Account-Based Marketing: What Are You Committing To?

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Ideas you can use.

In its simplest form, ABM is marketing to the decision-making group within a defined set of companies — applied to upselling current customers, acquiring new ones, or, at the extreme, acquiring a single customer. Its components are list development and validation, workflow planning and cadence, content development and implementation, and monitoring and management.

Red House has executed ABM in various forms for over a decade — we call it “narrowcasting.” A narrowcast program typically targets 50–200 companies, because the detail required to be highly effective can’t survive a list that’s too large to manage personally. One program for a financial solutions client targeted 45 banks — roughly 160 decision-capable contacts — and produced a response rate of about 48 percent among decision makers over its 75-day lifecycle.

The tools make it easier than it used to be — pre-populated workflows, trigger emails, faster list access. But the people involved must be committed. ABM isn’t a quick fix.