Account-Based Marketing vs. Inbound Marketing

A strong marketing strategy usually disintegrates qualified leads. But with two predominant marketing strategies to focus on, it becomes challenging to select the best fit for your agency.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) refers to that approach which aims at the decision-makers of specific organizations with the help of direct and personalized communication. In contrast, Inbound Marketing is a broad spectrum of approaches to drag consumers towards the product and services with the help of content creation. This clear distinction makes it familiar for companies to use one strategy over the other.

How are they different? 

  • Account-based marketing (ABM) :

Account-based marketing usually aims at targeting predetermined accounts with customized efforts in marketing. In ABM, your concentration and energy are restricted to high-level accounts, which implies that you can reach stakeholders in a much simplified and direct way. Your strategy should constitute a great deal of custom content through outboard channels, like targeted advertising and emails, which can be relatable.

This strategy is more effective when your company sells to a niche market. Once you are aware of your ideal persona, it will be easier to describe and target the accounts you prefer to work with. Therefore the companies who are willing to use ABM are aware of the fact that it is not just adequate to drag new targeted accounts. Still, it is also helpful in expanding and retaining the present relationships with customers, which ultimately results in increasing lead generation. 

  • Inbound Marketing:

Inbound marketing targets bringing more consumers by offering high-quality and relevant content. The described inbound methodology helps to convert, attract, close, delight- meanwhile ensuring that makers are serving their audience by providing them with suitable content at a specific time. This method generates leads by repetitive forms, offers, and emails, which will push them further down in the conversion funnel. 

Inbound marketing is an effective method for numerous companies with a wide range of target personas in the broad market. GE, Salesforce, and Starbucks are some of the large companies that use an inbound marketing approach because of their large audience scale and great scope of products and services. Inbound marketing has enabled companies to reach an extended audience and generate new interest on a larger scale. 

Account-Based Marketing and Inbound Marketing synergy 

The combination of ABM and inbound marketing has often resulted in building powerful results. Inbound marketing and Account-Based marketing need not have to be mutually exclusive. 

The ultimate aim of both ABM and inbound marketing is to target specific audiences with impactful content that helps in conversion. Therefore, combining these two marketing strategies can make your company more powerful and influential. This will provide you the opportunity to gather an ideal audience and understand their thought processes by facilitating them with high-quality and relevant content that resonates. 

Conclusion

There are different pros and cons to both inbound and Account-Based marketing. So it is very challenging to decide on a marketing strategy that suits your agency. Concentrating on a single method to the exclusion of the other can hinder results. With a healthy mix of both strategies, you can construct an excellent marketing strategy that is capable of pushing the boundaries of traditional and offers your company the best results to reach the business goals.