The enterprise sales cycle in healthcare is notoriously long and complex, with some deals taking up to 18 months to close. This makes it a constant challenge for sales and marketing teams to keep the momentum alive with prospective clients.
As a result, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) (ABM) is quickly gaining popularity among B2B healthcare marketers — and for good reason. But what exactly is ABM, and can it really help you drive better results with providers, payers and employers?
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is all about focusing your marketing efforts on targeting high-value, “dream clients,” instead of marketing to the masses. ABM zeroes in on building and nurturing relationships with key decision-makers within these targeted companies, keeping them engaged before and after their business is earned.
What sets ABM apart from traditional, broader marketing strategies is its laser-focus on personalization. With ABM, marketers zero in on specific accounts and craft campaigns tailored to their unique needs, challenges, and business goals.
Think of it this way: Broad-based or inbound marketing is like casting a net, hoping to catch something in the right part of the ocean. ABM, on the other hand, is more like spearfishing for Moby Dick—highly targeted, precise, and designed to land the biggest opportunities.
The Account-Based Marketing Funnel
The Account-Based Marketing (ABM) funnel flips the traditional lead generation funnel on its head - literally.
Traditional lead generation funnels begin with a wide top of funnel (ToFu) and become more precise and personalized as leads progress through them.
ABM takes a different approach.
It starts by zeroing in on specific targets, building and nurturing those relationships with tailored collateral through the entire sales cycle. Once the deal is done, the focus shifts to retaining clients and growing account value over the long term.
Let’s break down the ABM funnel into steps for my fellow visual learners 👇
Step 1 - Identify:
This step requires marketing and sales teams to align on their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and perform research to identify what companies and individuals should be prioritized for targeting.
Step 2 - Engage:
Once your targets are locked in, it’s time to engage. This stage is all about personalized outreach—using tailored messaging, content, and campaigns to connect with key decision-makers via the channels best suited for interacting with them, such as LinkedIn, email, or relevant healthcare industry trade shows.
Step 3 - Convert:
Here’s where you seal the deal. Once again, sales and marketing closely collaborate on tactics to move prospects through the funnel, address friction, demonstrate value, and convert them into committed clients.
Step 4 - Retention & Expansion:
The party’s not over yet. Existing clients are the biggest source of growth. The relationship and trust you build with clients will make it easier to increase their lifetime value through expanded service offerings. They’re also you’re strongest marketing asset - word of mouth is good as gold!
What Makes Account-Based Marketing a Fit for B2B Healthcare?
As we pointed out earlier, the enterprise sales cycle in healthcare is long and tedious. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a powerful strategy for supporting sales teams navigating long deal pipelines because it revolves around dynamic, personalized campaigns that keep leads engaged while nurturing relationships and maintaining momentum.
Traditional marketing models like inbound or broad-based campaigns only get you so far in B2B healthcare. You’re not going to sell a health plan or health system on your SaaS solution with a LinkedIn post or banner ad, just like you won’t close a deal in one meeting. Success in enterprise healthcare sales requires playing the long game, and that’s where ABM shines. It ensures your sales team stays connected with leads, steadily guiding them toward a closed deal.
Another reason ABM is a great fit for healthcare is the challenge of communicating around complex clinical and regulatory topics. Crafting marketing messages that accurately reflect these intricate areas is no easy task. On top of that, healthcare organizations vary widely in how they operate, with different needs, structures, and priorities. What resonates with one health system could fall flat with another.
ABM allows you to tailor specific marketing collateral to specific targets, ensuring it lines up with their unique challenges and priorities. Instead of generic, one-size-fits-all content, you’re delivering personalized experiences designed to resonate with each target.
Pros & Cons of Account-Based Marketing
While Account-Based Marketing (ABM) (ABM) offers many benefits, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Before you hit the drawing board, you need to determine whether ABM is feasible for your marketing team, given its budget and resources. Let’s review some pros and cons to help you make an informed decision.
Pros of Account-Based Marketing (ABM):
Higher ROI: ABM aims to generate stronger ROI by focusing on high-value accounts that you’ve validated with your sales team.
Finer Targeting: Customizing marketing collateral to your targets will boost resonance and generate stronger engagement.
Improved Pipeline Velocity: By engaging and nurturing relationships with decision-makers, ABM can better support sales teams and reduce the time it takes to close deals.
Sales and Marketing Alignment: ABM requires close collaboration between sales and marketing teams, which promotes better communication and more focused business strategies. Marketo found that the teams who manage to collaborate successfully, can increase their deal-closing rate by up to 67% using ABM.
On paper, sales and marketing alignment sounds great - and when it works, it’s a thing of beauty. However, the reality is that such synergy is a lot easier said than done at many organizations, making it a con for some. Speaking of which…
Cons of Account-Based Marketing (ABM):
Resource Intensive: ABM requires significant time and effort be spent on research, including: gathering account insights, account tiering and charting coverage and penetration etc. And that’s the easy part! The real challenge lies in creating unique and effective collateral for smaller, highly-targeted groups, which requires far more effort than a traditional marketing model.
Scalability Issues: It can be challenging to scale ABM efforts to a larger number of accounts. Like I said earlier, what works for one target, might not work for the another.
Long-Term Commitment: ABM strategies take time to show results, requiring long-term investment and tempered patience. This is particularly challenging for smaller businesses who can’t afford to put all their eggs in one basket and double-down on the long game.
Does Size Matter in Account-Based Marketing?
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) can work for marketing teams of any size, but the strategy and execution will vary. Smaller teams are best suited to focus on a handful of high-value accounts, ensuring each receives personalized attention. Larger teams, on the other hand, can group accounts into broader categories and scale their efforts with slightly less customized collateral.
Ultimately, it’s not the size of your team that determines if ABM is right for you - it’s about your resources, business goals, departmental structure, and, of course, time.
I firmly believe effective marketing can happen at any budget level, ABM included. However, the more constrained your budget and resources, the more selective you’ll need to be with the tactics you use.
Getting Started with Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
B2B healthcare marketing is challenging, with long sales cycles and niche audiences making it a game of precision and patience. The Account-Based Marketing (ABM) model fits this environment perfectly, as it’s built to drive higher ROI by engaging and nurturing high-value accounts while maximizing value over the long haul.
Like any strategy, ABM has its pros and cons. The key is understanding your team’s resources and goals to decide if it’s the right move. Whether you have a small or large team, success isn’t about size - it’s about having a solid strategy that aligns with your goals.
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