Tapping the right account-based marketing strategies is key and can be an excellent addition to your business strategy. You can attract, engage, and eventually convert high-value accounts by hyper-personalized tactics.
Although creating an ABM strategy can look like an overwhelming addition, the tactics you’re using in an ABM strategy aren’t that different from the ones you use inbound. You’ll likely be using the same strategy for both. However, you might be a little more specific regarding your ABM strategy.
What is Account-based Marketing?
If you have a campaign that targets a particular audience or organization, then account-based marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies that you can use.
Also known as key account marketing, this highly personalized strategy integrates insight-driven marketing with sales to boost awareness, foster relationships, and grow for high-value, high propensity accounts.
Now that we’ve talked about the basics, here are the best strategies that B2B companies can use:
1. Align content topic with your target audience
When it comes to blogs, webinars, eBooks, and guides, pick content topics based on your target audience’s needs. Doing so is a surefire way of capturing their attention.
Dig into specifics instead of general topics to know what your prospects care most about.
Always think of ways how you can provide value. If you want to win over key accounts, focus on accounts’ direct needs. Think about quality over quantity.
2. Segregate your data for easy evaluation
If you can create original data to develop reports and other types of content, this can be a virtual goldmine for ABM activities.
If you’re making a large-scale report, think of how data can be repurposed and segmented, tailoring it to a targeted account.
You can take a primary asset or report and then repackage this to specific industries, maturity levels, business sizes, etc. Not only is it excellent for ABM activities, but it also provides more bang for your buck out of the data.
3. Cold email campaigns should be personalized
Cold campaigns still work. Even without warming them up, it’s still possible to reach out to prospects. But it would be best if you didn’t dive in straight away.
After all, highly targeted and personalized email still accounts for at least 58% of business revenue. That’s why you shouldn’t blast them with cold emails straight away. Usually, these emails will be ignored or marked as spam, giving you less opportunity to reach out to them.
Personalization should extend to the body of the email itself. Therefore, ensure that you’re addressing the specific problems and pain points of your target audience and the customized solutions that you’ll be offering them.
4. Invest in good PR
It’s highly likely that you’re using a tried and tested call to action in your paid ads. It can be excellent for buyers at the bottom of the sales funnel. However, this strategy may not be as effective as those at the top of the funnel. These people aren’t even familiar or even remotely aware of what you’re offering.
It would help if you opted for ads that focus on the excellent PR that your brand gets. This includes all the awards and recognition you won or accumulated—having these ads provides strategic advantages to leads that are not familiar with you yet.
First, this boosts your credibility and trust. Second, this generates positive awareness, especially with the solutions you have to offer them. Finally, it creates a solid foundation for reaching out to your customers.
5. Collaborate on content with complementary brands
Another excellent way to expand your reach and let you come up with a highly targeted account-based marketing campaign is when you work on content with brands that are complementary to yours.
One way you can do this is to guest post on each other’s blogs through highly authoritative and insightful pieces. Collaborating in content creation also provides mutual benefits, providing more options for solutions and relevant products. For example, you might consider covering gaps in a broader service that the brand you’re collaborating with doesn’t cover.
Overall, this is a win-win situation since both parties will get the maximum exposure through these efforts.
6. Always publish research in good quality
If you’re focusing on specific accounts in your ABM campaigns, you need to ensure that it’s worth it. You have to prove that the solutions and products you offer are worth buying in the first place. One way that you can do that is through data backing particular claims and benefits. Doing so can work wonders for your ABM campaign.
It would help if you showed that what you’re offering them works. Case studies integrated with other forms of content are a fantastic way to show you in action.
7. Use a Top-rated ABM Software
The growth of account-based marketing leads to several ABM software solutions with different features.
At ABM Platform UK, we always tell clients that before you choose ABM software, you need to know what type of software you’ll be needing.
Usually, it fits one or two of these categories:
- Account selection. To identify accounts and individual decision-makers that you need to target.
- Advertising automation: Give personalized ads to targeted individuals
- Reporting and analytics: Offer a user-friendly way of tracking important performance metrics
- Personalization: Come up with highly customized CTAs and website experiences.
- Sales intelligence: Provide real-time insights for an integrated ABM software platform.
Aside from that, it should also be providing an ongoing integration and support for CRM and other essential systems.
Over to You
An ABM strategy isn’t different from your current inbound strategies. Therefore, you need to diversify the strategies that you’ll be using to attract more customers.
Doing so gives your team more flexibility and a more extensive customer base. By adding an ABM strategy, you’ll get to target large, complex deals that will need that extra amount of time and personalization.
Hopefully, you can apply these key account-based marketing strategies and capture your prospect’s attention. After all, implementing the proper account-based marketing is vital. Good luck!