Account-Based Marketing: What Industries Should You Be Targeting?

If you’re not sure which accounts you want to target or how best to market to them, it’s time to sit down and do some research. Before you can start identifying specific accounts, you need to identify which industries are a good fit for your business.

Identifying Your Target Industries

To get started, take a look at your current client or customer list and ask yourself the following:

• Who are our best customers?
• Why do we love working with them?
• What industries are they in?
• What industries do we like working in?
• What types of businesses are the most profitable/produce the most revenue for us?
• If we could only market to businesses in one industry, which industry would we choose?
• If that industry wasn’t an option, what industry would we go after instead?

These questions should help you nail down which industries you should be targeting, as well as which accounts within those industries you should be going after.

Even if you feel like you have a pretty good sense for your top industries, it still may not be a bad idea to reassess things. Sometimes, industries that were once great for your business have become less interesting. Other times, you may not realize where your sweet spot is until you take a step back and look at the data.

Once you know which industry you want to target, get on the phone and call up your best customers in that industry.

Try and get answers to the following:

• Why did you pick our business? What made us stand out?
• What problems does our business solve for you?
• What were you doing before you started working with us?
• Why do you love working with us?
• Where/how do you like to learn about suppliers/vendors/partners/etc?

Of course, these questions are just the beginning. The more you invest in getting to know your customers, the better you’ll understand their industry and how to market to other businesses in that vertical. 

In addition, not all companies in a given industry are an ideal fit for your business. By identifying what makes companies in a specific vertical or industry interesting to your business, you can further narrow down what kinds of accounts you want to target.

Figuring all of this out will take some research, but it will save you a lot of time and effort in the long run. Account-based marketing is all about specificity, so the more specific you can get now, the better your results will be.

Conclusion

To be successful at account-based marketing, you need to have a good feel for who your best customers are. Dig in, take a look at the data and talk to your team!

Once you’ve identified your best customers, give them a call! Find out what makes them tick and how you can use that information to identify your target accounts.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. To learn more about account-based marketing and how to put it to work for your B2B business, reach out to us here to get specific tips and advice for your business. Talk to you soon!