Bi-monthly editorial series “Your 5-Step Plan to Winning Customers Like Santa” takes a look at how “Account Based Marketing” works for ecommerce and B2B companies.

Inbound Approach: Invisible to Marketing – “What if an Account Based Marketing strategy wins more customers than traditional ecommerce?”

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Chalk up another top ten success story for B2B marketers; one that has risen above traditional marketing techniques like email blast to win customer loyalty, loyalty that sprawls well beyond marketing.

Founded in 1998 by Internet marketing expert Greg Ballard, client-based marketing provider Archetype has provided “that distinction that industry has been waiting for: a campaign that steals sales from the competition while expanding brand awareness.” Now, B2B companies are actively focusing on their Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy to spark sales.

So, what is an ABM strategy, anyway? Let’s take a more basic intro to each strategy and consider some basics. Account Based Marketing:

Incredibly Simple: Existing customers love being courted; sales reps enjoy the warm embrace of prospective clients. Importantly, ABM marketers build long-term relationships with these customers.

Frequency: Start small with a targeted list, which can be millions strong – both in size and in scope – and then increase frequency and relevancy. ABM studies have shown that simply escalating your marketing to current customers from incremental email to regular email is significantly increased ecommerce sales through the course of a single year.

Competition: Inbound Approach – Lofty aspirations like Asterisk have been delegated to quixotic efforts to provide an, “invisible to marketing” software product that is always being updated. This is not a path to market leadership and is likely to be a shortsighted approach at best. It’s all about trailing leaders in a field of technology enabling businesses to do what they do best – attract, build, sell and service a wide array of services.

Customized: ABM is all about customizing your messaging, service, techniques and your complete website experience, all based on your audience and the services you provide. ABM efforts are likely to be effective and organic in nature.

Viral Connection: ABM typically begins with your existing account base; when organizations like Tableau Desktop, Zillow and Unruly keep their social media channels open, new customers can be discovered and the flame gets started. Your message can even spread like wildfire.