Account-based marketing is possible thanks to innovations in marketing technology (MarTech). Since the rise of marketing automation platforms (MAPs), thousands of new MarTech software vendors have entered the product category. There are dozens of subcategories of MarTech, such as email marketing, interactive content, advertising, video marketing, events, search (SEM and SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, and many more. The list is ever-evolving.
But to successfully execute your account-based marketing campaigns, a few essential pieces of software are required. These platforms will enable your B2B marketing and sales team to do account-based marketing at scale. Here is what should be included in your account-based MarTech stack:
- CRM: Your company needs a centralized place to store and manage all of your customers' contact information. This includes both your current clients and prospects. A CRM is the best place to store all of this information. Salesforce integrates with almost every type of MarTech software in the marketplace. Salesforce is the 800-lb. gorilla. More than 100,000 companies are using it, as there are options for small, mid-market, and enterprise level organizations.
- Marketing automation: A marketing automation platform (MAP) is used for tracking engagement with contacts in your CRM. A MAP gives you the tools to create activities, then monitors the level of activity each contact is engaged in. Marketing automation is used for scoring the contacts created in your CRM. The platform has a direct interface with your CRM through an application programming interface (API). Whenever you add a new contact record to your CRM, the data is pulled into your marketing automation system. Using a marketing automation tool, you can identify your customers, build your lists, and send content.
- CMS: The platform where you host your company's website. The most popular CMS on the market today is WordPress because of its easy-to-use functionality. All of the pages for your company's website are created and uploaded. The CMS also gives you a platform for posting blog content. As we live in an increasingly digital home, your company needs to have an awesome presence on the web. When your prospects Google your company, they should be redirected to a beautiful website. This is hosted on your CMS.
- Social media: Every successful, modern brand has a presence on social media. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the essential platforms where you need to have a company page. From here, you can update your followers with company news, sponsor posts, and drive your targeted audience to learn more about your organization. Social media works to establish new connections and further engage your potential sales opportunities and customers.
- Advertising: A critical part of account-based marketing is to surround your targeted accounts, and the contacts within those accounts, with your message. This is accomplished through advertising. Google Ads helps, but it doesn't give you account-level attribution. Consider account-based marketing platforms, such as AzaLead, DemandBase, Engagio, LeanData, Terminus, and Vendemore, to assist with launching advertising and measuring the effects.