In many B2B-organisations large (international) accounts contribute to a substantial proportion of total revenue and profitability. In order to retain these strategic customers, a personal and focused marketing approach is required. This is also known as Account-Based-Marketing. Curious as to what this exactly entails? Reinier Willems, Marketing Director and member of the LeasePlan International management team is happy to tell you all about it during his masterclass at the B2B Marketing Forum 2016. Get a first taste of it here.
What is Account-Based-Marketing?
Reinier: “Account-Based-Marketing is a 1-to-1 marketing and sales approach aimed at large business customers, or key accounts. It actually includes developing a tailor-made marketing plan for each key account including all the decision makers and influencers within this organisation. One key element of this method is that it concerns a well-orchestrated approach in which marketing, sales and account management closely work together throughout the entire customer journey.
The starting point of this approach is a shared vision of what will be truly of added value to the customer organisation and the various stakeholders within this organisation. As a next step, this vision is translated to a highly relevant value proposition combined with an engagement plan to optimize the customers’ value experience.
Account-Based-Marketing is clearly linked to Agile Marketing as one needs to continuously react to new developments within the customer organisation.”
Why is Account-Based-Marketing being used more often in approaching key accounts?
“More and more companies incorporate an account-based-marketing approach in their overall marketing strategy. On the one hand this is a necessity as large strategic customers have become more complex, and corporate buyers can hardly be reached anymore through generic content marketing.
On the other hand the ‘engagement’ and profitability of such large accounts can be significantly improved using the increased availability of relevant data and technologies that allow for a well-coordinated 1-to-1 approach”, according to Reinier.
About Reinier Willems
Reinier started his career as a consultant in (re)structuring commercial departments of Dutch and international organisations. After obtaining his MBA and Master of Business Informatics, he was employed by companies such as KPN and LeasePlan where he focused on sales and marketing of business services – mostly in an international environment.
Momentarily he is Marketing Director and member of the LeasePlan International management team. LeasePlan is the worldwide market leader in automotive leasing and fleet management – serving 1.5 million vehicles (and their drivers) in 32 countries. As with many B2B organisations, LeasePlan’s large (international) accounts contribute to a substantial proportion of total revenue and profitability.
Besides his day job Reinier is a board member of the NIMA expertise team for B2B Marketing, visiting lecturer B2B marketing at the Rotterdam School of Management and occasional blogger for MarketingTribune.
One of his personal interests includes (data) visualisation which he also likes to read about in his personal time. Furthermore he very much enjoys sailing and loves to spend time with his family sailing around the Dutch islands in the Waddenzee.

