In recent years the use of Account Based Sales has increased, this technique involves the participation of the entire team in dealing with a single contact.
This methodology is used in B2B Marketing because it is too personalized for B2C Marketing .
Do you really know what Account Bases Sales or ABS is ? Or maybe you are wondering if this tool is really appropriate for your company. We will clarify all the doubts you may have regarding this issue in this post.
Define Account Based Sales or ABS
The ABS is based on the coordinated work of the sales, marketing, finance and production teams focused on the study, development, definition and direction of a specific strategy. It should be noted that all those people and departments of the company that have any interference in the sale decision are addressed.
In Account Based Sales, members work focused on meeting customer needs. Therefore, this approach is perfect for B2B Marketing, where larger negotiations are sought. However, it is too personalized to apply to B2C Marketing.
If the target market of your business is both B2B and B2C or only B2B, the ABS will be perfect to achieve attracting new customers or retain old customers to continue with you.
What is B2B and B2C Marketing?
To determine if the Account Bases Sales is for my company , it is first necessary to define what B2B and B2C Marketing is , since ABS is more related to the first term.
- B2B Marketing : these are the acronym for Business to Business , and it focuses on marketing that is directed to other companies and not to the final consumer, where the ultimate goal is to achieve large-scale sales. In other words, the businesses that are carried out have a higher value than in the market aimed at the final consumer. Within B2B Marketing , the customer is more interested in optimizing the purchasing process. Reason why, the campaign focuses more on the rationalization and the characteristics of the product or service.
- B2C Marketing : refers to Marketing Business to Consumer and is aimed at the consumer. For this reason the campaigns are more emotional than rational, since the consumer does not give so much importance to the characteristics of the product itself, but to the benefits it can bring to their daily life. Transactions are usually of less value than in B2B Marketing.
Define the buyer personas
To know if your company should use Account Based Sales , first it is advisable to define the buyer personas or the ideal buyer profile. Hubspot , a company specialized in marketing software, recommends having defined the organization’s objectives to follow. Also, the proper relationship between the product and the market before opting to use ABS. Therefore, if we still cannot define the characteristics of our clients, it is preferable to postpone the application of ABS.
Who do we sell to?
Defining our target market is really important to know if ABS will be profitable for our company. If our products are mainly aimed at small consumers or small businesses, then the resources used by Account Based Sales will be too many to serve our customers.
On the other hand, if our market is made up of large companies or wholesalers, ABS is the solution to achieve sales successfully and satisfactorily, both for the client and for us.
Personalized attention for each person involved
In B2B marketing, when the purchase process is being developed, decision-making is generally divided between more than one person, therefore it is necessary to personalize the attention to each of the subjects involved in the process, this is achieved through Account Based Sales.
By targeting all stakeholders the risk of negotiation failure is minimized. In Inbound Marketing, the company must make available to each subject a great informative content in a personalized way, know which are the ideal channels to send that information and the schedules according to the preferences of each one.
With ABS , all these tasks are simplified and accomplished automatically. For example, if the clients of our company are made up of a group of people who are in charge of the final decision of the purchase, the Account Based Sales is nurtured with all that information to establish a personalized attention of the actors who participate in the process. But if in most of the purchasing processes that the company develops, there are only one or two actors, ABS will be too powerful a tool for us.
After-sales contact
Marketing software developer Hubspot explains that customer satisfaction is a core element of ABS , the happy customer will contact us again and also put us in touch with other stakeholders for other accounts.
Here, contact is vital after the sale is closed, so it is recommended to continue sending informative and orientation content. The customer should even be able to make suggestions about the product and about the purchasing process in general. Hubspot recommends holding after-sales events or meetings where multiple customers can attend. Those meetings can be focused on capturing the customer by raising enthusiasm for the product through the exchange of experiences or, also, to better understand the handling of the article.
Does my company need Account Based Sales?
Definitely if the company works with large clients, you can bet that Account Based Sales is the solution to achieve successful sales as well as their loyalty. This system will ensure that all teams work in a coordinated way towards the same objective, that is, to achieve the act of purchase.
However, if the company has mainly medium-sized clients, ABS is not the most recommended, but Hubspot, a pioneer in marketing software, indicates that this tool can be adapted to deal with medium-sized companies, using independent teams that treat these clients, with a high level of specialization that know how to identify problems as well as prevent them. This is what Hubspot calls small-scale ABS .
Therefore, if a company has medium-sized clients, it can apply Account Based Sales, but for this, it will have to train the staff that is part of the team dedicated to ABS.
Now we make a summary of what was seen:
The Account Based Sales is a way to address customers holistically, where all teams are involved in making the deal. It is a tool that is aimed to a greater extent at B2B Marketing, where the customers are other companies and it is not so recommended for B2C Marketing, where the sale is aimed at the end consumer.
To find out if the ABS is for my company must define the Buyer people or ideal customer, the same as we have to define what kind of market at the Target our product. Without these clear objectives we will not be able to know if Account Based Sales will be profitable for our company.
Through ABS , multi process attention is developed, which is when the purchase decision is in the hands of several people, through ABS it is possible to focus the information in a timely and relevant way towards each actor involved in the purchase, thus achieving that the customer feel more satisfaction. This satisfaction is prolonged by offering after-sales service, maintaining contact with the customer.
Although Account Based Sales is recommended for companies that handle large clients, it can also be used if the clients are SMEs, creating a specialized team to apply what Hubspot calls ABS on a small scale.
