How to use Inbound Marketing and ABM to drive growth

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There’s a common misconception in marketing that you can only use one strategy at a time, but in reality, a comprehensive demand generation strategy includes a wide variety of tactics and strategies that work together.

Inbound marketing and account-based marketing (ABM) , in particular, are often seen as opposites, as ABM is often categorized as an outbound approach, but ABM can be done inbound.

What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on attracting, engaging and satisfying the most suitable potential customers through personalized and contextualized content.


Inbound focuses on attracting people within a company and, through them, engaging the rest of the company.

The inbound methodology became popular in the early 2010s and has become more sophisticated as technology has evolved. Data analytics tools and intelligent content have made it list of telegram users in cambodia possible to increasingly personalize buyer experiences long before prospects are passed on to sales.

What is account-based marketing?
Account-based marketing (ABM) turns the inbound approach on its head and targets specific companies. You may have specific contacts in mind, but the initial touchpoint is less specific with an ABM approach , as the primary goal is to move the company toward conversion.

ABM is sometimes labeled as expensive and difficult to measure ROI because it is associated with tactics like sending direct mail giveaways. However, effective ABM is done in a much more targeted way.


ABM efforts are typically led by BDRs and sales reps because these are one-to-one communications, as opposed to the one-to-many communications sent by marketers.

Inbound Marketing and ABM

Take an inbound approach to your account-based strategy
If your version of ABM is just sending random gifts to companies without fully analyzing how they can benefit from your offer, then it's not inbound marketing.

However, ABM can be done in a personalized, contextually relevant, and timely manner, in line with the inbound methodology . Both strategies can complement each other well and coexist. It doesn’t have to be a choose one or the other situation, account-based marketing vs inbound marketing.

While you are technically outbound seeking leads, identifying target accounts is different than buying an email list. You narrow down your search by industry, company size, location, and other factors to reach only companies that can benefit from your product or service.

A core principle of the inbound methodology is to add value before extracting value, and as long as your ABM efforts are guided by that principle, you can do ABM inbound.

Additionally, ABM can be incorporated into inbound efforts as well. For example, when working on blog posts, you can use target accounts as examples and then link to them. Then, on social media, you can tag the company when promoting the blog and use that as a jumping-off point to build relationships.

Conclusion
The “best” marketing strategy for your business is one that contains a healthy mix of tactics that complement each other. Utilizing multiple tactics also decreases risk for you because if one tactic diminishes in effectiveness, the other tactics can compensate.

The bottom line is that ABM can be personalized and contextually relevant and inbound marketing can be specifically targeted to individual accounts. Each strategy is most effective when used in conjunction with each other.