Account-Based Marketing For Manufacturers: What You Need To Know

Creating an effective marketing plan can be challenging, especially with today’s evolving digital landscape. The last thing you, as a manufacturer, want to do is pitch to several potential accounts just for all your leads to fall short. So what is there to do? Account based marketing for manufacturers. Let’s be honest, we live in a world of lead generation, but most of us don’t like the idea of being sold to.

When we find a company that can help us when we need that help, then you have the opportunity to deliver value. Account based marketing is about nurturing accounts, not just pitching to a company. It is about being sensitive to where companies are in their own personal buying journey. If you want to learn more about account based marketing and how it can benefit your company, then you came to the right place. We will go over what it is and who you can reach out to for more information.

What Is Account Based Marketing?

Account based marketing is a strategy where your key business accounts are marketed to directly. Essentially, you identify your high-value accounts or prospects and deploy marketing strategies to appeal to these specific accounts to meet their needs and personas.

To explain further, this means that you focus on fewer but larger accounts that can make the most significant impact on your company’s bottom line. You will choose quality over quantity, which will significantly influence how effective your marketing campaigns are.

Account-Based Marketing for Manufacturers

Account based marketing, also known as ABM, is a tactic that has been used ever since people started selling things to other companies. This tactic, paired with cutting-edge technology, allows you to target specific companies with personalized ads and email campaigns.

In the past, sales associates would make a list of target enterprises and drive around to them and give their pitches. Now we have the opportunity to use technology to reach certain companies without having to leave your office. There are many different platforms you can utilize to create hyper-targeted ad campaigns to grow awareness of your company among your targeted audience.

Many reputable marketing agencies, such as David Taylor Digital, have tools that help you find the contact information for stakeholders at your target companies. This allows you to send more personalized messages that meet their pain points.

How to Gain Awareness

Although there is new technology you can use, you can still integrate your old school tactics to reach your target companies still. For example, you can combine automated email campaigns, targeted ads, mailers, and handwritten notes to gain awareness.

Once you reach your intended stakeholders with valuable information and their pain points, they will most likely want to reach out to you about your services. As you build these relationships with your target stakeholders through educational and empathetic content, you will become the solution they need instead of a solution option.

Important Note About ABM

Although this new technology is an excellent way to reach your target audience, you will still need to earn your client’s trust. These more unique tools don’t market for you; they just make it easier to measure, automate, and scale your automated-based marketing efforts.

Is ABM a Good Strategy for Manufacturers?

Account-based marketing for manufacturers is a strategy with which many companies have seen actual results. According to a benchmark report, 96% of B2B companies claimed that deploying an account based marketing strategy has tremendously helped their marketing success.

Manufacturers have unique high-value services and products and long sales cycles. Deploying the right ABM strategy for manufacturers provides an opportunity to generate high profit and high-quality leads.

Greater Pipeline Velocity

As a manufacturer, you aren’t selling perfumes or cell phone cases at a mall kiosk. Instead, you sell highly complex products and solutions, which means your services and products are not taken lightly. For your business, you have at least seven or eight stakeholders who have their own pain points and priorities that can cause the buying process to drag on for months.

An excellent account based marketing plan can help speed up the lead generation process. You have a greater chance of winning their business by earning your stakeholders’ trust early on with specific awareness campaigns and valuable content geared towards their pain points.

Hand Select Each Company

You have the opportunity to hand-select each company for your company marketing plan. These companies you select for your ABM match your ideal customer profile.

Ideal customer profile meets your criteria based on their:

• Budget
• Accessibility of their decision-makers
• Location

These companies are selected for their potential to blossom into profitable relationships. The main reason why ABM works when you choose specific companies to target is because your marketing and your sales team work to prequalify these companies. If you close on the deal, you know that the relationship with these companies will be a great fit.

Builds Trust

As mentioned earlier, in your account based business marketing campaign, you personally address each of your stakeholders’ pain points. This helps to earn trust for your company. When these stakeholders’ come to the time to decide who to partner with, they will be much more comfortable choosing you.

Possible Disadvantages With ABM

Although there are many significant advantages of deploying an ABM campaign, there are a few disadvantages to consider. For example, ABM is not a one-and-done type of deal, but neither should any marketing campaign.

Account based marketing is definitely a labor-intensive strategy, but that should not stop you. You have to remember that you target high-quality leads that can greatly affect your bottom line. Because you are targeting a specific number of companies with this marketing strategy, you can easily measure its revenue.

How to Prepare for ABM

Now that you know the many benefits and possible disadvantages of account based marketing, it is time to prepare yourself for your ABM campaign. Once you find the accounts that can drive success for your business, you will want to make sure they are a good fit for account based marketing.

Questions to ask yourself about your prospective company for ABM:

• Is this company a good fit?
• Are you a good fit for that company?
• Do they show interest in you or your competition?
• How do you know this company?
• Can you leverage your relationship with them?
• How will you engage this company?

It is crucial that you set goals to focus your resources. Many companies have limited resources, so pursuing the right companies is essential to your companies growth.

Gather Information

You can’t send a personalized message to a company without knowing too much about them. You will need to know more than the company’s email information, job titles, or the company’s name.

Many CRM systems have capabilities you can use for your ABM campaign, so use that to your advantage. You can leverage the data you have from your customers with third-party data information.

When you connect the dots on contact information with your CRM or other marketing automation system, you can link sales data and contacts together. This will help you understand the best ways to contact your selected company accounts and at which phase you should reach out to them.

Map Out Account Journeys

An account journey focuses on a specific company’s buying process. The buying journey typically involves an engineer and someone in the finance department, such as an asset manager.

When you create a map, it helps you understand who influences decisions and who makes those decisions. It pays off when you engage with your stakeholders in a way that benefits them the most. You can do this by presenting them with relevant and personalized interactions across different channels.

ABM Ideas for Manufacturers

ABM is more holistic than blindly calling hundreds of target companies with a pitch. Account based marketing is not just advertising or sending out personalized handwritten letters. Instead, it is a strategic process of identifying key accounts that you would like to work with and engaging with them. The goal of ABM is to build long-lasting and profitable relationships with your target companies.

Automated Email Nurturing

You can generate a series of automated emails once you have your list of preferred companies to reach out to. Even though these emails are automated, it would be in your best interest to make them more personalized to meet your clients’ pain points.

Do your best to be helpful, educational, and specific as possible. You can offer your clients a case study or even a blog post written for their pain points.

Add a Personal Touch

Emails are extremely easy to automate, but nothing stands out like a handwritten note. It shows that you put thought into your communication instead of just sending out a regular email. Make sure that you tailor your letter to the intended recipient’s pain point.

Start Your ABM Campaign Today

It is no doubt that a few small deals can go a long way for small manufactures, and that alone is a great reason to utilize account based marketing. Once you pick a few key accounts, you can then start your ABM journey.

Contact us now if you are ready to start creating the right relationships and reaching the right clients. We are prepared to help create the ABM campaign to help your bottom line.