The Common Mistakes of Account-Based Marketing You Should Steer Clear Of

Sales and marketing teams always claim that account-based marketing (ABM) is an indispensable part of their success. More than 90% of B2B marketing teams say that ABM can help them achieve a higher ROI for the business. However, most experts would agree that account-based marketing is not a magical tool. ABM is not always an easy process, and it would not yield the desired results if marketing teams execute the process incorrectly. 

If you have your marketing goals and supporting data correct, it can help you to stay on the right path. However, you must also be aware of the common mistakes that are usually made with ABM and how to avoid them. In this article, we are going to discuss some of these common errors and how you and your marketing team can steer clear of them.

Unclear Picture of the Total Addressable Market

You and your marketing teams must have a clear understanding of your Total Addressable Market (TAM). It is one of the key elements of business marketing that gives you an idea of your company’s total earning potential if each member of your target audience chooses to buy your product or service. Your account-based marketing efforts may be focused on organizations of any size. But if you do not know the total revenue potential of your product or service in the entire market, you will not be able to focus the marketing efforts towards your target accounts. Think of the total addressable market as business intelligence that you must acquire before you start your operation ABM. 

Unfortunately, most business owners and their marketing teams are not even aware of what TAM is and why it is necessary for ABM. When you calculate your total Addressable Market, you automatically have to include all the potential accounts, including the ones you are targeting with your ABM strategies. That means, if you do not include your total addressable market in the process, you will miss out on the revenue that can be generated from your ABM targets. 

Traditionally, businesses measure the total addressable market in three ways.

• The top-down method gets done with the help of research and reports related to the industry. It is the most common method used by businesses.
• The bottom-up method is based on the revenues from the early stages of the business.
• The value theory approach that considers whether a buyer is willing to buy a product or service. 

However, these days, some experts claim that these traditional methods may not be adequate alone, since they relied primarily on a limited sample of the target market. If you want to truly understand the total addressable market for your product or service, use the present technology and tools to gather a wide range of data that can accurately represent your entire target market. However, you must combine the modern methods of obtaining data with the traditional ways of analyzing it to get a more accurate picture of your total addressable market. 

Inaccurate Data

Data is another foundation for building your account-based marketing strategies. However, business owners and marketing teams can often get confused about the data points that they must use to gather market insights. There are several reasons for that. People tend to rely on general advice and internet-based research to find the data points, which may be too generalized and not specific to the industry or the target market. While the data may still be useful to some extent, it is not going to be adequate to formulate a successful ABM strategy. 

To get accurate data about your potential customers, you must identify the companies that are currently spending on your products and services. You can also look at the companies that are purchasing products or services from your competitors. Narrow them down by looking at the ones who are using a competitor account that is about to expire. For these kinds of data, you will have to dig more to get specific inside information. 

Ignoring the Individuals

Always target your account-based marketing at the key positions in a company. For that, you have to identify the individuals who are the decision-makers of purchasing your products and services. It is one essential factor that business owners and marketing professionals tend to forget. They formulate the ABM strategies and content, keeping the target companies in mind, and not the individuals. For an effective account-based marketing strategy, you must develop the content keeping the preference of the key decision-makers in mind. 

There are several other mistakes made by marketing professionals when it comes to ABM. Sometimes marketing professionals tend to rely too much on software and tools. Other times they start mapping their efforts before setting up the right objectives. Even though there may be several inputs towards your account-based marketing efforts, it is not always as complicated as people make it sound. With the right strategies, and by avoiding the common mistakes, you can formulate ABM strategies that can yield high ROIs.