Years ago, the marketing and sales teams were always at odds, always competing, complaining, and pointing fingers. It made company softball games kind of awkward. But over the years, those two departments started merging closer and closer in function. Marketing had to be able to sell, sales had to understand how marketing worked.

And now, with account-based marketing, it's like a strategic marriage arranged between two warring kingdoms to create peace.

Account-based marketing is where sales and marketing work together to personalize the outreach to specific high-dollar accounts. Rather than casting a wide, one-size-fits-all net, account-based marketing engages key decision-makers within the accounts. They use tailored messaging and personalized campaigns to target those individuals directly.

And thanks to today's technology — social media, machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence — there are so many elements that ABM teams can control to make their efforts outperform the competition who are still casting the wide nets.

1. Messaging: Tailoring Your Communication

Good account-based marketing starts with solid messaging. Your teams need to craft messages that resonate with the unique challenges and needs of your target accounts. That means developing personas, understanding the individual decision-makers, and creating content that will resonate directly with them.

That means researching them online — reading the company news, reading their LinkedIn profile, reading their blogs and social media accounts, talking to them if possible — and then creating a message that appeals to their personal pain points as well as their goals and visions.

Then, instead of sending generic emails, teams can tailor their messages to address the specific pain points of each account. This could involve referencing recent news stories about the company, mentioning mutual connections, and highlighting how your solution addresses their unique challenges.

To create those effective messages, the marketing team needs to collaborate with the sales team to understand the nuances of each account. Speak to the sales reps who have met with those decision-makers. When they go out on future sales calls, give them a list of questions you would like them to get answers for.

Also, be sure to continually test and refine your messages based on feedback and engagement metrics. This can help in honing your future messages that resonate with each audience member.

2. Delivery: Quality Over Quantity

Despite what you may have heard from other "experts," ABM isn't about bombarding your prospects with an avalanche of messages. You need to prioritize quality interactions over a sheer volume of messages.

Give them one great message instead of ten mediocre ones.

By focusing on the relevant content and timing, you can ensure that each touchpoint adds value and moves the prospect closer to making a purchase.

Another common misconception is that more interactions will lead to higher engagement. That is, the more times you can get the prospect to engage with you, the more likely they are to buy. (Lead scoring can sometimes misuse this concept.)

So it's more important to create personalized and valuable content that addresses the specific needs of each account. This can include case studies, white papers, or tailored demos.

Finally, the delivery method matters. Whether you're sending email, direct mail, social media updates, or meeting in person, the method should align with your target's preference. Even misstepping here can screw up your entire efforts. If the prospect doesn't have time to meet in person, then don't waste time trying to set up face-to-face meetings. If they prefer emails, don't call them.

Sharing information the way your prospect likes may only slightly enhance your outreach effectiveness, but violating that preference can tank your entire campaign.

3. Cadence: Finding the Right Rhythm

Quality over quantity is important, but frequency and speed are also critical. So maintaining a balanced cadence is essential. You need to avoid overwhelming your prospects with too much information and too much communication.

By carefully spacing out your messages, based on their personal preferences and readiness, you can optimize your engagement without being annoying or ghosting them.

With account-based marketing, you need to find a rhythm that keeps your prospects engaged without causing fatigue or overwhelming them. This means you need to understand their journey and tailor your cadence accordingly.

For example, a new prospect might require more frequent touchpoints in the beginning to build their awareness, but as they move further down the sales process, they may want less frequent but more in-depth interactions.

To find the right cadence, monitor the engagement metrics: email open rates, click-through rates, and responses. They can provide insights into how the prospect is already interacting with your content and can help you adjust to match their engagement level.

4. Data: Leveraging Relevant Insights

Data is the backbone of any successful ABM strategy. It's present in every part of the campaign, from targeting to messaging to delivery. So you need to make sure the data you use is accurate, fresh, and relevant.

You need to control what data you're importing into your CRM systems. More is not always better (see #3 above). This means using reliable sources of data and verifying its accuracy to make sure you're gathering the right information about the right prospects and putting them into their right segments and categories.

So invest in reliable data sources and regularly audit your CRM to remove outdated and incorrect information.

You should also focus on importing the data that directly impacts your ABM efforts — like data about the company size and industry, their tech stack, and the ways they interact with your content. This way, you can enhance your targeting and deliver more relevant content when they need it.

5. Data Enrichment: Enhancing Data Quality

Data enrichment means beefing up your existing data with new information like contact details, job titles, social media profiles, and other important information. You do this to create a complete picture of your prospect and their people. But rather than doing this yourself, you can partner with data providers who can dig deeper and find more information than you're able to do on your own.

One of the big benefits of data enrichment is the ability to fill in the gaps and correct errors in the data. For example, if a prospect changed jobs, the data enrichment can not only tell you where the prospect moved to, but it can tell you about their replacement. Both records can get updated in your CRM, which means your outreach efforts are directed at the right person.

This can even help you identify new opportunities within your target accounts, like new decision makers and departments, but it can even help you identify new targets by following your contacts at the old prospect.

Bottom Line: Optimizing ABM Strategies

Account-based marketing focuses your marketing efforts from broad outreach to targeted, high-value engagements. By focusing on these five elements, you can create more personalized and effective campaigns that resonate with your target accounts. That can lead to stronger relationships with your prospects, higher engagements, and increased sales.

Embracing account-based marketing means taking a more thoughtful, data-driven, human-personalized approach to the way you connect with your customers, giving you a competitive edge in the marketplace.