Account Based Marketing vs Marketing Automation

Abhijit Panda
May 10, 2024

As a B2B marketing strategy, account based marketing focuses on identifying high-value customer accounts and engaging them by delivering customized content and personalized messages. Enterprises these days generate incremental revenue by running different types of account based marketing campaigns – one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many.

At the same time, marketing automation refers to the utilization of special-purpose software for managing multifunctional campaigns and handling routine marketing activities. In addition to curtailing costs, marketing automation helps businesses generate, nurture, and convert leads more effectively using real-time data.

The latest statistics posted on Statista suggest a surge in enterprises implementing marketing automation platforms and tools across the world. Hence, account based marketing is a marketing strategy, while marketing automation refers to software technologies and platforms. They differ from each other in several categories, including objectives, tactics, and use cases. We can do a comparison between account based marketing vs marketing automation by discussing multiple important aspects given below.

Account Based Marketing

Account based marketing is a multistep strategic approach. The account based marketing funnel includes crucial steps like identifying high-value customer accounts, engaging them with personalized conversations, and building relationships that create new sales opportunities.

Account based marketing boosts overall marketing strategies by emphasizing marketing and sales alignment. The marketing and sales teams work together to make high-value accounts feed special and valued by delivering personalized content and messages.

Personalized communication helps enterprises develop a strong relationship with decision-makers and stakeholders. Also, they can sustain the relationship to increase revenue through up-selling and cross-selling of multiple products or services.

However, a company needs a dedicated team of content creators to make account-based marketing campaigns successful. The content creators will craft account-centric copies by targeting each high-value customer. Hence, enterprises must invest time and resources to make the most of this new-age B2B marketing strategy.

Marketing Automation

In addition to reducing costs, marketing automation tools perform various marketing tasks quickly, efficiently, and accurately. Also, they help marketers make informed decisions by simplifying customer data collection, management, and analysis. Hence, enterprises implement marketing automation strategies to automate several routine marketing tasks.

While automating marketing activities, a company has the option to choose from a wide range of software applications and solutions. Hence, an organization can implement special-purpose software tools to automate specific tasks like message delivery, social media posting, ad optimization, blog publishing, landing page development, and lead scoring.

At the same time, it can automate multiple marketing tasks simultaneously by implementing all-in-one marketing automation platform software. Hence, a company or startup can implement the strategy successfully only by investing in the right marketing automation tool. In addition, it must customize the software to meet the varying needs of marketing and sales teams.

Account Based Marketing vs Marketing Automation

Goal

Account based marketing strategy makes businesses focus on increasing revenue by identifying high-value prospects and building deeper relationships with them through personalized conversations. On the other hand, marketing automation strategy focuses on improving operational efficiency, streamlining marketing workflow, and controlling costs by automating routine marketing activities.

Tactics

Account based marketing and marketing automation differ from each other in the category of funnel. Identifying high-value customer accounts, fostering deep relationships with them, and delivering personalized content are key steps in the account-based marketing process. However, automation of various routine and marketing activities is an important aspect of marketing automation.

Lead Acquisition

Marketing automation platforms help marketers generate leads by tracking organic and paid website traffic. Also, they feature lead-scoring tools that help marketers detect high-value leads and remove worthless leads.

However, an account based marketing strategy makes marketers start with a small list of high-profile B2B customers. Marketers find high-value customer accounts by sending cold emails or visiting social networks like LinkedIn.

Lead Nurturing

Marketing automation tools help marketers nurture leads in a variety of ways – sending automated emails, interacting on social media, and showing relevant ads. However, they do not facilitate personalized customer communications through face-to-face meetings.

Account based marketing strategy emphasizes nurturing and converting high-value accounts through personalized conversations. Marketers engage with high-value customers by sending emails/text messages, connecting on LinkedIn, making phone calls, or scheduling meetings.

Personalization

Account based marketing emphasizes building strong relationships with high-value accounts through personalized conversations. Enterprises can make the strategy successful only by delivering content and messages tailored for each targeted B2B account.

Marketing automation tools personalize customer communications by leveraging real-time. They analyze customer data collected from multiple sources to segment leads based on demographic information and buying intent. However, enterprises cannot use marketing automation tools to deliver personalized content and message to each customer.

Sales Cycle Length

Marketing automation tools enable B2B and B2C customers to generate and nurture more leads. An enterprise can use these software solutions to increase revenue by increasing the volume of low-volume sales. Hence, marketing automation tools help companies shorten sales cycles.

However, account based marketing emphasizes detection and nurturing of high-value customers. Marketing and sales teams need about 6 months to one year to close B2B sales deals. However, the longer sales cycles help them increase the ROI due to the high conversion rates.

Implementation Challenges

Enterprises have to overcome several challenges to switch from conventional B2B marketing to account-based marketing. For instance, they have to use reliable data to identify high-value customer accounts. Likewise, they must ensure seamless marketing and sales alignment to increase the ROI consistently.

Enterprises can automate routine marketing tasks by implementing a slew of marketing automation tools. Hence, they find it challenging to choose and automate the right marketing automation solutions, Also, they can boost operational efficiency and leverage cutting-edge technologies only by investing in premium marketing automation platforms.

Use Cases

Marketing automation tools help enterprises curtail human resource costs. However, an enterprise has to invest in multiple tools to execute and manage multifunctional marketing campaigns automatically. Also, they need automation specialists to choose and implement the right marketing automation tools.

The investment in the right marketing automation tools helps enterprises increase ROI by optimizing marketing activities using intelligence technologies and real-time data. On the other hand, an enterprise can start account-based marketing without incurring high upfront costs.

However, it must hire content creators to create personalized outreach content for individual customers. Likewise, the marketing and sales team needs automation tools to evaluate B2B customer profiles and run highly personalized marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

Both account-based marketing and marketing automation are the hottest trends in B2B marketing. While account-based marketing vs. marketing automation, we must remember both customer-centric marketing approaches focus on running personalized marketing campaigns and making data-driven decisions.

Also, many enterprises these days get higher ROI by automating account-based marketing strategies. They implement marketing automation tools that detect high-value customer accounts based on their demographic information and buying behaviors.

Additionally, marketing automation platforms help marketers engage high-value accounts by personalizing their buying journey. That is why; enterprises integrate account-based marketing and marketing automation strategies to leverage the combined benefits of two strategic approaches.

Frequently Asked questions

What is account-based marketing?

Account-based marketing is an effective B2B marketing strategy. The strategy emphasizes the selection and targeting of selected corporate customers or accounts in the market. Both marketing and sales teams convert these targeted accounts into paying customers by developing and fostering business relationships. Both marketing and sales teams identify high-value accounts using buyer personas. Likewise, they engage and nurture these accounts by running personalized marketing campaigns.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation can be defined as a strategy that focuses on performing routine marketing tasks and activities using tech tools and solutions. Most organizations these days curb human resource costs by implementing marketing automation tools. Also, marketing automation tools help them increase the ROI by streamlining the marketing process, reducing human errors, and making data-driven decisions.

What is the difference between marketing automation and account-based marketing?

Both marketing automation and account-based marketing are B2B marketing strategies. However, they differ from each other primarily in the category of goals or objectives. Marketing automation helps B2B companies increase ROI by automating various marketing activities and tasks. On the other hand, account-based marketing helps B2B companies accelerate revenue growth by detecting, engaging, and influencing high-value corporate customers.

How do marketing automation and account-based marketing work together?

Many B2B companies drive account-based accounting using marketing automation tools. These days, marketing and sales teams use marketing automation tools to detect high-value B2B customers based on information collected from diverse sources. Likewise, marketing automation helps them engage, influence, and convert accounts by running personalized marketing campaigns. Marketers use tech tools to send tailored messages to accounts at the right time and using the right channel. At the same time, marketing automation tools help them boost account-based marketing campaigns by understanding what is working and what is not.

What is the main goal of ABM and marketing automation?

The primary goal of account-based marketing is to focus and nurture the right B2B leads. Instead of generating more B2B leads, the strategic approach makes marketers and salespeople engage and convert targeted B2B leads. On the other hand, the primary goal of marketing automation is to improve and streamline marketing activities by leveraging tech tools. In addition to generating and scoring B2B leads, marketing automation tools help organizations personalize customer experiences and run personalized marketing campaigns without escalating human resource costs.

Key differences between account-based marketing vs marketing automation

The key differences between account-based marketing and marketing automation are goals or objectives. B2B companies adopt account-based marketing as a strategic approach to boost sales conversions by engaging selected leads. In addition to identifying high-value accounts, they convert them into customers by running personalized marketing campaigns.

On the other hand, B2B and B2C companies opt for marketing automation to increase the ROI. Marketing automation helps companies curb human resource costs by performing marketing activities using specialized tech tools. Also, marketing automation helps them run campaigns successfully by mitigating human errors, making data-driven decisions, and personalizing customer experiences.

What is the power of marketing automation?

The power of marketing automation lies in making multichannel marketing campaigns successful without increasing human resource costs. B2B and B2C companies these days apply several types of marketing automation. Automation tools help them execute and monitor email marketing, social media marketing, customer relationship management, and content marketing campaigns with minimal human interventions. At the same time, strategists can use automation tools to track campaign performance in real-time. Likewise, they can use tech tools to boost campaign performance by making data-driven decisions.