This article is the first in a series explaining the strategy of account-based marketing and how business who are a fit can benefit from this approach.

Since the national recession of the 1980s and the most recent economic recession of the early 2000s, rural manufacturing companies have faced an abundance of challenges on an uphill battle to compete. As these companies look for ways to cut costs while still maintaining growth and expanding sales, account-based marketing is becoming a smart strategy for maximizing budgets and meaningful reach.

In recent decades many manufacturing companies migrated from urban locations to more rural towns in order to realize benefits such as the lower labor and living costs existing rural manufacturers were already capitalizing on to remain competitive. Rural manufacturing, however, was suddenly faced with a new struggle due to globalization and the undercutting of prices as a byproduct of cheaper labor and product costs from imports.

The Problem

In recent years, manufactures have learned to leverage advancements in technology to reduce costs through faster shipping, communication flow, and a more streamlined supply chain which has also allowed rural-based suppliers the chance to do business across greater distances and with more companies.

Even so, many are still at a disadvantage, especially when overshadowed by larger competitors and new competition from emerging overseas companies.

At the time, rising insurance costs, an aging workforce, offering competitive wages, and adopting new technologies are continually forcing owners of rural manufacturing businesses to reduce capital investments and go lean wherever they can.

It is an ongoing challenge for these companies to prioritize caring for their workers while still being able to invest in the resources and tools required to maintain pace with more visible competitors. All this on top of appealing to a younger, more tech-savvy generation to stem the growing number of unfilled jobs.

All these challenges naturally translate to leaner spending and less cash to contribute to areas like marketing which, in the past, seemed to yield little to no value. Especially in a business that traditionally had been built on personal relationships.

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The Solution

Many rural manufactures have come to realize that marketing has become increasingly critical in order to be found in the global market and build virtual relationships. The bottom line is that manufacturers must spend their budgets on ventures that are intentional, measurable, and impactful.  

That said, one solution manufacturing companies can explore is account-based marketing (ABM). Using this approach, owners can level the playing field in manufacturing and manage their sales and marketing expenses by focusing their marketing on specific customers with strategic significance to their business’s stability and growth.

In this blog series, we will dive deeper into what ABM entails, its proven benefits, and how rural manufactures can adopt this strategy at scale to increase their business.