. If you were to ask five different marketers what account-based marketing is, you would likely receive five different responses.
That’s right.
The term ABM has been thrown around loosely. Many people are unsure of what social media marketing really is, and designing an effective strategy is even more difficult.
This article will explain the meaning of account-based marketing and describe different types of account-based marketing. You will learn the best strategies, tactics, and see examples of these in real life.
Ready? Let’s go.
What is Account-Based Marketing?
What is all the buzz about Account-based marketing (ABM)? How is this different from conventional B2B marketing? Is this just another marketing fad?
According to many experts, ABM can help you land bigger deals faster. Really?
Let’s dive deeper into what makes ABM effective.
Traditional B2B Marketing focuses on verticals. This means Marketers will prospect anybody within these verticals.
If you were using traditional marketing methods, you would create an advertisement with a single message and target it at all the different departments within the finance industry, such as human resources, sales, upper management, accounting, and interns.
It is not effective to target everyone with the same messaging.
Although account-based marketing is a popular marketing strategy, it is not the only one that marketing teams can use.
Most successful companies use a combination of traditional marketing techniques with account-based marketing to achieve success. ABM has three different segments which will be covered in later chapters.
You can’t just market to a few companies in a year and expect to see results. Or even in a quarter.
Even though you are aware that those accounts have the greatest likelihood of closing and would be the most ideal customers for your product, companies cannot merely exist on a small number of closed deals and targets.
If you only market to a small group of companies, your company won’t be able to grow. It doesn’t sense.
There are a variety of other marketing methods that big B2B brands use in addition to Account-based marketing. Brand awareness campaigns that look like traditional marketing create a fair balance. That’s how companies become bigger.
Even though some companies have large marketing budgets, that doesn’t mean that every company does.
Be sure to read on as we’ll cover that topic in more detail later on in this article, starting with Your Account Based Marketing Process.
1. Create a customer marketing strategy.
Is your current marketing strategy focused on acquiring new leads? Although it is important to find and cultivate new prospects, the best source for increasing your sales is often your current customers.
Current customers are anywhere from 25 to 95 percent more likely to return than new customers. If you have a new lead, there is a 5-20% chance of converting them into a sale. However, for a current customer, that number jumps to 60-70%.
To accomplish any account-based marketing tactic, you must first identify the businesses you want to target. Some of the people who would be the most valuable targets for your marketing campaigns are also the ones who would be the most easily converted into customers because they already have a favorable opinion of your company, and you already have a lot of information about them. Don’t waste that.
Content that is created with the intention of helping customers get more out of your product is more likely to be useful and result in a better customer experience. Highlight new products, provide upgrade recommendations, and craft special offers based on their product use in emails and targeted ads (Yes! Ads for customers). You can improve your relationship with your most important customers by working with them on case studies, webinars, or conference presentations.
2. Use lookalike modeling.
In addition to your customer base being some of your most valuable targets in an ABM strategy, they can also help you identify the best new leads to focus on. To perform lookalike modeling, first analyze your current customers. What are the most valuable assets to your business?
Examine which initiatives have yielded the greatest return on investment and which have generated the most referrals. If working with a certain customer has made your business more popular and helped you get more clients through association, consider that as well.
After you have compiled a list of your most loyal customers, you can then use various online advertising channels to target similar audiences. This will save you time and energy in the long run. The list can be used to help identify which companies to target for sales based on the attributes of the most valuable customers. LinkedIn provides a platform where you can research companies according to various factors such as company size, industry and the number of their customers. Paid databases such as Hoovers and Factiva can provide more detailed information about a company, such as average yearly revenue. The HubSpot platform can provide information about your contact’s behavior on your website.
3. Follow and engage with target accounts on social media.
Marketers can directly access their audience through social media. Find all the associated accounts you can on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other relevant platforms once you have developed a list of prime ABM target accounts and pinpointed some of the main contacts.
To develop relationships with your target contacts, follow them and pay attention to what they say. It’s crucial your first step be listening. Before you start interacting more directly with your prospects, you want to become familiar with how they use social media.
If you wait long enough, you will be able to start interacting with them in a strategic way on social media platforms. Some good tactics to consider are:
- Replying to their status updates, when you have something valuable to add
- Sharing their content and re-tweeting anything that’s also useful for your audience
- Joining groups or Twitter chats they’re involved in
- Sending a direct message to them through the platform—although usually this step works best once you’ve begun to develop a relationship with the help of the other steps
4. Create highly valuable custom content.
There is a lot of free content available online, but it is rare to find content that has been specifically created for one particular business. This is the kind of content that is not just aimed at people in a particular job role or industry, but is specifically targeted at one company. Offering personalized gifts is a great way to make your company stand out from the competition.
A business that offers an SEO analytics tool could produce a report that includes data on their current rankings, competitor analysis, and some of the best topic areas to target moving forward. This is content your potential customers are likely to want to read and find helpful, which would in turn show them how useful your product is (without giving away all its features).
If you want to create a customized report that will be valuable to the company, you should look for something that the company doesn’t already have access to. This way, you can provide them with information that they can’t get anywhere else. It takes time to create something unique and useful for each high-value contact on your list, but it will pay off in the end.
5. Highlight target accounts in your content.
This means finding opportunities to mention your target prospects in a positive light within the context of the new content you’re creating. Doing so can help you attract their attention and build interest in your product or service. Think about whether a high-level contact at a business you want to work with could make a good source for an upcoming blog post. You can either use them as an example of how to do a tactic you’re covering in your piece, or use them as a good example of how to do a tactic you’re covering in your piece.
using sources and examples can help to improve the quality of your content Using them as part of an ABM strategy brings a couple of additional benefits:
- It gets you on their radar. Most companies pay attention to mentions of them around the web. If they’ve never heard of your company before, mentioning them in a piece of content increases the likelihood they’ll learn about your company and give your website a look.
- They can open the door to communication with a contact you want to begin a relationship with. Once you interview someone for a piece and highlight their expertise in a piece of content, they’ll definitely know what your company is. This is your chance to make sure their first interaction with your brand is something that benefits them as well as you.
6. Personalize your B2B.
If you want to increase conversion rates on your website, you should consider personalized website experiences for different customer segments. This will make visitors feel more comfortable on your site, and ultimately lead to more conversions.
Demandbase provides the data and features needed to create a personalized customer experience, including the ability to run your own A/B tests and segment visitors.
You can segment on any element of the visitor’s behavior, including:
- Age and gender
- Geographical location
- Device type (desktop/mobile)
- The URL they came from or where they are navigating to next.
If you customize your website for each customer segment, you will be able to build a stronger connection with them, which will lead to higher conversion rates and increased revenue for your company.
Personalized websites are more effective than general websites because they are tailored to what individual customers care about. General websites are not as effective because they take a broad approach that does not speak to everyone.
If you personalize your site for different segments of your audience, it will feel less like an advertisement and more like there is a real person on the other end.
If businesses understand where their customers live or spend the most time online, they can tailor content by region more effectively than if they only rely on ZIP code information.
This includes providing localized versions of websites in native languages that are better suited for certain countries or areas. This also includes having different pricing formats depending on the currency used.
If you focus on the customer, you’re more likely to get more sales, more money, and a more interested audience.
7. Go for partnerships and joint branding.
You can increase the value that you and your customers bring to each other by creating partnerships and joint branding.
This will also make it easier for the company you are working with to promote you within their networks of contacts. The company will be able to speak on behalf of both companies when doing so.
Building partnerships with clients can help increase your customer base and revenue.
The only thing to keep in mind is that you need to make sure the partnership is in line with your company’s values.
For example, if you’re positioning yourself as a high-touch service provider for personal care needs or medical devices, partnerships with these types of businesses would be beneficial:
- Beauty salons
- Healthcare providers
- Doctors’ offices
- Hospitals
On the other hand, your business model relies heavily on online marketing and sourcing products from overseas markets, then partnering with eCommerce companies may make more sense:
- Online retailers like Amazon or eBay
- High volume product resellers in Asia such as Alibaba
You can keep costs down by using the infrastructure that these businesses already have.
It is most important to be fair with your partners and make sure they feel they are receiving a good return for what they are giving up.
It might take some effort in the beginning, but it will be worth it in the long run – making sure everyone is happy with the arrangement is key to maintaining a successful relationship over time.
Both parties should always aim for partnerships where both sides benefit.
8. Hire a B2B influencer.
Influencers cannot be left out of a guide on account-based marketing.
Working with influencers is a great way to market your business. Here are three ways to work with them.
To start, find influencers in your industry that would be interested in partnering with you on content, creating sponsored posts, or running paid ad campaigns featuring their favorite products.
After finding some potential partners, it is time to negotiate what type of campaign would be best for each individual. You would also need to agree upon terms such as how much you would get paid and how long the post would be up.
to be at the top of their game It does not matter if someone is as influential as Gary V. to be good at what they do. You don’t need everyone to be an influencer. Only people who your target audience is paying attention to.
They could be micro-influencers.
9. Remarket across all platform.
You need to be strategic about where they appear. To be successful with your ads on the Google Display Network, you need to be strategic about where they appear.
To increase conversions and ROI, you need a targeted, tailored approach.
Start by looking at which social media platforms your potential customers are using. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are all good places to start.
After that, you will want to take these audiences and divide them so that they each receive different messages about what you are offering while they are browsing online.
If you want your ads to be successful, you should definitely consider running Google Ads for ABM.
For example, if someone accesses your company’s website via LinkedIn, they might see an advertisement for your latest white paper. Another person who accesses your company’s website solutions page might see an advertisement inviting them to schedule a consultation call.
The result? Higher campaign conversion rates and ROI!
There is no value in treating all of your website’s visitors in the same manner because they are all different.
Simple yet effective to retarget warm audiences. Work on a schedule of messages and ads to gradually move accounts through your buyers’ journey.
Final thoughts
You can forget that you are still talking to people with all of these tools and information. We are still all people selling to other people.
When approaching a potential customer, it is best to do so as an individual rather than as a representative of a company. Your relationship might improve if you try to get to know your partner better without being too pushy.
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