As the supply chain and logistics industry becomes more saturated, competition continues to increase. To stand out in this industry and find long-term success, it’s important for companies to emphasize their unique differentiators and develop strategic marketing campaigns that prioritize lead generation.
But, casting a lead acquisition net that’s too wide may not deliver the return on investment (ROI) that supply chain and logistics companies are looking for. And nurturing relationships in an industry known for limited face time and fast decision making can be difficult.
So how do you reconcile these issues? That’s where account-based marketing (ABM) comes in.
Keep reading to learn why logistics companies like yours need an account-based marketing strategy. We’ll provide a refresher on what ABM is and how to implement an ABM strategy in your company, so you can start getting the leads you’re looking for.
What Is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-based marketing casts a decidedly narrow lead acquisition net. Instead of marketing to a broad pool of unqualified leads, an account-based marketing strategy targets key business stakeholders who influence purchasing decisions with the goal of securing these accounts. To secure these key accounts, marketing and sales work together to develop personalized campaigns tailored to each account.
Why You Need ABM in Your Logistics Marketing Plan
Some industries, such as business services or technology, tend to serve a wide range of markets and audiences. Supply chain companies, however, tend to know the companies, or at least, the company types, that need to procure transportation and logistics services. Decision-making is typically based on four areas: location, production, inventory, and transportation needs, allowing logistics companies to narrow down their pool of prospects and develop targeted messaging based on these considerations.
These industry characteristic makes ABM attractive and effective for logistics companies—but like any strategic marketing tactic, it can be difficult to get right without the necessary expertise—and trial and error can be costly.
But with 87 percent of account-based marketers agreeing that ABM initiatives outperform other marketing investments, it’s absolutely a worthwhile strategy, and experienced agencies that provide account-based marketing services can plan, develop, and execute your plan effectively and efficiently.
Because the success of an ABM strategy hinges on collaboration between marketing and sales, it also ensures that both departments are aligned on your company’s core objectives and priorities. Complete alignment of marketing and sales drives efficiencies and enables your company to get the highest return on marketing investment (ROMI).
Because it’s a well-defined and trusted strategy, ABM also makes it easy to nurture relationships with key accounts and encourage repeat business.
How to Successfully Implement an Account-Based Marketing Strategy
With the benefits of ABM made clear, let’s talk about implementing an account-based marketing strategy. To achieve success, alignment between sales, marketing, and customer service is critical. Input from each of these departments is necessary to understand what key stakeholders to target, how to target them, and what channels to use. You’ll also need marketing technology that integrates these initiatives with customer relationship management, such as HubSpot.
Supply chain and logistics companies that get ABM right focus on uniting sales and marketing to attain qualified customers and eliminating unnecessary internal competition to transform their business operations. When teams are united by the goal of identifying, attaining, and retaining qualified customers, achieving maximum efficiency and long-term success is a no-brainer.
So how do you do it? Here’s a quick-start process for implementing an account-based marketing strategy within your company:
- Identify your key accounts
- Develop a prospect list
- Align marketing and sales within your company
- Develop targeted resources for each prospect (think, eBooks, whitepapers, infographics)
- Choose relevant channels and ABM tactics
- Deliver personalized messages to your prospect list
- Effectively position your solution as the solution
- Exceed key accounts’ expectations
- Solicit feedback for ongoing success
One of the most important steps in this process is to solicit feedback. Never underestimate the value of customer feedback—positive or negative. When you’ve won your first key account, ask them to provide some insight into their sales experience. What did they find most effective about the experience? What would they want to see done differently? You can use this valuable feedback to help modify your existing messaging to more effectively identify and market your logistics company to new prospects.
Getting Started with Account-Based Marketing Tactics
To truly stand out in the supply chain and logistics industry, you need to target your marketing efforts and appeal to prospects’ individual pain points and needs. An effective way to do this, as illustrated, is to develop an ABM strategy and to employ account-based marketing tactics because they enable you to communicate directly with the key business stakeholders who influence purchasing decisions.
At Sagefrog, we specialize in creating ABM campaigns for logistics and supply chain management companies. If you don’t have the expertise, time, or team to develop an account-based marketing strategy on your own, we would love to help.
Ready to get started with ABM? Let’s talk!
