Account-based marketing (ABM) is an old idea that continues to generate buzz and influence B2B sales around the world. Demand generation is a similarly well-understood set of strategies companies use to improve the quality of their sales leads, if not the quantity of them.

Of the countless marketing strategies available for modern businesses, these are two of the most useful concepts to understand and utilize. Each contains something that nearly every business or industry should be able to take and make use of for their own marketing operations.

We’ve crafted today’s blog to help explain the main differences between account-based marketing and demand generation, the importance of both, and why you should likely be using a combination of them for your marketing strategies.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

ABM is a proven marketing strategy developed in the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, which focuses on creating unique marketing content for individual buyers. ABM can be seen as a form of corporate whale-hunting where your company pulls out all the stops in a coordinated effort to land a huge client.

The idea behind ABM is that obtaining the highest-value B2B customer possible is preferable to, or at least as valuable as, casting a wide net and attracting many smaller customers instead.

Why Account-Based Marketing Works

ABM strategies use direct communication with targeted buyers. A combination of personalized marketing content, communication, engagement, and service is meant to let the buyer know they will be an important and valuable client for the business doing the marketing.

Similar to other consumer-oriented solutions like a user-friendly online ordering portal, account-based marketing is quickly becoming the norm in large B2B relationships.

ABM strategies can make it easier to identify real leads in a sea of noisy data. For example, Hushly helped NVIDIA accomplish a better lead conversion rate and lead conversion time by creating personalized experiences for targeted companies.

Account-based marketing represents more than 70% of marketing budgets, meaning B2B sellers and buyers are both aware of the importance and effectiveness of this strategy.

ABM Represents Commitment to Your Largest B2B Clients

ABM works best when part of a holistic, consumer-oriented business cycle known as account-based experience (ABX). However, ABM strategies will work just fine on their own even if not paired with a larger shift in operations.

Whether or not you commit to a more comprehensive ABX strategy or stick with the basic ABM techniques, your ABM operations should be seen as a process that emphasizes the importance of your largest B2B clients.

What is Demand Generation?

There are two main ways to generate conversion opportunities: increase the number of leads or increase their quality.

A quality lead may still not turn into a sale if the demand for your product isn’t high enough. Here is where demand generation comes in.

Lead Generation vs. Demand Generation

It’s important to realize that generating demand is not the same thing as generating a lead. If you promise that your product helps with a certain problem, you may generate a lead when someone hears about it and wants to know more. However, if your product, or the way it’s advertised, isn’t up to par, the demand won’t exist, and you may not have a chance at converting.

How to Make Customers Want Your Product

Demand generation aims to improve the likelihood that someone will buy your product by increasing demand for it. This can be done in many ways. For example, a product that recently underwent a huge improvement or update may be subject to increased demand.

Similarly, you can convince a customer that your product is in demand by presenting it to them in the most effective way possible. This includes not just things like the marketing copy but also how you reach out to the customer, how often you follow up with them, and the specific products or services you choose to offer them.

As an example, Hushly helped our cybersecurity client Check Point increase form completion rates by 60% by choosing to give some of the product’s value for nothing in return, naturally generating increased demand and leads for paid products.

Demand Generation is Based on Quality, Not Quantity

Focusing on demand generation may not generate the largest number of leads. However, increasing demand is a natural way to increase lead quality. The more adept you are at marketing your product, the more likely someone will want to buy it.

Generating Demand is an Ongoing Process

A great demand-generating strategy doesn’t end when the sale is converted. In fact, it uses information gained from the sale and the marketing process to continually improve itself. A robust demand generation plan should be focused on long-term growth and client relationships in addition to increasing demand from customers you haven’t converted yet.

How to Decide on Account-Based Marketing vs. Demand Generation

First, a quick recap of each strategy’s merits and drawbacks.

ABM Takes More Time But Offers Bigger Rewards

Account-based marketing will target the largest accounts in your industry, meaning that any given conversion could represent a huge change in your company’s future.

A good ABM strategy takes time to develop and expertise to craft well. It also requires timing and instinct to execute. It’s challenging to get right but doesn’t require lots of resources or effort to try.

It can also represent a valuable shift in the way your company approaches your best customers, shifting from a mindset of gathering as many clients as possible to nurturing and assisting the ones you already have.

Demand Generation is Simpler But Can Bring Mixed Results

Generating demand is not always easy or actually possible, depending on the product you’re selling or the conditions of the market. However, sometimes, it can be as simple as putting your product in front of the right reviewer or company that will spread the word for you.

Ultimately, demand generation can be an effective way to increase conversions or improve the leads you already have, but it largely rests on the quality of your product and the level of service you offer outside of your marketing team.

A Mix of Both Is Probably Right for Your Business

Marketing strategies are often treated as all-or-nothing propositions when the reality is far more fluid and unpredictable than this mindset would allow for. Luckily, ABM and demand generation can easily coexist within your company’s marketing operations.

Some basic demand generation should be practiced by every company since if no one wants to buy your product, you won’t have a business. Likewise, a level of account-based marketing is becoming irreplaceable for most modern B2B enterprises.

Customers, whether they are B2B buyers or everyday B2C consumers, expect a level of personalization and engagement that non-ABM tactics often don’t get right. This only applies even more strongly to the largest companies in their industries, which may be seen as whales desirable to any smaller company with a B2B product to offer.

As big targets who are frequently courted, they are used to all generic marketing and will need to be swayed by a more impressive, in-depth sales pitch inspired by ABM techniques.

A mixture of high-quality demand generation and account-based marketing is the key to landing these whales and keeping your smaller clients happy and demanding more from you at the same time.

Get a personalized demo to see how the Hushly platform can help your demand generation and account-based marketing operations.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a powerful option for fintech companies looking to target high-quality clients. Instead of the standard marketing process, which expects customers to find your product through traditional advertising and buy it based on the strength of the advertisement, ABM seeks to target the best and largest customers and sell to them directly.

Financial technology companies can make use of this important strategy for marketing and data capture. ABM works best as part of a larger consumer-focused strategy that aims to keep pace with the ever-shifting market via prolific data gathering and thorough client engagement.

The Benefits of ABM for Fintech Companies

Here are the ways ABM can help fintech companies:

Flexibility

ABM is flexible. It should be molded to each buyer picked from a list of targets your company puts together. The process looks like this: find your ideal B2B buyer, learn everything about them, and then go find them and present marketing content catered directly to their needs.

Consumer Oriented

ABM has the benefit of additional time and resources that becomes obvious to your buyer because it’s focused only on them. This level of effort and engagement can be seen by your clients as a form of marketing in and of itself.

As the world’s economy ebbs and flows, keeping tabs on your biggest and most important clients will give you insights into the market as a whole, making identifying new product or client opportunities a natural result of your strategy.

Easy to Implement

Regardless of your level of experience with ABM strategies, choosing to implement one at your company is very simple. It can be as easy as directing one person in the marketing department to research a large company and put together a list of pain points and possible solutions for them.

From here, marketing can begin creating tailored content while your sales team works with your product makers to determine the best fit for the company.

Regardless of if you succeed or not, the effort will give you insight into what it will take to run ABM programs in the future. Feedback from the buyer will also help you craft more effective marketing content and learn how to better deliver it to your potential buyers.

Data-Driven Results

A proper ABM strategy should produce some key information on the company you marketed to and the challenges they face in their industry.

This information can be used to create new products, update existing products, and also create buyer personas that help train your employees on how to recognize and market to the highest quality customers.

Ways Fintech Companies Can Use ABM

Most B2B businesses that use ABM are used to long sales cycles that reward frequent, targeted engagement. Fintech companies can use ABM to the same end when dealing with their most important customers.

Here are some examples of ways fintech companies can make use of account-based marketing:

Create Buyer Personas

One of the most useful aspects of a robust ABM strategy is the creation of buyer personas. These are fictional buyers who represent the ideal customer your business would want to sell to. Their fictional status means they can be involved in any industry and represent any level of importance to your company.

Buyer personas are useful not just for research, but in training salesmen and lead generators on what to look for in a customer and how to determine if one is worth investing a full-on ABM strategy for.

Use the Extra Data to Adjust Products and Services

Lots of extra data will be generated by an ABM research and marketing team. Information on market conditions, general funding availability, and increasing or decreasing demand for certain products will be noticeable within the information gathered.

This data may not be used for the marketing project that uncovered it, but it should be archived and kept track of for future strategies.

Identify Your Best Customers and How to Sell to Them

As mentioned before, a proper ABM strategy will produce insights and information on your buyers as a natural consequence. This is useful not only for figuring out who to market to, but exactly what message to present to them when marketing. Demonstrating your mastery of the industry the company works in will help that company trust the value you’re bringing to the table.

Adopt a Buyer Experience Platform Like Hushly

Hushly’s platform has a proven track record of helping fintech companies reach their goals with increased conversions, content engagement, lead quality, and paid search optimization. We can handle the research, marketing, and engagement so you can focus on maintaining a great product with great service for your customers.

Check our fintech case studies for more information on how we can help market your fintech products.

6 Steps to Create an ABM Plan for Your Fintech Company

Follow these actionable steps to implement ABM at your company:

1. Determine Targets

Prioritize the largest, most important buyers first. These are not just the buyers you think will lead to the biggest sale up front, but those that will genuinely benefit from your product and continue to need it for the foreseeable future.

2. Select Project Managers and Define Metrics

Any new, large directive will create hidden pitfalls that need to be planned for. Designate one person or entity to maintain the consistency of the message and keep your employees on the same page.

Additionally, take the time to determine what success will look like. What goals do you hope to achieve, and how will you know if you’ve met them?

3. Decide How to Reach Your Targets

There is no right answer here, only your best assumptions based on research and instinct. However you choose to proceed, make sure you take note of how it works out and ideally collect some feedback from your buyer, so you know how to improve your approaches in the future.

4. Develop Content Based on Persona

Use the buyer persona to develop personalized, targeted content that proves to the client that you understand their business, their problems, and how to solve them.

5. Execute

Once you’ve planned everything out and are certain you’re ready to execute, let the chips fall where they may. Managers need to observe closely during this time. Keep documentation and engagement up as much as possible to ensure your team is following through.

6. Review and Recreate

Finally, use the information generated from the process to review and recreate your plan for the next target.

When it comes to reformulating your plan, remember to try and identify which improvements will generate the greatest results for the most minimal effort.

Quality Leads Might Be Right Around the Corner

If your sales team isn’t consistently converting on seemingly great leads, the problem may not be with them or the leads, but with your ability to effectively market your product.

Fintech companies may have unique challenges and sales goals, but their marketing teams can utilize proven account-based strategies to generate higher-quality conversions.

An account-based marketing strategy might be the key you need to develop better, more personalized, unique, and effective marketing campaigns that are shown directly to the largest and most valuable potential customers.

See how Hushly can assist with your transition into account-based marketing. Get a personalized demo today.

Account-based marketing (ABM), and its evolution into account-based experience (ABX), has shifted the framework that informs how content should be presented to your B2B buyer audience.

There was a time when just having the information posted somewhere online was enough to add value. As marketing strategies have evolved and risen to meet the expectations of consumers, what was once enough just isn’t anymore.

Your B2B content now should meet several criteria that elevate its quality, be easier to access, and target potential buyers that you want to see more of. Optimizing your B2B content with SEO best practices is the next phase of account-based experience marketing.

To help with this shifting framework, we’ve created today’s blog that will break down the evolving B2B content experience framework and give you some ideas on how you should be implementing consumer-based content experience techniques into your B2B strategies.

Where Your B2B Content Experience Strategy Should Differ from B2C

A content experience describes not just the content that you use for marketing, but how your B2B buyers will encounter that content. The experience begins when you decide how to present the content and ends when you convert that attention into sales or information.

B2C vs. B2B Buyers

B2C buyers are individuals with highly varied tastes, opinions, and more impulsive and emotional buying habits. You can’t feasibly target every individual B2C buyer because there are just too many of them. It’s more effective in this case to advertise your product with a wide appeal: letting the largest possible number of people consider the value your product might have in their lives.

On the other hand, B2B buyers can be highly targeted and researched. Though they are unique, their needs are far more predictable. They spend more money than B2C buyers, and since the cost of transitioning between business partners is generally a hassle, they are likely to remain loyal for a long time, assuming your product quality and B2B buyer experience level stay high.

Taking Advantage of the Extra Information

The opportunity to research and gather data on the targets of a B2B ABX marketing campaign is its main advantage and difference over B2C marketing.

You can research a group of customers, but you’ll never come close to the amount of detail as if you were to spend the same amount of time researching one customer. The extra buying power and long-term relationship potential of B2B buyers can mean committing many resources to one buyer is more likely to be worth it.

Conversions Every Step of the Way

Every step of the content experience is an opportunity to convert a sale or impress a potential customer with added value and a smooth, generous marketing process. Your content experience should fit seamlessly into the ABX cycle, beginning with targeted content created specifically for certain buyer types and ending with a useful list of buyer data, leads, or a converted sale.

5 Factors of an Effective B2B Content Experience Framework

Now that you know what to aim for when designing a B2B content experience, we can list a few factors that you should consider while crafting it.

1. Quality Content Creation

Without high-quality and consistent content, none of your other efforts will matter. Content should be varied and easily available. Just as with B2C content, you’ll want to make efficient use of SEO tools so that your content creators are up to date on the latest trends.

You can use this information to craft content that appeals directly to certain buyers, which we’ll talk about more in the “personalized content” section below.

2. Consistent Updates

The challenge of crafting many high-quality articles, blogs, videos, and social media posts is massive. It can take a lot of effort and resources to keep the content churning and make sure it’s still original, educational, and entertaining.

We recommend creating a short and long-term content plan that includes the ways your content will be created, for whom, and where you plan to post that content. In the case of B2B buyers, directed blogs, email campaigns, texts, or phone calls should be consistent without being overbearing.

If your content is targeted without being too specific, it can also be modified for new buyers in the same industry, potentially minimizing your content creation burden.

3. Personalized Content

Personalized content is like a handwritten thank you note: it just shows an extra level of effort and consideration that makes a lasting impression on people. The human side of your B2B buyer will be susceptible to this kind of personalized content.

Industry trends are felt by all. Demonstrating that your company has its finger on the pulse and the presence of mind to consider the needs of your B2B buyer is a great way to increase engagement and make customers feel valued.

Focus on creating content that lets your B2B buyer see that you’ve accurately predicted a problem they are experiencing thanks to your own due diligence. Then, present how your company can solve this problem for them.

4. Targeted Distribution

Once you’ve created the content, the next step is to find the optimal way to distribute it. This will depend on several factors like who you’re distributing the content to and for what purpose.

A personal phone call to a B2B buyer might be best to talk about a new product launch or sale. Upcoming events or updates can be posted to your client’s microsite. A simple system update, on the other hand, could be handled with a personalized email to your client’s IT manager.

The way you choose to communicate the information is important, but not as important as the information itself. Still, considering the importance of the message you’re delivering will tell you a lot about how it should be delivered.

5. Keeping Track of Your Results

The final benefit of the ABX cycle is that it feeds into itself.

Regardless of how effective your initial attempts at targeted B2B content marketing are, gathering as much information about the process as possible will make your next attempt easier and more successful.

Keep track of all the data you can, including sales and marketing metrics, customer service scores, and direct client feedback. Then, update your strategy and try again. You can repeat this process forever, making improvements with every new iteration on the path towards an excellent B2B content experience.

Hushly Can Help You Build a Great B2B Content Experience

Now that you know what to look for in a great B2B content experience, we hope you’ll be able to get started optimizing your ABX strategies.

However, if this guide didn’t answer your questions or you are still unsure if a targeted B2B buyer experience is necessary for you, our platform and experts may be able to help.

No matter where you are on the content experience journey, the Hushly platform has tools and solutions to help your business reach its goals.

From targeted emails, blogs, and microsites to a smooth and enjoyable buyer portal, we’re ready to take the stress of creating a targeted B2B content experience off your hands.

Optimize your B2B content experience today. Try our personalized demo.

It can be useful to look at some demand generation campaign examples so you can apply the principles to your own business. Demand generation tools and strategies are constantly evolving, and the vast number of choices of how to increase demand for your product can lead to paralysis.

But generating ROI with smart marketing tactics doesn’t always have to be complicated. Sometimes, choosing a strategy and sticking to it can be better than waiting around for the right one to become obvious.

For marketers looking for inspiration or ideas to pick from and modify for their own needs, we put together today’s blog with examples of proven demand generation techniques with examples of companies that are currently using them.

Lead Generation vs. Demand Generation Campaign Examples

Before we cover some ways to increase demand, you should know the difference between lead and demand generation.

Put simply, a lead is information on customers who might want to buy your product, while demand is the value that determines if those leads will want to buy your product or not. You can find new leads and you can increase demand, even both at the same time, but they are ultimately two distinct tasks.

The following are examples of companies attempting to increase demand by demonstrating the value they offer compared to other companies, connecting with consumers directly, offering product previews or free trials, and participating in paid searches to put their names in front of as many potential buyers as possible.

Content Marketing Examples

Content is the best way to help consumers know you better and learn about the products you offer. Educational, easy to access, and entertaining content can increase demand generation and conversion rates.

1. AWS Blog

Content marketing can be something as simple as a blog on your website. For example, the very large Amazon Web Services blog, which includes daily entries regarding every aspect of AWS services and products. This blog provides information on new products, product updates, and educational content on the many things AWS products are capable of.

2. Adobe’s Helpx Portal

You should consider creating an educational content hub, such as Adobe’s Helpx portal, if your product is as complex as Adobe’s, or even just to explain the way your company does business.

This invaluable resource will increase the likelihood that customers are getting the most out of your product and increase their willingness to trust that you’ll deliver more value in the future if they stick with you.

Leading with Value

The concept of leading with value is that customers are more likely to spend money on your products if you’ve already given them some value for nothing in return. If your product is good enough, this show of good faith can easily convert leads and increase demand.

3. Check Point’s Free Product Preview

Check Point is a cybersecurity firm that sought to increase conversions by decreasing form abandonment and improving lead quality. They accomplished both, with Hushly’s guidance, by offering a preview of their free products and then asking for information to be filled out to generate the lead.

By improving their information gathering process, Check Point saw a 60% increase in form completion, which meant more and higher quality leads.

4. HitFilm’s Free Software Trial

A free trial or free version of your product is a great way to increase demand as well. HitFilm, a video editing software, leaves certain features locked for unpaid users. You can upgrade from the free to the paid version at any time, or just add small features to the full version for smaller fees.

Social Media Marketing

Customers who love your products enough will advertise them for you on social media. Maintaining a presence on these websites allows you to be involved in that word-of-mouth advertising.

Consider that consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content (UGC) as authentic compared to corporate branded content.

5. Target’s Instagram

Target’s Instagram account is a perfect example of corporate branded content presented alongside relatable and positive UGC.

A social media account for your business is the best way to highlight, aggregate, and encourage more positive UGC for only the effort of finding it. It’s also a great way to manage negative feedback and potentially turn negative customer service outcomes into positive ones.

6. Cash App’s Twitter Presence

Cash App generates demand on Twitter by frequently hosting frequent cash giveaways to users of the app. By requiring retweets and engagement to enter, Cash App can go viral with a giveaway anytime they want and get more users on their app.

Marketing to Existing Customers

Satisfied existing customers already know the value your company can generate and are the best audience to pitch your latest product or update to first. Sales can be advertised similarly: if a customer bought it at full price, they would most likely be willing to buy it at a discount.

Online retail outlets like Etsy, Walmart, and Amazon all send emails alerting members of brand-new products they might be interested in or sales on products they’ve bought before. They also keep track of customer data and recommend other existing products relevant to the one they bought in the first place.

Retail rewards programs are always popular and effective ways to capture customer information and market more effectively to your highest-spending and best clients.

7. Coursera’s Suggestions

Coursera is a learning platform that also advertises courses that are relevant to ones you’ve already taken.

8. Steam’s Recommended Sales

The Steam game client (and webpage) shows a list of games on sale as soon as you open it. If you’re signed in, the client prioritizes games made by publishers you’re already a fan of, or sequels and expansions to games you already own.

9. Home Depot’s Rewards Program

A robust rewards program is by no means unique, but Home Depot’s rewards program is a perfect example of how to turn your most valuable customers into loyal members and incentivize shopping at your store.

This might take some work depending on the size and scope of your company. However, the logic of which consumers to advertise to first works regardless of the size of your company or what you’re selling.

Improve Your Lead Quality by Increasing Demand

If the quality of your leads is consistently lacking, it might be time to question if the way you prove the value of your product is the problem.

Having a great product or platform isn’t enough to keep people around or get them to spend money. A business needs to go out and try to generate demand as vigorously as they chase down leads.

Generating demand for your product is equal parts art and science. There is no magic bullet and no single way that will be best for your company. We recommend using a variety of the strategies listed in today’s blog and seeing what fits best for your company.

Taking action, even if it doesn’t work out, will reveal more information to help make your next demand generation campaign even better.

Hushly can help you generate demand, increase leads, and convert more high-quality leads into sales. Request a personalized demo of our software today.