Importance of Account-based Marketing in Healthcare Marketing

Author: Bryan Scott(Amarjit)

Account-based Marketing 

Account-based marketing refers to selecting high-value accounts that are likely to convert and have the same interests. Marketers will plan a personalized approach to engage and convert these selected high-value accounts. The marketing efforts will be customized and different for each account/ or the group of selected accounts.

The process of analyzing and selecting the high-value target accounts will be done by understanding the needs and preferences, by creating detailed ICP (Ideal customer profiles), segmentation, relevance to offerings, previous engagement history, etc.

By understanding a potential healthcare lead from all these parameters, if marketers think the expectations of the potential lead resonate with their offerings, then the account will be considered as the high-value account that is more likely to convert.

Role of Account-based Marketing in Healthcare 

Account-based marketing is one of the most beneficial and strategic approaches in healthcare. Healthcare is a sensitive niche where making decisions takes time. If it is B2B account-based healthcare marketing, then the sales cycle will be longer and longer than you think.

However, marketers think that account-based marketing still works best for healthcare and instead of wasting efforts on the generalized audience that comes with full of uncertainty, account-based marketing helps your healthcare business to channel all your marketing energy to specific accounts that are more likely to convert.

Additional Read: What is Account-Based Marketing or ABM?

Benefits of Account-based Marketing in Healthcare 

1. Precision Targeting

Precision targeting enables businesses to understand each potential lead in detail and businesses can plan and personalize their healthcare marketing efforts specifically for each decision-maker account/high-value target account.

Account-based marketing is leveraged in healthcare marketing mainly because the process of ABM fundamentally supports precision targeting and makes it easy for healthcare businesses to channel their marketing efforts toward high-value accounts that are more likely to convert.

2. Value-conscious Marketing Strategy 

There are many other marketing strategies for healthcare but most healthcare marketers opt for account-based marketing because of its intense and specific process. ABM leads businesses to deeply understand each potential lead and caters to high-value accounts that are genuinely interested in your product/services.

ABM does not encourage a generalized approach, sending bulk emails and follow-up emails, and targeting random accounts that have little to no interest. This attribute of ABM helps to save or reduce marketing costs and leverage the marketing efforts toward the accounts that are beneficial and has a high chance of converting.

3. Enhances Collaboration between Sales and Marketing Team 

Implementing ABM starts with a shared understanding of target accounts. Sales and marketing teams work hand-in-hand to decide and filter out the high-value accounts.

After finalizing the targeted accounts, ABM encourages the sales and marketing team to plan and develop account-specific marketing strategies and channels. This way the nature of ABM is to make collaborative planning and have unified goals and strategies while approaching a specific account. The collaborative approach not only increases operational efficiency but also enhances collaboration between sales and marketing teams.

4. Measurable Marketing Efforts and ROI 

As discussed above, the nature of the ABM does not support guesswork and general marketing strategies for a generic audience. Since the sales and marketing team will have every detail about the specific accounts that bring value to them and the strategies that are planned for each account, it becomes easy for the marketing team to measure the impact and effectiveness of marketing strategies for each account.

Also, it becomes easy for marketers to find out the reasons that are hindering the marketing impact for specific accounts and the strategies can be optimized effectively.

Since the marketers know the concerns, preferences, challenges, expectations, and gaps of each high-value account, ABM allows businesses to implement personalized marketing strategies for each account. When the high-value accounts are given extreme attention to their expectations and ABM caters to all their preferences, it is more likely that the high-value accounts will convert and thus businesses can see an increase in ROI.

5. Provides an Opportunity to Effectively Implement Personalization 

Personalization has evolved into an inevitable marketing strategy and this trend will continue to stay for 2024 and beyond.

Modern-day consumers (B2B and B2C) are very much aware of what they want and thus they look for healthcare brands that specifically address their needs. The core of ABM is to personalize the marketing approach, engage each specific account, and address their specific concerns.

Healthcare businesses can personalize their marketing efforts since they will have each account’s detailed information including demographics, age, profession, industry, challenges, social media preferences, expectations, etc.

Thus account-based marketing enables businesses to personalize their marketing efforts to the fullest, encourages providing targeted solutions, and allows them to tailor the communication that resonates with the concerns and priorities of each stakeholder group, leading to more meaningful engagement.

Additional Read: Healthcare Email Marketing – Strategies, tips, and best practices

Conclusion

The healthcare industry and its related businesses have typically longer sales cycles due to the sensitivity of the data involved, complex decision-making processes, and regulatory considerations.

Account-based marketing upholds all the regulatory measures and is a privacy-compliant strategy since its marketing efforts are channeled towards specific accounts, where every data about that account is collected and analyzed deeply.

Hence, ABM is the major marketing strategy, especially in the healthcare industry, as it allows personalization, and targeted marketing efforts, intensely engages each account, and enables relationship-focused marketing.