Designing an account-based marketing program

Abstract

This study combines literature from organizational buying behavior, marketing automation and content marketing, and sales management in order to design an account-based marketing program for a case company that operates in business-to-business markets. Marketing automation and content marketing in recent years has become a strategic development topic for companies that operate in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets, while research in this fast-developing arena is lagging. In this sense, it brings new insight into how a company could design it’s online marketing efforts to enhance sales and marketing alignment in business-to-business environments. This study shows that designing and account-based marketing program is a complex process that spans across various different theories. In practice, account-based marketing process is divided into six steps. First, the company must map its business objectives and how those relate to specific accounts. Second, the company must map out their knowledge of the customer, and how it relates to the offering of the case company. Third, it must develop thought leadership by embarking on the development of a content strategy. Fourth and fifth, the case company needs generate, track and nurture leads by choosing the channels in which content is distributed and measure effectiveness. Finally, it must set up appropriate protocols for supporting sales. In conclusion, this thesis provides further direction for studying how business-to-business companies operate their digital marketing activities.