Account-Based Marketing: For all marketing actions of a company to be efficient, it is essential to segment them properly. This means dividing the target audience into smaller groups that have an affinity with each other.
The objective is to deepen knowledge about customers and potential customers to create efficient strategies that convert into sales and profitability. In this context, there are two widely used tools in segmentation: Account Based Marketing (ABM) and Inbound Marketing.
However, despite this similarity, these are resources with very different processes, which, separately or integrated, promote good results due to personalization, quality content, a well-structured sales funnel and details.
It was precisely to explain the differences between the two approaches, their advantages and their applications within Marketing that we made this post. Follow along and learn all about it!
What Is ABM?
Account – Based Marketing (ABM) is a tool suitable for B2B organizations, as it focuses on a limited number of target accounts. These are usually companies with several professionals or departments involved in the purchase decision and having a high average ticket.
That is, the segmentation is highly detailed, and the strategies and campaigns are focused on the businesses of interest, which can bring excellent results regarding return on investment (ROI).
The main feature of this tool is personalization, which means choosing the potential customers you want to reach and creating specific actions for them. This entire process is carried out by integrating the Marketing and Sales teams, which work collaboratively.
Among the advantages of the solution is minimizing the waste of time and resources, as they will be highly customized actions with fewer potential customers; at the same time, there is more quality and proactivity in the activities developed.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is a set of Digital Marketing strategies, including Content Marketing, SEO and social networks, which is based on creating and sharing relevant content aimed at a specific target audience, in this case, defined as a persona.
Its design is focused on attracting, converting and delighting customers. Unlike traditional advertising, which acts more invasively, Inbound Marketing promotes the attraction of the public in a natural way, creating an emotional connection throughout the purchase journey, which is reflected in loyalty and sales. Among the characteristics are:
Open and constant communication and interaction with personas or semi-fictitious profiles of the ideal customer;
The message passed continuously without interrupting potential and current customers, who can access the content when it is most convenient; Relationship of trust, which brings engagement and value generation without interruptions.
This strategy can be used by B2B or B2C businesses of all sizes and sectors, thanks to the affordable cost, reach, creation of the authority, loyalty and positive perceptions it can generate.
What Are The Differences Between Account-Based Marketing And Inbound Marketing?
As you have seen, both Marketing strategies are based on audience segmentation. However, the main difference between them is in the amplitude of the division of the groups. While Inbound Marketing is bulky and contains potential customers with similar characteristics, desires and pains, ABM aims at the focus and qualities of leads.
With Account-Based Marketing, campaigns are targeted and aim to reach specific and desired accounts by organizations. That is, all the content developed is specifically aimed at the demands of potential customers, which generates high success rates.
Another difference between Inbound Marketing and ABM is that, while the former works with personas, the latter aims to achieve the ideal customer profile (ICP). Despite being similar concepts, the ICP is focused on the characteristics of companies or target accounts. Its construction is based on historical data from the Marketing and Sales areas and information on purchases and interactions of current customers.
While in Inbound Marketing, brands strive to attract as many leads or potential customers as possible, gradually eliminating those who are not qualified; with an ABM strategy, marketing and sales teams select those accounts that already have some fit with the company.
Thus, it is possible to optimize investments, accelerate the purchase journey due to high personalization, and have a higher ROI related to other Digital Marketing actions. To give you an idea, according to an ITSMA survey, 84% of marketers who measure the rate classify ABM as the most responsible for better results than other campaigns.
Other essential differences between the two strategies are the sales funnel. In the case of IBM, this is reversed. For you to understand better, the Inbound action funnel is composed of 4 steps: learning and discovery, problem recognition, solution consideration and evaluation and purchase.
Regarding ABM, the ICP journey is based on business intelligence for account identification, relationship and contact identification, engagement, nurturing and selling. Even with essential differences, which we have shown so far, in both strategies, even after winning over customers, it is necessary to continue investing in a positive relationship.