Engaging Bank Clients for Relationship Growth
What is Account-Based Marketing?
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach to marketing and sales in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospects or customer accounts as markets of one. This approach involves aligning and dedicating all or some marketing and sales resources to engage a specific set of high-priority target audiences, personalizing the communication and experiences provided based on the specific desired outcomes and needs of the account.
Here are some key aspects of ABM that you should know:
- Targeted Marketing: Unlike broad-based marketing approaches, ABM focuses on targeting specific companies, segments of the market, and existing clients, often with a high potential for revenue, deposits, or strategic value.
- Personalization: It emphasizes highly personalized and customized marketing campaigns tailored to the needs, challenges, and stage in the buyer’s journey of each targeted opportunity. This includes 1:1 engagements with clients.
- Sales and Marketing Alignment: ABM requires close coordination between sales and marketing teams to ensure that messaging and campaign tactics are tightly integrated and focused on the opportunities.
- Data-Driven: It relies heavily on data analytics to identify key accounts, understand their needs, tailor the offerings, and monitor the effectiveness of growth efforts.
- Multi-channel Engagement: ABM strategies typically involve multiple channels (e.g., email, social media, events, etc) tailored to the communication preferences of each account.
- Product-Market Attuned: There is a proactive process to identify growth drivers, evaluate revenue streams, and tailor their offerings to match the needs of customers.
- Unique Knowledge: Most people know the value of an expert service provider, vendor, or financial advisor. Bankers fill that role too, so looking for ways to add value to your clients financial lives is a great way to differentiate while leveraging an ABM approach.
Why does Account Based Marketing matter?
Results. The goal of ABM is to foster higher engagement levels, build stronger relationships, and ultimately drive sales growth by delivering more relevant and resonant messaging across all channels. 72% of companies in an ABM Leadership Alliance study reported higher ROI when using both personalization and strategic account targeting. According to Aberdeen Group, organizations that align sales and marketing efforts achieved 32% faster growth, while companies that fail to nurture their relationships altogether were actually seeing their business decline. A 2021 Forrester study showed that once deals were closed, 75% of businesses using an account based marketing approach said their upselling and cross-selling was improved, according to The CMO.
The ABM approach helps foster loyalty by showing customers that their bank understands their specific needs and values their business. Personalized marketing efforts make customers feel recognized as individuals, which can strengthen ties and customer loyalty. Developing this kind of client-centric relationship can be particularly effective in the banking sector where many offerings can feel one-size-fits-all.
In a highly competitive industry, ABM can be a competitive differentiator, especially for community-oriented banks and credit unions, and provide them with a strategic advantage over larger national banks. It allows them to differentiate themselves by actually delivering the exceptional, personalized service they promise to their communities and customers. In an era where many customers might see little difference between the services offered by different banks, the ones that succeed in making their customers feel unique and understood can stand out. This can be a vital tool for customer retention and growth in a market where switching barriers are lowering and fintech innovations are continuously emerging.
Alignment Between Marketing and Sales is Crucial
The alignment between marketing and sales is a key part of a successful ABM strategy. ABM focuses on targeting a limited set of high-value accounts, or a limited series of high-potential business and/or consumer segments, with personalized campaigns. Collaboration between teams can significantly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the marketing efforts.
In ABM, both marketing and sales teams work toward common goals, such as increasing account penetration, boosting revenue from key accounts, or improving customer retention rates. This shared focus helps ensure that both teams are aligned on what defines success. By establishing and tracking shared metrics, such as account engagement scores, opportunity creation, and conversion rates, both teams can have a clear understanding of progress and areas needing improvement.
Multi-Channel with Multiple Touch Points
Engagement is more than a one-and-done effort. For B2B engagements, it takes anywhere between 5-12 highly focused touch points to grow a customer relationship. For consumers, it takes anywhere from a single touch point to 8 or more, even for highly qualified prospects. The number of touch points needed is often underestimated when it comes to driving successful outcomes.
- Personal phone call or meeting
- Paid or Organic Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Banking Application
- In Branch Interactions
- Direct Mail
- Content or Newsletter
- Other Paid Forms of Advertising (Display, Mobile, Connected TV, Video, etc.)
6 Steps for Success in Implementing ABM at your Bank
Step 1: Identify Account Opportunities
The bank begins by identifying high potential business clients or opportunity segments within their client base. Using internal data analytics, the bank assesses transaction histories and financial product usage to those with the highest potential for needing additional banking services. This isn’t a surprise to the folks at McKinsey. According to them, companies that use customer behavior insights reported 25% increase in gross margin and 85% increase in sales effectiveness. Banks may also employ some additional scoring algorithms, predictive analytics, and/or other methodologies to gauge the magnitude, prioritize opportunities, define desired outcomes and define KPIs for success.
Step 2: Tailored Content Creation
Once the bank has chosen the opportunities that offer the most upside to pursue, develop content specifically designed to address the unique challenges and opportunities faced by these businesses. This might include whitepapers or other content about managing financial risk, the types of credit businesses like theirs are eligible for, and personalized industry reports.
Step 3: Multi-channel Engagement
Design a campaign that employs a multi-channel approach to engage these targeted clients where they are most likely to consume the content you created. The exact channels and tactics will depend on content type, budget, capabilities, and customer type, but an example approach might look like:
- Email Campaigns: Send personalized emails that introduce the client or prospective client to relevant and useful content.
- Social Media: Use Linkedin to connect with B2B clients or other organic/paid social media campaigns on the platform of choice for your client.
- Direct Mail: Send high-quality, personalized offers or promotions that outline relevant and available services.
Step 4: Personal Outreach
Growth leaders across marketing, sales and relationship management collaborate on the targeted accounts’ engagement with the bank’s campaign materials and the desired outcomes. They then initiate and prioritize their outreach efforts, which are informed, high-quality and strategic in nature. According to Gallup, a high quality conversation is 1.6x more likely to convert.
Step 5: Track Results & Adjust Efforts
Throughout the process, marketing and sales seek to measure success based upon the agreed upon desired outcomes and KPIs and work to continuously improve their efforts. They meet regularly to discuss the effectiveness of different tactics and to adjust their strategy as needed.
Step 6: Relationship Deepening
After prospects convert into clients or when existing clients convert into multi-service clients, the bank continues to provide ongoing, tailored communication to nurture the relationship with a focus on both retention and growth. This might include regular updates on market conditions, access to banking tools, and ongoing personal interactions with dedicated account managers.
Concluding Thoughts
An account based marketing strategy will look a little different for each bank, targeted customer segment, and team capabilities. If the bank doesn’t have a strong social media presence, for instance, then it might de-prioritize that channel of engagement or seek to use its business bankers to engage personally or share content on platforms like Linkedin. There is no such thing as the ‘perfect’ ABM campaign and much can be learned from setting up thoughtful engagement incrementally, even if all of the touch points aren’t perfectly mapped out. Starting small, with one or two engagements that you can execute on, then building from there is a great way to start the process.
For banks and other community financial institutions looking to find a way to differentiate themselves to build better relationships, and ultimately find more growth in a competitive market, ABM offers an approach forward that not only creates better results but also helps you tune in to client needs with a more detailed understanding.
