Companies in the financial services sector considering an account-based marketing approach are often wary about the amount of time and effort it will take to generate meaningful results.
Switching to a new way of marketing can be perceived as a big investment in terms of time, effort, and money — but there are some immediate and impressive wins that will quickly illustrate the value of the change.
While the full ABM toolkit may take time to deploy, the first step in the journey is identifying accounts that are giving off buying signals — indicating they are ripe for conversation and likely to become a customer.
6sense can identify these accounts for you almost instantly — giving your marketing team a huge advantage for creating target account lists that are likely to generate outsized ROI.
Moving Beyond ‘Ideal Customer Persona’
Every company has a profile of ideal customers that are:
- Most likely to sign up for your services
- Most likely to be profitable for you
- And most likely to be satisfied with the services you provide
Prospects that fit this profile are highly likely to become customers, so marketing efforts focused on them tend to generate more immediate, positive results.
But this leaves out one critical element: timing.
A potential customer might be a perfect fit for your business, but your marketing outreach won’t be fruitful if they aren’t ready for the services your business offers. Maybe they don’t have budget or aren’t aware of your services.
Alternatively, reaching out to prospects who are eager to sign up for a service like yours today or in the near future gives your representatives and marketing teams the highest odds of success, because they are targeting the best opportunities at exactly the right times.
So, how do you get the timing right?
Next-Level Audience Targeting
Unlike determining your ideal customer profile, calculating the ideal timing for outreach takes more than firmographic data. You’re going to need intent data and predictive data to identify when prospects are ready to sign up.
Financial services companies can use ABM-centric account engagement platforms, with AI operating at their cores, to tap into intent data and predictive analytics to determine when prospects are ready to become customers.
More Quick Wins
Great — you’re now focusing your marketing efforts on the accounts that are most likely to become customers. The next quick win also comes from leveraging intent data to reveal deeper insights about your buyers.
6sense ties buying signals back to individual accounts. As accounts start engaging with your marketing campaigns and doing related research across the B2B web, your team will be able to see the topics accounts care about.
This immediately arms your sales team with valuable clues they can use to plan conversations, because they already know what customers care about most.
Keep in mind, too: This ability to listen for account buying signals applies to existing customers, too. If one of your financial services customers starts searching the web for a new solution that you can provide, you’ll know that it’s a great time to reach out with an upsell or cross-sell opportunity.
The Long-Term Wins
Now that you know which customers are most likely to buy and what those customers are interested in, your marketing team can hone in on these prospects with a razor-sharp focus that boosts marketing ROI.
Your marketers have a wealth of information at their fingertips that can be used to create content specific to prospects’ needs and interests.
In addition to identifying likely customers, 6sense makes it easy to assign prospects to different audience segments based on their buying signals — and prospects can move between segments automatically, based on their actions. This allows you to launch amazing personalized marketing campaigns that are geared to their specific pain points.
Personalized messaging resonates with prospects at a deeper level than generic messaging. When customers feel seen and understood by your business, they’re more likely to become customers.
If they see this messaging when the timing is right and they’re ready for your services, it packs an even greater punch.
Conclusion
The fastest, easiest way to maximize your marketing ROI is to determine your ideal customer profile, and then use technology that captures intent signals and uses predictive AI-driven models to identify where accounts are in their buying journeys.
World-class account engagement platforms like 6sense eliminate guesswork about which accounts should be targeted, with what content, and when, and helps revenue teams see results fast by helping them prioritize efforts on the accounts most likely to convert now.
