Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has quickly emerged as a game-changing approach for individuals aiming to target prospects more precisely and help sales and marketing work as an integrated machine. By targeting only high-value accounts rather than trying to reach everyone, ABM provides a much more personalized experience that can lead to more engagements and faster deal closures. When combined with Salesforce, ABM becomes supercharged, offering powerful capabilities to discover, target, and activate priority accounts with sniper-like accuracy.
If you’re looking to integrate ABM with Salesforce to enhance your marketing approach, this guide will walk you through the basics, practical tips, and best practices to get started.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing is a strategy that treats individual accounts as markets in their own right. Unlike traditional marketing, which appeals to a broad audience, ABM builds very personal campaigns to target specific accounts. This approach ensures messaging relates to the specific needs and concerns of these accounts.
Advantages of ABM to Businesses
- Better ROI: Since ABM is more focused, it usually results in a higher ROI than traditional marketing.
- Greater Sales and Marketing Alignment: ABM naturally brings sales and marketing closer together with the same end goals and encourages collaboration.
- Enhanced Customer Retention: Spending time with major accounts helps companies build powerful, loyal relationships.
- Better Resource Management: ABM makes inefficient resource allocation obsolete by enabling teams to focus the most effort on accounts that matter.
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is a top-rated CRM designed to enable companies to grow, scale, and connect with customers better. With sales automation, service support, and marketing integration, Salesforce has a wide array of tools to transform how companies interact with customers.
Key Features of Salesforce
- CRM Insights: Store your customer’s information centrally for smooth cooperation between departments.
- Sales Cloud: Automatically close deals and forecast predictability.
- Marketing Cloud: Act on data from any source in real-time and orchestrate consistent experiences across channels.
- Einstein AI: Leverage predictive analytics to understand customer behaviors and trends.
- Customization: Adapt the platform for unique business requirements through apps and integrations.
Why Should You Use Salesforce for Marketing and Sales?
Salesforce connects sales to marketing so the two teams can collaborate seamlessly. Its ability to record every interaction, collect account details, and trigger automated campaigns positions it well for account-based marketing.
Combining ABM with Salesforce
Salesforce enhances ABM strategies by providing tools to identify, engage, and manage target accounts effectively.
How to Use Salesforce to Find Target Accounts
At its heart, ABM is about choosing the right accounts. Salesforce offers several tools to help you zero in on high-value accounts:
- Lead Scoring and Segmentation: Leverage data insights from Salesforce to segment leads by industry, revenue potential, engagement history, and more.
- Einstein AI for Predictive Analysis: Use Einstein AI to predict which accounts will convert or generate revenue over time.
- Custom Dashboards: Create custom Salesforce dashboards to see account health and know which accounts to prioritize.
Keeping Scores on Your ABM Campaigns
Once target accounts are identified, Salesforce can help manage campaigns:
- Campaign Management: Create tailored campaigns at an account level or by similar personas across multiple accounts in Marketing Cloud.
- Journey Builder: Create personalized content journeys per account, based on their behavior, preferences, or past purchases.
- Live Collaboration: With Salesforce’s Chatter, team members can easily work together to ensure that the right message reaches the right account at the right time.
Best Practices to Get the Most out of ABM with Salesforce
To maximize the effectiveness of ABM with Salesforce, consider these best practices:
- Customizing Content and Approach: Use Salesforce tools to personalize messages for client needs in Marketing Cloud.
- Linked Data: Connect Salesforce’s intelligence on any account to ensure outreach references the customer’s strategic pain and priorities.
- Salesforce Pardot: Use Pardot to automate and send account-specific emails that allow leads to be nurtured in a 1:1 systematic way.
Leveraging Automation for ABM
Scalability is crucial in ABM. Salesforce offers automation tools to scale efforts without compromising personalization:
- Einstein Automate: Automate repetitive processes, so your team can focus more on strategy and building relationships.
- Automated Account Alerts: Automatically alert your team when there is significant activity on your top accounts, such as a new website visit or opened email.
- Follow-Ups: Use Salesforce Task Management to automate follow-up reminders, ensuring no lead slips through the cracks.
Key Salesforce Performance Metrics to Track
An effective ABM approach is one that can track and measure performance prudently. To help you along the way, Salesforce provides solid tracking and reporting features:
- Engagement Data: Keep track of how your accounts engage with materials, emails, or campaigns.
- Influenced Pipeline Revenue: Calculate how many accounts are being impacted by your ABM strategy and what contributions they have made to the sales pipeline.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Determine the revenue that targeted accounts are generating over time.
- Win Rates: Monitor the percentage of accounts you’re targeting that convert from prospects to customers.
ABM Campaigns Analysis and Optimization
You can easily analyze your data with Salesforce’s report-building tools:
- Custom Reports: Create reports that get granular about the activity on your account to see what’s working and what’s not.
- AI Suggestions: Use Einstein AI forecasts in combination to develop strategies more effectively.
- A/B Testing: With Salesforce, you can do A/B testing on emails, content, or campaigns to see which is most successful.
Unleash the Power of ABM with Salesforce
ABM and Salesforce are a powerful combination that can help you achieve great things for your business. By getting sales and marketing on the same page, tailoring content, employing automation, and monitoring the right metrics, you can establish meaningful, long-term connections with high-value accounts.
It’s time to reap the benefits now and supercharge your ABM program. Begin merging ABM with Salesforce and unlock the potential for increased return on investment, deeper customer relationships, and greater insights about your audience. Are you ready to change the way you advertise? With Salesforce, the possibilities are endless.
For a strategic edge, explore how marketing and analysis contribute to business growth.
