Consider this: You work for an AEC firm looking to grow its revenue within a specific market. You have developed a list of target clients and know who has the most potential for future work, but now you have to find a way to get in front of them to get a piece of the pie. But how?

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Some firms spend months trying to set up face-to-face meetings and developing brochures. Others may launch a broad-brushed social media campaign to reach firms in a similar space. But what if we told you there was a better, more efficient and effective way to reach your target audience? Look past traditional marketing and learn more about Account Based Marketing (or ABM).

What is ABM?

ABM is a go-to-market strategy that coordinates personalized marketing and sales efforts to land and expand high-value accounts. Unlike traditional marketing that casts a wide net, ABM focuses on specific, targeted accounts (or key accounts) first, allowing companies to generate marketing qualified leads (MQL’s) and grow their business. And we all like the sound of that, right? Gone are the mass marketing days focused on nurturing potential prospects into qualified leads. ABM is all about focusing more resources on higher-value accounts.

How does ABM help AEC firms get ahead?

ABM has been around since the early 2000s and A/E/C firms are rapidly adopting the methodology. ABM enables firms to align their marketing and business development resources with the firm’s highest value clients and targets and specific key pursuits. It’s a strategic methodology that yields enormous benefits, including:

• The ability to actually measure marketing ROI;
• Increased efficiency and reduction of marketing waste;
• Alignment of strategic business goals with marketing and business development investments;
• Faster speed to market with affordable scalability;
• More accountability for seller-doers, business development professionals and marketing teams;
• Increased win rates with the clients you covet the most.

Getting Started with ABM

The key to ABM is knowing your target audience. For instance, if you’re a project management firm specializing in higher education, your ideal customer might be public or private universities looking for a long-term partnership. The first step would be to identify a list of universities that fit this scope and gather data on each of their key stakeholders, which in this case, might be the university facility manager. Once you understand your target audience, you can engage with them by creating helpful content intended to address key stakeholder pain points and increase awareness.

Landing the account is not where the road ends. ABM is all about landing and expanding target accounts. With ABM, AEC firms can select, engage, and retain high-value accounts by building long-term partnerships.

Start implementing ABM into your marketing strategy. Follow our step-by-step ABM checklist to get started today!