The One Thing Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy Is Missing

Account Based Data

Article | August 19, 2022

Have you browsed about account-based marketing and how successful it has proved for businesses? Do you wonder whether your business fits in the ABM strategy? And even if you practice ABM, what is to be done differently for your business? Well, we have answers to all your questions. As Clive Armitage, CEO at Agent3, said,“We have to act as the eyes and ears of marketing innovation for our clients; they trust us to help them navigate the pace of change in the way that the process of marketing is evolving.” Thus, your marketing and sales team should be on the same page to deliver an excellent and personalized customer experience. The implementation of ABM in different industries may be different but the challenges faced are somewhat the same. The baisc challenge for ABM are personalization and quality content. So, let us dig deeper into how ABM works for different industry segments. And also focus on how each industry should strategize for successful account-based marketing. How Is ABM Different for Different Industries? Every company has different products to sell to various companies. Also, if you sell the same product to distinct companies, you need a unique tactic for every organization. Account-based marketing is crafting such individual approaches for every client that matters. For example, if you are an advertising company and you need a luxury car brand account, your ABM strategy will be different for different car brands. It can also be designed differently for every decision-maker. Thus, you have to be very focused and delicately plan strategies for the target account. Apart from the people you target, also keep in mind the industry segment that you target. It will help to align strategies with both brands. Now let us discuss some different types of ABM strategies that work for distinct industry segments. Types of ABM Strategies (with Real-time Examples) ABM is a beneficial strategy for all types of companies. But it works wonders for organizations that target large companies who have relatively long sales cycles. According to the State of Account-Based Revenue Engine 2019 report, organizations saw a whooping 91% improved ROI post-ABM implementation. Hence, let us see how different ABM strategies have their way of working. Events Events have proved to be the most successful of all the ABM strategies. Once target clients accept the personalized invites to the events, the sales team can easily have in-person meetings. Also, a souvenir, gift, or a creative way of a follow-up meeting should be an incorporated strategy of the event. Example: Thomas Reuters is an organization that provides news and information tools for professionals. Their challenge was retention and expansion with their key accounts. Thus, they created an event opportunity for these accounts. In these events, the top executives of the exclusive accounts could speak. And Thomas Reuters would quote them in whitepapers, blogs, and more. It ensured that the sales team would be in contact with the key accounts all year round. Thus, it increased retention and built good relations. Webinars A webinar is an option when the physical presence of clients at a similar geographical location is not possible. But a webinar allows curating a more personalized experience and at convenient times with less utility of resources. Example: HotJar Lightning Talks conference is a webinar hosted by HotJar. This webinar gives the speaker maximum of five minutes to address a particular topic. Thus, no long presentation but just a short glimpse of informative or marketing strategies. Businesses participate in the webinar to present the challenges and solutions to their prospective clients. Thus, HotJar had many B2B clients participating in the conference and, the idea became a big hit! Direct Mails Gifts, marketing material, and creative packages sent through direct mail are a success in ABM. However, account-based marketing requires personalization and direct mail is the best tactic to deliver that. Example: Billing Tree is a technology-driven payment processing organization. It faced the challenge of scheduling meetings with the targeted accounts. Thus, they mailed 100 locked cases secured with two combinations of padlocks. These cases contained US$ 100 Amazon gift cards. Billing Tree gave the combination once they got the appointment with the account. And once the client opened the case, the lid had a video player embedded in it that played the video pitch for the account. Billing Tree generated an account engagement rate of 60% with the ABM strategy of direct mail. Advertising Personalized advertising has become an easy thing, thanks to IP targeting and re-targeting technology. It allows you to target the big fishes rather than the traditional wide net fishing. Example: DocuSign is an eSignature transaction management and solution provider company. It wanted to generate more traffic and click-through rates to form gated content. The company executed personalized ad campaigns to the target accounts that contained industry-specific images, content, and peer logos. And with detailed web analytics, they targeted the accounts at specific times. This personalized ads ABM strategy boosted DocuSign’s age views by 300% with a massive conversion rate! Personalized Website Experience Technology these days has expanded its horizons to provide incredible experiences, and personalized website experience is one of those. Once you get the technicalities right, your target accounts can have an out-of-the-world personalized experience when they visit the desired page or the website. Example: Savi provides sensor analytics solutions for organizations. Their main client bases are the ones that give critical decisions based on the location and status of people. Thus, Savi has to deal with private and government organizations. Therefore, as a part of specific marketing and sales strategy, they personalized their home pages differently for different clients. Thus, when government organizations the homepage was: And for the corporates, the page was: Ways to Implement ABM According to the 2020 State of ABM Report, 94.2% of respondents have successfully implemented this marketing strategy. Thus, you too can implement account-based marketing with these simple steps. Identify your high-value clients. Conduct extensive research on those clients. Strategize your personalized ABM campaigns. Implement the account-based marketing strategy. Analyze the campaign regularly. Importance of Personalization Personalization is a crucial part of account-based marketing. Your extensive research about the clients helps you craft unique, creative, and personalized content for them. A personalized experience ensures an enriched and engaging customer experience. If a campaign exclusively provides solutions to pain points, clients become customers for life. It also helps to develop good relations. Remember, account-based marketing is not only about conversions but also about creating brand awareness and relationships. As Andy Bacon, VP Consulting at Momentum, has quoted, “ABM is all about building better quality relationships; the ROI will follow.” Frequently Asked Questions Do different industries need different account-based marketing strategies? The meaning of account-based marketing is to provide tailored solutions to exclusive clients. So yes, different industries will require different ABM strategies. One should use distinct and personalized approaches to target different people of the same organization. However, you have to ensure that the marketing message is the same for all, despite the personalization. What are the different types of account-based marketing methods? The different types to implement ABM strategies are: Events Webinars Direct Mails Advertising Personalized Website Experience Social Media What role does personalization play in ABM? ABM is all about personalization. The more personalized your content is, the more likely the chances are for conversion. Imagine someone selling you a product designed just for solving your problems. You do not even need convincing if it is the answer to all your pain points. That is the same way in which ABM works. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [{ "@type": "Question", "name": "Do different industries need different account-based marketing strategies?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The meaning of account-based marketing is to provide tailored solutions to exclusive clients. So yes, different industries will require different ABM strategies. One should use distinct and personalized approaches to target different people of the same organization. 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Programmatic ABM

Article | June 9, 2022

If you’ve been keeping up with new terms in B2B marketing, by now you’ve likely heard of account-based marketing (ABM). The term itself has been around for years, but with recent advances in technology, this tactic is now being adopted at a much larger scale than ever before. Still, surprisingly, I find that many B2B marketers are in the dark when it comes to ABM. So here’s a quick look into the future of B2B enterprise marketing, and why I think account-based marketing will be one of the biggest revenue drivers for B2B businesses in the very near future.

Core ABM

Article | June 20, 2023

Account-based marketing is the ultimate personalization tool. Instead of incurring unnecessary marketing expenses, an account-centric strategy segregates vital business accounts and markets directly. This means, by appealing to specific market leaders, who can benefit from what your company has to offer, you can make marketing efforts more tailored and effective. ABM strategy is not new by any means. Still, it has gained widespread recognition over the past few years as it's evolved along with the progression of technology. An entirely tech-based, the marketing automation solutions have made account-based marketing more measurable and affordable for all-sized businesses. Thus, ABM automation gained pace. Research from Marketo suggests that account-based marketing delivers a better return on investment than other various strategies for 97% of marketers. Marketing automation plays a vital role in driving impressive results. It allows companies to target their outreach based on interests and actions. But what makes ABM automation win the rat race? ABM Automation: AI is the Driver The reason why ABM automation has recently emerged is the availability of AI. Initially, AI was used by ABM to propel the automatic selection of target accounts through predictive analytics. Also, it is driving intelligent marketing nurturing and other marketing responses based on how the targets respond, their needs, and so on. If you're targeting 100 accounts as potential new corporate customers, those accounts will visit different pages of your site. Some will download white papers and respond to emails. You will get leads from the targeted companies through these activities, and thus you can knock at their door. AI enables quick responding to a dynamically changing engagement in the ABM platform and delivers the best action. This is how automation with AI is emerging in ABM platforms. You can take four steps to automate your ABM to drive leads and create a successful ABM automated platform. 4 Steps to Plan ABM Automation Draw the Automation Cycle To start with ABM automation, firstly, create a blueprint of the targeted business. In this, you should identify the complete process of lead generation. The trail looks like; subscriber, lead, MQLs, SQLs, and a client to target. In this process, you cannot communicate at each phase. When one clicks on the particular link of your website, you should have a system-generated mail to send. Once you track the movement of the lead, quickly trigger the sales team to take the follow-ups. This saves the time of salespersons, and therefore ABM strategies are implemented wisely. Integrate your ABM automation software and CRM Before you build your account-based marketing campaigns, you'll have to integrate your ABM automation software and CRM. Integrating marketing automation tools is vital in the automation process. If your ABM software doesn't interact with the email marketing software, you won't be able to automate the process. In addition, if it doesn't relate to your CRM, it will be difficult to know if leads converted into accounts and track the ROI of an account-based campaign. So, to integrate ABM automation, you'll have to research and keep ICP, content, target accounts, and CRM all in one place. Tailor Your Content Ensure you're sending the right message to the right target account. Creating customized landing pages looking at how people have recently interacted with your brand is a great way to execute automation. Using ABM tools, you can automatically message target accounts with relevant messages when they engage with you and help you build the connections that become conversions. Create Dashboard to Assess Efforts The last step to automate your ABM platform is to track and measure the efforts you have put in to see information at-a-glance. You get information about your target accounts on your dashboard, such as open deals, company score, total pipeline, and the number of decision-makers identified. In addition, you should consider ongoing A/B tests when started with ABM automation. This is because you can see what messaging appeals to your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). ABM is a result-driven approach. ITSMA reports that 87% of marketers consider ABM as delivering the highest returns. But without automation, ABM becomes a strewn process. Marketing automation lets your team offer a personalized approach and immediate outreach with valuable content that pushes visitors to become regular clients. Thus, using ABM software tools — ideally the marketing automation tools — can help you automate and scale your strategy and adds value to your ABM efforts. Frequently Asked Questions What are the account-based marketing tactics? Account-based marketing uses hyper-personalized tactics to attract, engage, and convert high-value accounts. Similarly, it uses emails to contact existing customers and target consumers and social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and more to reach out to prospects. Why is an account-based marketing strategy so important? The importance of ABM lies in structuring marketing efforts and resources on key accounts to drive the most revenue. ABM maximizes the efficiency of your B2B marketing resources along with building the communication channel with sales to align with sales and marketing functions. How to create the automated ABM strategy? To create the automated ABM strategy, follow these steps: Create your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Align your target accounts Build campaigns Integrate ABM, marketing automation software, and CRM Personalize content Engage Set up a dashboard for assessment { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [{ "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the account-based marketing tactics?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Account-based marketing uses hyper-personalized tactics to attract, engage, and convert high-value accounts. Similarly, it uses emails to contact existing customers and target consumers and social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and more to reach out to prospects." } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "Why is an account-based marketing strategy so important?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The importance of ABM lies in structuring marketing efforts and resources on key accounts to drive the most revenue. ABM maximizes the efficiency of your B2B marketing resources along with building the communication channel with sales to align with sales and marketing functions." } },{ "@type": "Question", "name": "How to create the automated ABM strategy?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "To create the automated ABM strategy, follow these steps: Create your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Align your target accounts Build campaigns Integrate ABM, marketing automation software, and CRM Personalize content Engage Set up a dashboard for assessment" } }] }

Article | April 15, 2020

Understanding how a B2B buyer’s journey naturally progresses is key to designing a digital marketing program that works in any economic climate. When we do this with our clients, it allows us to see their marketing as a whole, rather than looking at isolated marketing tactics and getting overly focused on minor issues. Once we understand what’s already working for a client, we can then apply an informed strategy to amplify their successes. Occasionally, we may also recommend that a client step back from a few marketing tactics that might not be working well enough.