Which is Better for You: Account-Based Marketing vs. Lead Generation?

Every company requires leads. Getting them is the biggest problem that marketers face.

Lead generation and account-based marketing (ABM) are two strategies that can help with this. If done correctly, both can aid in luring the kind of top-quality leads who end up becoming loyal clients and supporters.

Snowflake grew by more than 300% thanks to ABM. With lead creation, Templafy saw a 475% ROI. Both are combined by DocuSign to bolster its sales funnel.

Both disciplines will be discussed in this article, along with an explanation of what they are and when they should be employed. Additionally, you'll discover how to use ABM and lead generation to attract your perfect client.

A team sport is account-based marketing.

Finding and converting specific accounts that provide long-term value to your firm, both financially and through industry stature and pulling power, requires a company-wide strategic strategy called account-based marketing (ABM).

ABM employs a spear to hunt down and catch the best fish, unlike lead generation, which casts a large net.

The conventional sales funnel is turned on its head, and a land-and-expand marketing strategy is substituted for the one-size-fits-all method.

The outcome? more Webtoils compared to other forms of marketing.

Each account is treated as a target market by ABM. Engaging and closing the entire buying committee within those accounts is the focus of marketing activities.

Here's an illustration

Contextual intelligence platform GumG um wanted T-Mobile to see how valuable its computer vision technology could be and highlight how the two firms could work together when it launched its unlimited data package.

They wouldn't undertake a hit-and-hope campaign to target numerous companies like T-Mobile and hope they would take attention in order to pull this out. They targeted the T-Mobile account explicitly.

Gum Gum said that T-Mobile CEO John Léger frequently wears the color magenta, loves Batman, and supports his firm whenever he can.

The ABM team used this information to produce the comic book T-Man and Gums, of which 100 copies were mailed to T-Mobile and its record-keeping agencies. Legere commended the job on social media within hours. They scheduled a meeting within days, and T-Mobile eventually signed on as a client.

GumGum now names Vodafone and Sprint among its comparable clients, demonstrating how one well-known client may draw in others.

Everything must be set up to produce personalised content that fosters relationships for ABM to be effective. To engage customers and eventually seal deals, this requires perfect coordination between the marketing and sales teams.

A firm can greatly benefit from alignment. It has been demonstrated to boost growth, increase revenue, and enhance customer experience.

Teams are compelled to communicate clearly via ABM.

Marketing teams cannot produce content that resonates with ideal accounts without the help of salespeople. Sales cannot conduct meaningful conversations with hot prospects without marketing recruiting the right accounts. It's hard to create a perfect customer profile without qualitative and quantitative data from both.

Is lead generation really necessary if ABM provides your ideal customer with all they require to become a long-term partner?

Lead generation brings customers in the door

The process of drawing in interested prospects and converting them into customers is known as lead generation.

Every firm requires leads, and lead generation attempts to continue generating them. To use our earlier analogy once more, it is similar to employing a net to collect big schools of fish.

Prior to the advent of digital marketing, traditional lead generation entailed contacting potential customers who were ignorant of your products or services using outbound marketing strategies like cold calling, direct mail, or media advertising in the hopes that they would become customers.

People today have instant access to all the information they require to make decisions.

For instance, I recently needed to buy some transcription software. I went to Google and typed in "best transcription software," then I browsed some blogs.

I then started requesting recommendations from people in my network on Twitter and Slack. Most frequently, Otter.ai appeared. That directed me to a page entitled "5 reasons why you need Otter.ai for Zoom" on the webtoils.com website. After that, I perused the company blog's case studies before finally signing up.

Before I ever spoke with the company, I was familiar with the product.

Many other people's experiences mirror mine.

56% of B2B customers claim that a web search is their first source, and 79% claim that the content of the winning vendor has a significant impact on their choice.

Instead of going after your target audience, inbound marketing focuses on creating content that attracts them to you. When they do get in touch, it's usually

The buyer journey is mapped out by inbound marketing for lead generation, which focuses on awareness-raising initiatives through many touch points, such as:

The goal is to move potential consumers down the sales funnel toward conversion by providing answers to their queries, building trust, and demonstrating thought leadership.

Future ABM initiatives can gain from the outcomes of this.

ABM is based on a list of target businesses that ought to be your clients. Lead generation assists in identifying attributes and characteristics of strategic value by converting clients who have an interest in and need for your offer.

Which is better for my company: lead generation or account-based marketing?

Depending on what you're selling, who you're selling to, and where you are in your business, the answer to this question will vary (i.e. do you have the sufficient budget and team for a targeted account strategy).

There is no requirement that it be either/or. You can launch lead generation campaigns and use ABM at the same time to close or grow significant deals.

For instance, DocuSign developed an ABM campaign to raise the quantity of dialogues with high-value accounts and click-through rates.

This meant conducting a targeted ad campaign with tailored content for each industry and buying stage for over 450 enterprise accounts across six industries.

It was a great success, increasing page views by 300%, engagement rates by 59%, and sales pipeline by 22%.

However, it didn't come at the expense of efforts to generate inbound leads. Docu Sign continues to provide monthly films, weekly blog pieces, and daily social media postings with insightful material.

As a general guideline, remember to:

High average customer value (> $30,000) and a small target market.

ABM is reasonable. There is a smaller customer base to target. A organised, highly personalised method aids in filtering out outside noise because of their value from a financial or strategic standpoint.

There is no certainty that the T-Mobile buying team would have been interested in GumGum's lead generation campaign if it contained blogging about Batman. Specifically for the CEO and stakeholders, a comic book had to be made in order to impress the customer.

Small average customer value ($10,000) and a sizable target market.

It makes sense to generate leads. You have a better chance of creating demand with inbound marketing if the industry is big and there are many of options already available. Lower CLV and ACV also indicate that churn is probably higher. Low touch tactics are used to convert more prospects and assist increase email and CRM lists.

Although it's a big picture, it helps to make things simpler. There are additional elements that influence your choice, such as:

The difficulty of the purchasing process

Sales cycles that are account-based are more complicated than those that are person-based.

Selling to a Fortune 500 organisation will probably require collaborating with numerous parties and complying to complicated compliance and security requirements.

The sales process will take longer than if a small business owner made their own decisions. However, the client is more valuable, thus the ABM target strategy is justified.

Running self-service demand generation campaigns and allowing clients to educate themselves through your customised material is simpler if the buying cycle is less complex.

The product's level of complexity

You will have to work more to market your product if it is more difficult to describe how it operates and how to utilise it.

For instance, LiveRamp, a data connectivity platform, employed ABM to safeguard meetings with 15 illustrious clients.

With the help of LiveRamp's software, "businesses and their partners can better connect, control, and activate data to alter consumer experiences and deliver more value business outcomes."

It's a sophisticated product that offers advantages to several users. The most effective way to convey its genuine potential is through carefully targeted campaigns that inform the company's leadership. ABM is reasonable.

like a platform for data analytics On the other hand, plausible is a straightforward tool made for new businesses, independent contractors, and bloggers. its advantages

The cost

ABM is expensive and demands a substantial investment in infrastructure and software to support pre- and post-sales activities.

Your expenses can be covered if the consumer is investing a considerable sum in your solution.

The strategic value of a customer must be considered if a product is offered at a lower price point and relies on a bigger volume of customers.

A more expensive ABM strategy may be worthwhile in the long run, for instance, if acquiring a major player in your market can be used as leverage to bring in additional big names.

Most of the time, lead generation helps low-value products maintain minimal marketing and sales costs and large profit margins.

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