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Every industry has been affected by the Covid pandemic and its aftermath, but some have faced greater challenges than others.
Financial services (finserv) companies have had their fair share of obstacles; many lost funding or they were serving customers who suddenly began working remotely. As a consequence, reaching, converting, and keeping those customers became a steep uphill battle.
Today, finserv companies are ripe for a complete go-to-market (GTM) overhaul, but many aren’t sure where to start. If that sounds familiar, prioritizing an account-based experience (ABX) just might be what you’re looking for.
Why ABX?
Although fintech companies are relatively new, many of the banks, insurance companies, and asset management companies that comprise the financial services market have been around for a long time. That means they’ve largely been operating in a nondigital world, and, in many cases, they are still leaning heavily on predigital marketing tactics, such as physical field events and direct mail.
Many companies may have been surviving that way prior to the pandemic, but such efforts came to a grinding halt when so many people went virtual. Suddenly, those companies were faced with having to identify, capture, engage, and convert people entirely through digital channels.
To say it was an about-face is an enormous understatement.
Compounding that issue is that finserv buyers—although in the B2B world—largely expect to be marketed to as consumers and engaged with accordingly. Fully 84% expect a similarly personalized experience across both digital and nondigital interactions, according to Gartner.
Delivering an account-based experience, which is a customer-centric rethinking of an account-based go-to-market, is the best way to succeed in reaching finserv buyers digitally and catering to their heightened expectations.
Painting a Clearer Picture
Even though there’s a known universe of whom you sell to in financial services, there are almost always multiple stakeholders that care about different things—and let’s not forget about compliance, legal, and risk partners. For example, there might be CIOs, CISOs, CX leaders, and a research team who are all part of a buying committee. They all matter, but they’re all looking for different business-impact outcomes, which means they’ll need different messages from you.
Following an ABX strategy, and using the right technology to support it, will help you achieve account intelligence that can give you specific insight into each of your subgroups and make your marketing and sales much more effective.
Due diligence is critical for fintechs, financial service firms, venture capital firms, and private equity companies, because technographic and firmographic data is crucial. Technographic data can help paint a clearer picture of your buyers and thus alert you to the accounts that have intent to purchase technologies similar to your own. Those insights can also help you uncover funding, acquisition, launches, growth, and more.
Think about the power in that: It not only tells you who specifically is in-market for what you sell but also helps you craft messaging that can truly resonate. You can also use customized data modeling and scoring to target specific, niche products and services within your market. Relying on data removes the guesswork and makes you more informed.
Understanding Keywords
In addition to understanding intent, keywords become a huge piece of the ABX story. Investors, VCs, large firms, and startups can use the insight offered by those keywords to…
- Uncover emerging categories to branch into or for new product offerings
- Discover companies for potential investment that attract the most interest
- Use keywords such as “series funding,” “financing,” or “early or late-stage funding” to determine which companies are growing, about to IPO, or looking to partner
Personalizing the Experience
Fully 76% of financial services customers expect firms to understand their needs.
You can’t be a mind reader, but account intelligence can help you orchestrate buying experiences and align Sales and Marketing to drive revenue.
Capture insights and personalize messages across your ads, email, and website at scale to create trusted client interactions. By personalizing on industry, company name, or geography, you’ll show them a “you know me and I know you” experience—which will build their trust in you.
Unifying Marketing and Sales through ABX also helps identify opportunities faster and engage them more intelligently, winning the accounts that matter most and making your dollars work more efficiently than ever before!
Measuring Impact
Measure what really matters—and do more of what matters the most. Moving away from a quantity-based approach toward a quality-based play will give you a broader view of your accounts. You’ll know how to allocate spend appropriately and reach customers sooner.
You cannot improve what you don’t measure. And if you’re in B2B, you’re dealing with accounts. So measuring account-based metrics is key.
How are your target accounts progressing through the journey?
Work smarter: Identify your account-based funnel challenges (where are accounts getting stuck?) and focus your efforts on where you can make the biggest impact.
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Financial services companies are essential, but the industry has faced many setbacks over the last few years. Fortunately, using account intelligence, those organizations can take back control, optimize their go-to-market, reach customers, and drive better outcomes. Choosing ABX and layering on the right technology and tactics is the fastest path to get there.
More Resources on Account-Based Experiences
For Outstanding Buyer Experiences, Think Big but Start Small
How to Drive Key-Account Growth With Omnichannel Account-Based Marketing
Why ABM Should Be Supported—Not Driven—by Tech and Demand Gen
