Uniting B2B Sales and Marketing Teams

One of the latest trends in B2B marketing is account-based marketing (ABM). The goal of ABM is to align a company’s marketing and sales teams.

While everyone talks about the need to make sure marketing and sales departments work together to capture sales leads, this goal is not often realized. Many in the industry believe that ABM may finally accomplish that goal.

ABM is being touted as the newest and best way to bring sales and marketing teams together. The fact is, however, ABM isn’t new at all. In fact, the theory behind ABM is to bring back an emphasis on outbound marketing. Once successful, an impressive list of accounts will be built and the focus can turn to delivering targeted messages to those accounts.

ABM allows marketers to increase sales with the aid of software programs. These software programs enable marketers to capitalize on a variety of factors including ad serving and retargeting, content personalization, lead generation and management, and sales intelligence.

While ABM software is still in its infancy, experts believe that it in the next few years it will explode in popularity among B2B marketers. This stems from the fact that ABM technology will do something that has yet to be done: allow marketers and sales teams to execute at scale through technology-based solutions.

Experts also say that ABM will break through all that has divided marketing and sales departments up until now. ABM is predicated on the belief that most B2B buying decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. ABM, therefore, allows B2B marketers to identify the most suitable accounts and then pinpoint their target audience within those accounts. More importantly, ABM will allow for the engagement of prospects on their terms, ultimately turning prospects into customers who will then become advocates for the brand.

While ABM can do wonders to bring your marketing and sales teams together, it is not something that can be implemented overnight or without the correct people and processes in place. Customer data and insight is crucial to its success which means the proper technology must be in place. Further, only marketing and sales teams that are committed to its success will allow ABM to do its job.