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November Program: Driving Revenue To Your Firm With Account-Based Marketing

Posted by [email protected] on Nov. 14, 2022  /  Program Recap  /  Subscribe 0

November Program: Driving Revenue To Your Firm With Account-Based Marketing

Our November Program featured an energetic and informative presentation by Smartegies CEO and Founder, Judy Sparks, on how to drive revenue to your firm with account-based marketing. In short, this type of marketing is the most affordable way to generate leads and convert those leads into customers.

As an industry that thrives on relationships, AEC professionals want to understand how to combat the high cost of client acquisition by strategically reallocating time, energy, and money. Account-based marketing is a strategy built on five fundamentals to increase your firm's ROI when converting high-value clients into leads.

Fundamental #1: Flip the Old Funnel

The old funnel starts with mass awareness to garner some type of interest, followed by consideration and procurement processes to hopefully lead to a win or lose scenario – if the project happens. Instead of using the awareness-interest-consideration-purchase model, account-based marketing wants you to first identify your firm's highest value customers. Once you've identified those, you expand your efforts by engaging with multiple stakeholders at all levels of the organization. After identifying and engaging with these individuals, you want to reach them with crafted messages through multiple channels (digital ads, eblasts, newsletters, direct mail, etc.). Now that you've reached these customers with messaging that best positions your firm for their needs, they will become your brand advocates.

Fundamental #2: Target High-Value Accounts

As mentioned above, the cost of client acquisition is only getting higher. This cost may come from expectations of the customer, which may include taking out an ad in their publication or providing preliminary costs for a project prior to hire. Judy provided us with a few formulas to calculate the lifetime value of a customer (the annual profit from the customer x the number of years as a customer –cost of client acquisition) as well as the cost of acquiring a new client marketing cost / number of new customers). This allows your firm to determine the overall spend you should dedicate on new and existing customers in your marketing efforts.

Fundamental #3: Use Tiers

Not all clients and prospects are created equal. Tiers in account-based marketing refers to the level of personalization in your marketing efforts based on the buying habits of your customers. For instance, a tier one client describes a habitual buyer of your service. This may be your highest value customer. They will receive more of a one-to-one type of marketing that is much more personalized to them and their organization. On the spectrum of investment and ROI per account, tier one falls on the high side. Below that is the tier two, one-to-few type of marketing where you may identify a microcluster of similar organizations and positions that you'd like to reach with the same messaging. And on the lower side of the investment and ROI per account spectrum is the tier 3, one-to-many marketing. As you can guess, this is less personalized and is used to reach a larger audience. You can reach your categorized customers by structuring your marketing campaigns with just one tier or you can use a blended strategy with all three.  

Fundamental #4: Business Development (BD) and Marketing Alignment

While BD and marketing are very aligned during the proposal and interview efforts of project pursuits, the same can't always be said for early-game activities. Account-based marketing encourages BD and marketing to align early by way of crafting targeted messages to track key performance indicators through marketing campaigns. By following KPIs through website traffic, social media, email, etc., marketing can identify customer engagement with the firm early and help BD qualify leads. When BD and marketing work together to move the customer through the awareness and consideration stages, it's likely the customer will advocate for your hire during the decision stage.

Fundamental #5: Digital Integration

There are a lot of different ways to use digital channels to precisely target your marketing efforts. Most of our day-to-day activities are completed online, and why should you assume differently of your customers? Make sure your digital presence is tidy, has clear messaging, and is presented creatively and functionally for the best user experience. By integrating digital strategies into your marketing efforts, you can build brand awareness, acquire a new audience, stay top of mind, and complete high-value actions such as converting your audience into qualified leads.

By the end of the presentation, Judy surprised us with a few case studies that effectively used account-based marketing to grow their backlog. When compared to large, in-person networking events, the spend for these successful marketing campaigns was incredibly small.

As Judy advised, if you're interested in presenting this type of marketing to your firm, develop a plan in which you can educate your internal stakeholders on the benefits of the efforts involved. Once you've achieved a consensus on developing an account-based marketing plan, you'll need to discuss the following:

1. Identify Highest Value Targets
2. Audience Mapping (Online and Off the Grid)
3. Multi-Channel Distribution
4. Creative Ideation/Content Development
5. Budget & Required Resources
6. Schedule
7. Support Infrastructure & Technology
8. Metrics & Reporting

Want to learn more? Check out smartegies.com to see how Judy and her team can help you better increase the ROI of your firm's sales and marketing efforts.

Cameron Batson, Marketing Coordinator
Barnhill Contracting Company

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