abm a priority when marketing to healthcare sector

Why Choose ABM To Market To The Healthcare Sector?

As you probably know by now, I am a little obsessed with Account-based Marketing (ABM). An interesting question that so many people have often asked, and I’ve tried to answer in this post is: Why should I choose ABM to market to the healthcare sector?”

As a B2B healthcare Solutions Marketer, the other related questions that I hope this article will also help you answer are:

  1. Why is ABM a strategy that you should make a priority as you market to healthcare?
  2. Since ABM in healthcare is hard to implement and organizations can take a long time to reach their desired positive ROI, why should you, or your organization invest the time?

Why ABM is a must-implement Strategy in 2021…

In this post, I will cover 10 key reasons why ABM is a must-implement strategy in 2021. I hope that this will help motivate you or provide you with information to help you convince your executive team that this needs to be a priority.

10 Reasons Why You Must Make ABM a Priority

Here are the top 10 reasons why you should make ABM a priority:

#1 – The Old Model isn’t Working Well

Traditional B2B marketing is far from dead but every year it feels harder to make it work as effectively as it used to. ABM on the other hand is delivering better results. According to ITSMA’s benchmark research, 76% of ABM practitioners report higher results with ABM.

Out of all the practitioners, 26% report significantly higher results with ABM. ABM could be a way to get your marketing working more effectively.

2# – Reaching Prospects Earlier in The Buyer Journey

In an earlier post, I went into a lot of detail about the  Customer Journey. As this diagram shows, the customer journey to your door is anything but linear. More importantly, buyers spend a lot of time everywhere else but with you as they research who they purchase from.

customer journey

One of the things about ABM is that can empower you to identify who is in-market earlier and engage them earlier in the journey. If you do it well, it will give you an unfair advantage.

3# – Gaining Competitive Advantage (intent data) With ABM Focus

Gaining a competitive advantage through the use of intent data is yet another smart reason why you should choose ABM for your healthcare marketing. Why?

Because you will always be ahead of your competitors when it comes to getting the right customers at the right time. In fact, it’s the companies that have doubled down on data-based ABM that are kicking ass. How?

Through intent data, ABM gives you real-time information on which prospects are searching for solutions that you offer.

Because of this, your marketing team can implement targeted campaigns for your best-fit potential clients.

Here’s a secret. Very few health-tech firms have mastered Intent-based marketing.

Read this series about Nuvolo, a fast-growing tech firm that has mastered ABM and is becoming a leading Health-Tech vendor.

4# – It Can Put You In the Driver Seat

When you are selling to a healthcare customer there are many stakeholders involved, with different priorities and individual interests.

why choose abm to market to healthcare?

 

Research shows that it’s relatively easy for the buyer collective to decide on which vendor to appoint. The hard work is earlier in the process. They have a tough time agreeing on the problem definition. They struggle even more in deciding how to solve the problem.

This is called Buyer Dysfunction.

The challenge is to get involved earlier in the process and ABM can help you do that.

By being in the driver’s seat at an early stage, you will be able to make the greatest impact on the decision earlier in the process. Suffice to say, you will also be in a better position to influence the choice of vendor. Duh!

5# – Resources Are Focused on Better Targets 

The foundation of ABM is focusing on in-market accounts. You’ll need some time in order to perfect this.

However, if you confidently focus your resources on fewer targets, there will with greater likelihoods of positive outcomes through increased sales.

This means you will move from “Spray and Pray” marketing to more a precise focus on target accounts that are best fit for you.

In this approach, you will only be allocating resources to target accounts that are more likely to purchase your solution.

This, therefore, is a key reason why it’s prudent to choose ABM for your healthcare B2B marketing. You can read more about this here.

6# – ABM Shortens Long sales cycles

We all know that sales cycles are longer in healthcare.  ABM can help you shorten the sales cycle and close deals faster. Why because you waste less time on accounts that are less likely to buy from you.

ABM is all about getting to know your customers and prospects better. The more customer insights you have, the greater will be the likelihood of closing a deal faster.

This is because you will be spending more on fewer accounts.

And so even if you can’t speed up the sales process, at least you will less likely to be wasting time on the wrong accounts

7# – Engage More of the Buyer Collective

According to the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), part of Gartner,  in any B2B sale, there are 5.1 people involved in the buying process. However, in healthcare, there are more!

In addition to business, finance, purchasing, and technical stakeholders, in healthcare, there are multiple clinical stakeholders. To be successful, you need to engage all of them.

The discipline of ABM lends itself to a more personalized and insight-driven approach. Therefore, your decision to make ABM a priority will ensure that you are in a better position to keep stakeholders effectively engaged throughout the buying process.

8# – Focusing On ABM Fosters Better Teamwork

In companies that have been practicing ABM for a while, the relationship between sales and marketing is much more productive. And so, as a result of ABM, the two departments are well aligned.

Because of this, the Marketing team feels that they are making more of a contribution. On the other hand, the sales team feels that the marketing team is a true partner.

Everyone is more productive.

9# – ABM Focus Creates More Forecastable KPIs

One of the disciplines of ABM is a focus on sales performance and metrics that are better predictors of future revenues like funnel velocity and average deal size.

You can read more here.

10# – ABM Priority For Competitive Switching

Lastly, choosing to make ABM your healthcare B2B priority, winning customers from your competitors will be much easier! This is because ABM is really good at competitive switching. Check out how Nuvolo does this.

I hope this helps you get moving.

If you want help with your account-based marketing strategy for healthcare, contact us.

 

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Interesting links:

Posted by Adam Turinas
Posted in ABM Strategy Blogs on May 23, 2021

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About the Author Adam Turinas

Hi, I am Adam Turinas, Healthlaunchpad's founder. I am passionate about helping healthtech firms succeed through better sales and marketing. I have hard-earned experience in healthcare technolgy as I started two healthcare businesses in the US, the first with zero healthcare experience. We sold the second business to a strategic buyer seven years later. Over 9 years building a healhtech businesses, I have learned how to sell and market effectively to healthcare organizations. Prior to this, I spent two decades in digital marketing across healthcare and other consumer industries where I sold over $100 million in products and services to corporations and healthcare orgs. I would love to talk with you. You can book a call with me on the right hand side. Best Adam (This is page 0 of many)

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