Wouldn’t it be nice to know what companies to target and what marketing message you need to get across?
Sure, this sounds like a pipe dream. Nonetheless, we live in a world where inbound marketing and account-based marketing exists. These two marketing strategies can help turn your dream into reality.
Understanding Inbound Marketing
Hubspot defines inbound marketing as a business methodology that attracts customers. You can do this by producing relevant content that is tailored to your target market.
Using inbound marketing to promote your business allows you to reap the following benefits:
- Reduced Expenses. Compared to mass marketing, inbound marketing will enable you to reach out to clients interested in what you have to offer.
- Quality Leads. Since inbound marketing allows you to target people interested in what you offer, it will be easier to convert them into paying clients.
- Trust and Credibility. The best way to attract your prospects is to produce high-quality content. Meanwhile, the content you produce allows you to showcase your knowledge and expertise. As such, you can foster trust among your clients and establish your credibility.
- Opportunity to Evolve. Inbound marketing compels you to nurture your potential and existing clients. As such, you can use this opportunity to learn more about them and how you can improve your service.
Account-Based Marketing: Definition and Benefits
Often used in B2B setup, account-based marketing is about targeting the best-fit accounts. This is made possible when your sales and marketing team work together.
There are various account-based marketing examples of implementing this tactic. Regardless, you can reap the following benefits:
- Sales and Marketing Alignment. As mentioned earlier, ABM can only be successful if your sales and marketing teams work together.
- Personalized Marketing Approach. Instead of running a generic marketing campaign that targets a whole niche, ABM allows you to run account-based promotions.
- Shorter Sales Cycle. A B2B purchase often involves multiple stakeholders, with the sales cycle usually starting at the bottom. With ABM, though, you target decision-makers, shortening the sales cycle.
- Clearer ROI. Since ABM is all about reaching out to major decision-makers in an account, it makes your campaign measurable. Hence, you would know whether your efforts are working.
ABM vs. Inbound Marketing: What’s the Difference?
As mentioned earlier, ABM is all about targeting pre-determined accounts. These are your potential clients. Hence, you need to focus your marketing resources on high-level stakeholders.
This also explains why account-based marketing requires customized content. That’s because the marketing data you present to a CFO may not work for a COO.
On the other hand, inbound marketing attracts a wide range of consumers using relevant, high-quality content. However, it is also essential that you are delivering the right content at the right time.
For instance, a COO who still needs convincing versus a COO who is ready to hire your services requires a different kind of content.
However, ABM and inbound marketing don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Sure, you may have read business stats saying that one marketing approach yields better ROI than the other. But imagine how much you can generate if you can make them work hand-in-hand.
You Need a Healthy Mix of Both
While ABM and inbound marketing have their pros and cons, choosing one over the other can hinder you from yielding better ROI.
Both approaches target a specific audience and guide them further down the sales funnel using relevant and high-quality content. For instance, you can use inbound marketing to generate high-quality leads. From there, you can identify critical accounts and serve account-based marketing content.
As a result, you can further your market reach and consistently drive leads while providing a personalized marketing experience.
Author Bio
Juliette Anderson is an Outreach Community Specialist for an e-commerce fulfillment company specializing in partnering with online sellers with an average parcel weight of 5+ pounds or greater. She has worked hand-in-hand with e-commerce stores to achieve optimal sales for four years already. Her specialty lies in social media marketing and paid promotions.
