Account-based marketing was developed to allow B2B marketers to deliver more personalized experiences to prospects and consumers. While ABM has been shown to outperform traditional marketing by 171%, ABM still isn’t where we need it to be.
Using marketing automation and digital ads, marketers have attempted to personalize the consumer experience at every turn. If you’re looking for ways to step up your marketing game? Check out Subscriberz and we will take care of the rest.
However, in their book “The One to One Future,” written way back in the nineties, authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers posited a future where marketers could connect with their audiences on a significantly personalized level. The duo didn’t get their ideas from a crystal ball, instead, they foresaw increasing technology and massive amounts of data being funneled to marketing. Just as predicted, this technology is alive and well, and Big Data is available to enhance all interactions at the consumer level.
With artificial intelligence making waves throughout the marketing world, account-based marketing is about to get a whole lot more intuitive. For consumers, many have yet to experience a world where ABM and AI merge to make the customer experience one that’s truly out of this world. Specifically at Nudge.ai, we’re working on building relationship intelligence into account-based strategies.
ABM & Next-Level Relationship Building
B2B companies who use ABM know why it’s good for marketing: it makes marketing more efficient and precision-targeted. Most of all, you can prove ROI and how ABM impacts the organization as a whole.
However, ABM also benefits prospects and consumers in a way traditional marketing never could. That is because account-based marketing pushes us to learn more about those we are marketing to, and allows us to deliver the proper messages and just at the right time.
By narrowing your demand generation activities while focusing on smaller target segments, you can more accurately deliver precise experiences at every section of the sales funnel – from discovery to close to the return sale.
That sounds amazing when you have ten to fifteen accounts. However, what happens when your organization has 1,000 or 5,000 targets to track? To deliver an experience that is memorable and that sets your company apart to that many people requires in-depth account-based knowledge that isn’t possible to dig through with even a team of qualified individuals working alongside you.
The question remains, then, do you limit your accounts or hire more personnel? The answer is neither. What your organization needs is intuitive data processing on a grand scale through artificial intelligence or AI.
AI Makes Scaling Simpler
AI infused with ABM will allow marketers to scale while also building relevant campaigns and delivering targeted messages. Starting the conversation and making the sale will also become easier, as machines can convert all that data, insight, and action into an experience that delivers a true 1 to 1 connection.
In his book “Artificial Intelligence for Marketing: Practical Applications,” marketing guru Jim Sterne wrote, “AI can discover which elements or attributes in a subject matter domain are the most predictive. Even with a great deal of noisy data and a large variety of data types, it can identify the most revealing characteristics, figuring out which to heed to and which to ignore.”
That means that AI can help us discover new, unique prospects. Let’s say that a prospect makes a touchpoint with your campaign that doesn’t fit the usual profile. AI will be able to predict that prospect’s viability based on other behaviors and predictive learning.
A human sniffing out that prospect using ABM might overlook an otherwise juicy opportunity. AI can then disseminate the right deliverables to create an experience that is inviting, informative, and personal.
Superhuman Abilities Help to Deliver Promises
Aside from the need to always deliver a personalized experience, marketers also struggle with always having to be “on.” Interacting with prospects immediately, when they are most interested, is critical to closing the deal. But what happens when a lead arrives in the middle of the night or over the weekend while you’re on vacation? Those prospects may lose interest and never seek your company out again.
This is particularly true of B2B marketing, where 82% of website visitors aren’t even potential customers. With all that useless traffic, you can’t afford to lose any hot leads that may present themselves.
With AI and ABM, leads can be nurtured, even overnight, and “being on” is something automation was designed for. When you can infuse intelligence into your automated processes, you will be able to come through for your prospects and clients in all new ways. For example, you’ll be able to produce a fully-customizable contract at 2 am while helping the prospect fill it out, no living personnel required. When you throw in a personalized “Thank You” email, you’ll save time, resources, and your client will be indubitably impressed.
The fact is AI is the perfect complement to ABM. Account-based marketing is based on the tenet that there is no one definitive customer path. Instead, every prospect can be different, want different things, and possess separate goals. Where humans can struggle to multi-task and bigger teams can be resource-heavy, AI can help with ABM scale and immediacy in a world where delivering the goods now, not later, is of the utmost importance.
AI is not a fix-all, mind you. ABM has and will always require a company-wide approach. But used properly, and with the right technology – such as AI – ABM can identify a prospect’s intent, optimize the buyer’s journey, personalize content, and hyper-target ads for greater marketing “intimacy” at any scale.
