Grow Better with HubSpot Account-Based Marketing Tools: Part 2

This week, we continue to discuss and share more about account-based marketing (ABM) strategies. Specifically, how this approach compliments the inbound methodology and supports your marketing, sales and service efforts.

**This video was filmed prior to COVID-19 and social distancing**

Need to get up to speed on all the basics of account-based marketing (ABM)? Check out Part 1 of this episode before reading on.

While it might seem like account-based marketing is at odds with the inbound approach, ABM actually compliments your inbound efforts on the marketing, sales and service side.

Remember, inbound is more than just a marketing approach – it's an entire methodology for running your business. Here's how inbound and AMB compliment each other:

• Target audience. Inbound marketing targets a group of individuals, whereas ABM targets businesses. While ABM requires some outbound marketing and outbound selling, you're still selling to people with a stake in the purchasing decision. Your messaging and content need to be on point regardless of the marketing strategy you're using.
• Quality content. You should have a solid understanding of the audience you're targeting. With inbound, this might be one buyer persona, and with AMB, this might be one company comprised of several buyer personas. Craft the right message for the right person at the right stage of their buyer’s journey.
• Sales enablement. Anne says it best: “When we talk about sales enablement and inbound sales, it really is a great fit with ABM. When the tools inside of HubSpot are implemented the right way, they equip your sales team with the right materials and the right messaging to send out at the right time.”

ABM can be an advantageous strategy for companies that specialize in B2B transactions. In fact, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), ABM can help organizations achieve a higher return on investment, increased win rates, revenue growth, client retention, customer lifetime value, and a stronger alignment between sales and marketing.

Remember, at the end of the day, whether we're talking about ABM or inbound, we all sell to humans. Even if you are B2B, you're not selling to a building, you're selling to the people that work in the building. If you are interested to know more about how you can use ABM effectively, feel free to give us a shout.

 

Read the Transcript

Steven: Hey guys, welcome back, another episode of The Basecamp at Ascend Inbound Marketing. And last week we were talking a little bit about accounts based marketing and what it is and how it works and opportunities there, in reasons to implement that within your organization. We decided to make this a two part video because man, it's just really insightful stuff again, Anne dropping that knowledge as she always does. So yeah, welcome to part two of accounts based marketing. Anne, I did want to talk about basically inbound marketing.

Anne: Sure.

Steven: We're obviously big advocates of that. We're on the HubSpot train and all about that.

Anne: It's in our name.

Steven: It is, it's in Inbound Marketing.

Anne: Yeah.

Steven: Whereas inbound marketing primarily focuses on creating really quality content to help bring prospects to you.

Anne: Right.

Steven: And then ABM on the other side is like you've talked about last week, more honing in and getting really specific on targets.

Anne: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Steven: They seem kind of different and contrasting there.

Anne: Sure.

Steven: I know a lot of organizations that are implementing ABM right now, are implementing both concepts. But let's talk about how they are different, but also how they can maybe work together as that-

Anne: Sure.

Steven: ... 92 Dream Team in Barcelona.

Anne: Yeah, I see what you did there.

Steven: Yeah, you caught that reference, yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Anne: This is a very interesting topic and I'm glad that we are continuing this discussion because it does seem at first glance that ABM and inbound might be at odds and so some differences there are of course with ABM you're targeting companies so you're not necessarily targeting people. Whereas, with inbound you're looking for people to come to you and learn more about you and identify a need and move forward along in their buyer's journey. With ABM again, a difference is you are going to be doing some outbound marketing or outbound selling to reach them. However, you can do it in such a way that is strategic, much like inbound and that uses messaging that speaks to their pain points and speaks to their problems, so that they will identify that they would like to work with you and have an interest in learning more about what you do.

Anne: At the end of the day, whether we're talking about ABM or inbound, we sell to humans. Even if you are B2B, you're not selling to a building, you're selling to the people that work in the building-

Steven: Right.

Anne: ... so you need to be able to speak to all of the people within that organization that are going to have a stake in the purchasing decision. With ABM that's typically more than one person, and with inbound it can be that way too.

Steven: Yeah, so still focused on quality content.

Anne: Right.

Steven: Yeah.

Anne: Absolutely. And crafting the right messaging for the right person at the right stage of their buyer's journey.

Steven: Right.

Anne: Personas are absolutely clutch when it comes to ABM because you do have to sell to basically a committee, if it's a big software platform purchase that a business is making, you're going to need to have buy-in from the CFO. You're going to need to have buy-in from the CIO, from the CEO of course, is going to probably have the final say in that decision. But there are a number of different people that you're going to have support from and each of those people will have their own persona, which of course you can define in your inbound strategy and create messaging for when you craft your content.

Steven: Sales enablement-

Anne: Sure.

Steven: ... obviously we do that with clients. How does that play into the ABM concept?

Anne: Yeah, that's a really good point because I mean, not only just talking about sales enablement, but then even going back to inbound, we talk a lot about inbound marketing, but inbound is so much more than marketing. It is really a philosophy, right, of a way to do business.

Steven: Right.

Anne: And that can apply of course to marketing, but it can also apply to sales and service and really all aspects of your business. When we talk about sales enablement and inbound sales, it really again is a great fit with ABM because what sales enablement can do and with the tools inside of HubSpot can do when they're implemented the right way is equip your sales team with the right materials and the right messaging to send out at the right time. They have a prospect that comes in, it's in their total addressable market, in their TAM and they have downloaded a white paper. This is a pretty good lead for the sales person to follow up with, maybe the white paper is on a certain aspect, a certain project that they do. The sales enablement rapper, the sales rep can then go into their HubSpot account, pull up their contact that they're looking at and then shoot off an email that has a case study that relates back to that white paper specifically.

Anne: They can use a template that's already been created for them that has the right messaging that would apply to that prospect. But then of course tailor it to that specific person as well. And then it allows you to access those materials in a timely manner. Of course there are playbooks in there as well, so if there's a similar process that a salesperson needs to go through, a similar script you can access those playbooks as well and it just makes their jobs a lot more, again tailored to the prospect but then efficient as well so that they can efficiently work through their contacts and-

Steven: Sell more, better.

Anne: ... sell more and reach out at the right time.

Steven: Basically what we've learned about with ABM, I'm sure there'll be lots more conversations to come because it is a growing trend.

Anne: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven: People that don't know about it, especially in that B2B world need to know about it just because of the advantages they're in. And then the ones that do know about it are already looking for strategies and opportunities to implement in ways to even make it better.

Anne: Sure.

Steven: I'm sure there'll be more content coming from us soon on that. But Anne, thanks again for your time today and-

Anne: Thank you.

Steven: ... again, dropping them bombs. Thanks guys. Have a great day.

Anne: Thanks.

Steven: We'll see you next week.