Account based marketing tactics, like ABX, can be a highly efficient way to generate revenue. But did you know that 65% of account-based marketers say their program is only “somewhat” successful? Just one in eight—13%—say their program is “very successful.” That’s according to research by the firm Ascend 2. 

To me, this says most of us can still improve.

A company can wind up in that “somewhat successful” majority for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they lack budget and resources (37%). Perhaps they’re overly reliant on the diminishing returns of outbound. Or maybe, despite half a decade of ABX awareness, they’re still struggling to sync with sales (32%). 

Whatever your reason, this article shares ways conversational marketing can help with your account based marketing tactics to improve ABX outcomes.

Lack of budget or resources? Create less content

Conversational marketing, or putting a chat feature on your website that connects prospects to their sales rep, can help you reduce your content and ad spend. It works like this: Traditional ABX marketing requires lots of content, and quality content is expensive. An ebook through an agency can run $10,000 and content marketers’ salaries are up 10% in the last year. But with conversational marketing, you can strategically replace some of those account based marketing tactics by connecting prospects directly with salespeople. 

When someone arrives on your website looking for content, you can instead engage them via the chat interface. A chatbot can automatically surface the most relevant content you have for their account, and even better, a salesperson can take over the chat and answer their questions. If that chat evolves into a phone call, you’ve helped that visitor fly through the funnel without having to fill it with expensive content.

Scaled across your program, that chat feature means you needn’t fill in every blank space on your content matrix. Maybe you can repurpose that spend, or invest it in fewer, higher-quality pieces that salespeople can “personalize” via their talk track.

↗️ Increase the level of personalization

↘️ The number of assets you need to create

Reliant on outbound? Earn increasing returns on your website

Account based marketing tactics, like ABX ads, email, social, and syndication tend to offer diminishing returns. If you’re always reaching out to a fixed total addressable market, spending 50% more won’t deliver 50% more conversations or deals. It’ll be more like 20% more. And then 15% more. Slowly, the returns diminish. (Meanwhile, the cost per click increases.) The fix? Use conversational marketing to earn more conversions from your site traffic and keep the returns from diminishing.

As they stand today, most ABX websites function similarly to how lead generation websites always have: You send as many people there as you can, hope they find what they need, and retarget them until they buy. (And continue to retarget them after they buy, if you don't use a suppression list.) But what if each of those visitors realized your website was their best research tool, and simply returned on their own? 

That’s the promise of conversational marketing. The “wow” factor of a prospect arriving on your site to find their enterprise sales rep waiting to chat or hop on an in-browser video call, teaches them that it’s the best place on the internet to research. 

This is how the data storage software unicorn Dremio increased its MQLs 100%.

↗️ More website conversions

↗️ More organic returning traffic

Feeling misaligned? Give salespeople more at-bats

ABX salespeople should feel that account based marketing tactics are their partners at every step of the way. But if they don’t, one of the easiest ways to earn more of their trust is to give them more conversations with prospects. You can do that with conversational marketing. 

When salespeople have more interactions with prospects, they’ll both have a greater chance to convert that individual as well as more respect for how difficult that process is. It brings sales into the fold, teaches them about marketing, and provides irrefutable data on how each party is contributing to the deal.

↗️ More conversations and more opportunities to convert

↘️ Fewer complaints that marketing is ineffective

Whether you’re struggling with budget, outbound, or alignment, conversational marketing can probably help. It’s one of several strategies that can help you move from the “somewhat successful” majority into the very successful elite.