Selling IT products to healthcare systems is not an easy task. The infamous 12-24 months sales cycle is in full swing here, with multiple decisions makers and influencers involved, and competition fierce in some specific fields such as Electronic Health Records.

Could Account Based Marketing (ABM) shorten the sales cycle and improve business results for Healthcare IT marketers?

ABM is a relatively new B2B marketing strategy used by B2B companies to penetrate and win named accounts, at scale. It’s an organizational effort, combining marketing, sales and customer success teams, in order to win clients.

But does it fit healthcare marketing processes? ABM shines in the following cases:

    1. Large deal size – as ABM requires dedicated content, technology, and internal collaboration efforts, it makes sense to invest in it only when the average deal size is considerable enough. Healthcare IT platforms are core products for healthcare systems, which is also reflected in the eight-figure deals and up that take place in the market.
    2. Multiple stakeholders and a complex sales cycle – like any major purchasing decision, the decision makers are not actually making the decisions on their own. Medical officers, CIOs, consultants, and analysts all play a role in the decision making process. Vendors that only interact with decision makers would have a hard time to keep their closing rates high. That’s why an account based approach is preferred, enabling marketing and engaging with all stakeholders, in full alignment with sales. That’s exactly the promise of ABM. When targeting accounts instead of individuals, marketers are able to run orchestrated programs with multiple personas, and provide insights to sales.
    3. Omnichannel buyer journeys – not only are multiple people involved in a buying decision, they are also using multiple channels to educate themselves. Websites, events, peers, and analysts are all playing a part in the buyer journey. ABM helps vendors to create a meaningful marketing and sales program across these channels, and helps coordinate the effort done by different functions in the vendor’s team.

ABM is a novel marketing approach that helps companies win their key accounts. Healthcare IT deals are challenging as is. It’s time to innovate not only in products, but also in marketing processes, to meet these challenges.

Are you interested in learning if Account Based Marketing is right for your organization? Take our ABM Assessment.