth, it’s most powerful when handled intimately and in a personalized fashion. Here are a few ways automated marketing can improve your ABM game, and let you discover a whole new world of value.
You’ll spend—and waste—less money.
By targeting certain users very specifically, you can create a set of display ads specifically for those few people and improve your chances of getting noticed. You won’t be paying for empty clicks from a broad public, and will instead be able to rest easy knowing your chosen audience is seeing every ad you’re pointing their way.
A good follow-up to this is to create customized landing pages to expand your messaging and include a well-designed web form to capture your lead’s info. By studying what people have done before you, you can optimize your efforts and save money and increase conversions, and at the end of the day, that’s what your shift to ABM should be about.
Your CRM will be more organized.
If your sales team has ever encountered separate lead profiles for “Hatchbuck Corp,” “Hatchbuck Inc,” “Hatchbuck” and “Hatch Buck,” you may roll your eyes at their automatic distinction in your CRM. Most marketing automation software negates the need to manually go into your database for routine cleansing and editing by using logical deductions and keywords to keep your data tidy.
And if your leads are high-level and beyond your current CRM, an automated marketing system can automatically aggregate your leads into accounts in your existing CRM.
You can enjoy the benefits of effective lead nurturing.
The most effective lead-nurturing programs are ones strategically laid out and designed. But manually following up with reminders and information will be a hugely time-consuming effort. You can mine your ABM leads’ info, including their company and demographic info, to create an automated drip campaign and funnel them into your most valuable offers.
Bonus tip: Just because your account-based marketing will be specific, doesn’t mean you can’t break your leads down into lists. In fact, here is where your lists can really shine—their purpose, after all, is to create as personalized an experience as possible while staying automated. Lean into the natural agility of your targeted marketing campaign and adjust it to your next account.
It will save you time digging through data.
Perhaps the most obvious benefit to automated ABM is how much time it can save you. Instead of manually editing spreadsheets and adjusting campaigns, you can automatically set up rules filtering your leads into accounts, connect the dots between marketing channels and your target audiences, set up a series of ABM triggers, and receive automated reports on how the whole process is going. Best of all, you can set up a repeat pattern relatively quickly.
You may find there’s more initial legwork to get started on this track, but the time it will free up down the road will be worth it. Combined with account databases that can be updated regularly and swiftly in a single stroke, you’ll be saving your marketing team countless hours—not to mention countless dollars in both their time and extraneous marketing efforts.