Account-Based Marketing: Everything Old is New Again

I have a friend who theorizes that every 20 years, fashion repeats itself. I suppose I noticed bell bottoms did make a comeback in the 90s and Target currently appears to be single-handedly reviving Grunge for all the kids of Gen Xers. I’m no Lady of the Gagas, though, so I’m not fit to decide the validity of this theory.

After spending far too much time delving into the upsurge of articles on account-based marketing (ABM), I am certain my friend’s fashion theory can be applied to #B2B #businessdevelopment.

Back from the dead – outbound #prospecting and #coldcalling

The current maxim is "inbound marketing killed outbound prospecting". Pick up a phone and simply call someone that hasn’t liked your tweet/read your email/visited your website/downloaded your whitepaper? Clearly you’re a damn fool, thinking of doing such a thing! The leads will come to you, not the other way around!

ABM doesn’t explicitly denounce this rationale, but implementing this strategy inherently blows holes in the theory that prospecting is dead. While ABM still incorporates inbound marketing, albeit in a much more focused fashioned, much of the tactics needed for a successful ABM program are also identical to traditional prospecting. You can’t create inbound marketing content for your targeted accounts until you’ve done your research (and hopefully built a buyer persona based on that data), created a list of target companies, and determined the likely decision-makers.

Pick up a phone and simply call someone that hasn’t liked your tweet/read your email/visited your website/downloaded your whitepaper? Clearly you’re a damn fool, thinking of doing such a thing! The leads will come to you, not the other way around!

Once this prep work is complete, you can launch your unique and brilliantly crafted content at these target accounts. Ideally, this will result in high value prospective clients begging for a meeting with your company.

If this doesn’t happen? Give up. They’re clearly idiots for not immediately falling in love with you and there’s nothing else you can do to change. I believe that was Nike’s first catch phrase – “Just stop doing it because there’s only one route to success.”

OR - and here’s where the story gets unbelievable – you can pick up the phone and do some cold calling. Take that brilliant marketing content, convert it into relevant and hilarious voice mails and eventually, conversations.