Harshit Jain MD is the Founder and Global CEO of Doceree, the first global network of physician-only platforms for programmatic marketing.
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Spending in the B2B digital ad market in the United States is projected to approach $15 billion in 2023. As online messaging evolves, the implementation of an account-based marketing (ABM) approach can enhance the communications that pharma marketers cultivate and execute.
The ABM structure flips the traditional lead-based marketing funnel to instead focus on high-priority accounts. With marketers keen to use ABM methods to boost outcomes, data analytics can be leveraged to embolden hyper-targeted communications to decision-makers.
When strategizing a plan to drive business results, pharma organizations can gain the advantages of orchestrating ABM initiatives to reach institutional stakeholders at hospitals, integrated delivery networks, specialty pharmacies and care clinics about their products.
Given how greatly ABM can contribute to improving business outcomes, organizations should be well prepared to transition themselves to ABM strategies so that they can run their campaigns precisely and at scale.
Gain A Clearer Understanding Of The Accounts To Be Targeted
It's only with a crystal-clear understanding and deep knowledge of accounts and target audiences that any ABM campaign could be successful. In the absence of reliable understanding, marketers wouldn't be able to target and nurture high-value accounts that are a priority to reach during the ABM initiative. As marketers develop buyer personas, creating account personas should be an important aspect of an ABM initiative to help prioritize high-value clients having a high probability of converting.
Marketing and sales teams can dive into the business objectives of the accounts, the values they share and the behavior they reflect—mostly defining a pattern right before conversion. The clearer the understanding of account personas, the greater the chances of identifying high-value accounts likely to convert.
Building the personas should include information around demographics (location of company, company size, number of employees at management positions, etc.), psychographics (values, goals, etc), technographics (technology used by the company) and life cycle (acquisition phase, expansion phase and acceleration phase).
When key accounts are identified as part of the ABM process, businesses can distinguish the qualified buyers to reach on a priority basis. Once the high-value accounts are recognized, ABM tactics empower marketers to have exchanges become focal points with decision-makers at those specific accounts.
By identifying the target audience, pharma marketers are afforded the ability to decipher the digital journey of qualified buyers to share relevant messages that reflect their interests at the account level. By eliminating the guesswork on accounts to target, embracing an ABM mindset can enable marketers to focus on the right prospects to demonstrate greater value to the noteworthy accounts that will benefit the company.
Align Sales And Marketing Teams Throughout The Campaign
Unlike traditional lead-generation campaigns, ABM tactics require the marketing and sales teams to collaborate to build personalized campaigns. After the marketing team generates a lead and hands that over to the sales team, both teams ought to work together to create personalized outreach based on those touch points and channels that are best suited for interaction and retargeting.
The behavior and intent of the qualified buyer must be comprehended to be able to deploy messages that align with their needs. The ability to illustrate an understanding of what is desired by the target account helps capture their attention with customized exchanges that are distributed within the online ecosystem for more efficient campaigns.
A successful personalized ABM outreach is possible when the marketing and sales teams come together as part of ABM targeting and nurturing tactics. Basically, while the sales team is executing the client engagement process, the marketing team can proactively use that time to maintain a strategic marketing presence. This usually is much different from the traditional way of lead generation wherein marketing efforts stop after the sales team takes over from them.
Invest In The Right Software And Tech Stack
To ensure the success of ABM, working with the right tools, software and tech stack becomes very important. Essentially, they help scale ABM initiatives and make appropriate adjustments as the campaigns mature over a period of time. ABM software is designed to support the marketing and sales teams through each step of the campaign journey—from account selection and planning to engagement and reporting.
Organizations can equip their marketing and sales teams with the right tech stack and tools either by adopting an end-to-end ABM platform that offers all the capabilities to fortify each step of the process or by using their own martech stack and topping it up with third-party tools.
Solve A Company's Challenge To Improve Account Lift
Relevance with the materials that are being shared with qualified buyers is of the utmost importance to maximize the value that's being provided to the priority account. Hence, interactions need to be tailored to address a challenge that's present within the organization. It's beneficial for messages to demonstrate how your solution can support them to overcome that barrier.
The ability to formulate an ABM campaign that will positively impact a company enables marketers to build trusting relationships with the institutional stakeholders that can continue to prosper as part of long-term plans. To achieve an organization's goals of reaching specific accounts, the data-driven messages that showcase the value of the pharma company's offering can be presented to the target audience to foster more signification traction. The customized ABM campaigns directed toward decision-makers will optimize communication efforts and achieve a higher ROI for marketing programs.
According to a Momentum ITSMA survey, "87% of B2B marketers [agreed] that ABM delivers higher ROI." ABM's ability to target high-value accounts can uplift marketing results and position pharma companies to gain the benefits of more meaningful interactions with decision-makers in an efficient manner.
Taking the resources and time to identify priority accounts should incite organizations to put quality leads over quantity with an ABM plan. By integrating ABM strategies into communication practices, pharma companies can benefit from the improved business outcomes that can be achieved to optimize messaging campaigns.
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