What exactly is ABM? What results can it bring? And how can brands exploit the power of data and technology to deliver tailored messaging that addresses the needs of their individual customers?
Account based marketing (ABM), is a powerful tool for advertisers in the B2B space. For years, ABM has been a marketing industry buzzword, but with recent leaps and bounds in AI, along with the growing demands for personalisation, ABM has come into its own.
What is Account Based Marketing?
Formerly known as key account marketing, Account Based Marketing (ABM) is a B2B sales and marketing strategy that targets high-profile decision makers and high-performing companies. It aims to convert these attractive prospects into high-value customers, through engaging, personalised content.
Therefore, rather than ‘broadcasting’ to a wider audience, ABM takes a strategic marcoms approach, employing a ‘narrow-casting’ technique that focuses on targeting and engaging specific accounts with the most potential upside.
The idea is to closely align marketing and sales efforts to produce personalised, more resonating campaigns that foster deeper relationships to drive significant revenue growth.
However, there’s just one catch. ABM, like many things worth doing, can be difficult to achieve and it can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Although, that said, ABM is fast integrating with machine learning and AI technologies, and it is set fair for significant growth as organisations of all stripes take the techniques on board.
To run a successful ABM campaign, you need much more than a superficial understanding of your target accounts. You need to know in detail: What are their needs? Their aspirations? Their drivers? What are their pain points?
Even with the right technology, unearthing and assessing this ‘intel’ can still take time, and without the right levels of understanding, engagement and expertise, ABM campaigns can falter and fail to justify their investment.
How does ABM work?
ABM operates on the principle of treating each target account as a market of one.
So how can you get started?
- Pick your targets: The first step is to identify high-value accounts that are most likely to benefit from your product or service. This is where the lines between sales and marketing begin to blur in ABM as they collaborate and even integrate to select suitable targets. Techniques and criteria used for selecting these accounts may include ‘firmographics’ (i.e., demographic techniques applied to firms), technographic, and behavioural data.
- Do your research: Once target accounts are identified, you need to continue gathering detailed information about them. This calls for a deep understanding of their business needs, motivations, challenges and goals. AI has the potential to significantly enhance this step by revealing hidden insights through data analysis.
- Create insightful content: Based on the insights you have now gathered, you should be able to generate personalised content that shows you ‘get it’, and that addresses the pain points of each target account. So, what type of content resonates? If you’ve done your research, you should know, but it could be produced in the form of personalised emails, tailored landing pages, customised proposals and bespoke content offers.
- You’ll likely need more than one channel: Having picked your targets and drawn up your content, you’re now ready to engage and connect with them. Often, you’ll be communicating through multiple channels such as email, social media, direct mail and events. The key is to ensure consistency and relevance across all touchpoints to drive home your message.
- Measurement and optimisation: It could be said that ABM also stands for ‘always be measuring’ – you need to continuously and carefully measure what you do, gaining insights to refine your approach and optimise effectiveness. You’ll need to keep on top of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, pipeline velocity, lifetime value and ROI. Use this data to improve the impact of future activity.
- Scale up for success: Automation is the key to personalisation at scale; tools like intent tracking, chatbots, and personalised email automation are helping even small-to-medium enterprises utilise ABM as never before.
Leveraging Data and Technology in ABM
ABM thrives on data, and the integration of AI and advanced data analytics has revolutionised the field, enabling brands to deliver more precise and impactful personalisation. Here’s how your brand can leverage some of these techniques:
- Data Integration: Combining data from various sources, including CRM systems, social media, and third-party data providers, delivers a comprehensive view of each account.
AI can sift through this data to identify patterns and insights that might be missed by the human eye.
- Predictive Analytics: AI-powered predictive analytics can forecast the future behaviour of target accounts based on historical data. This gives marketers the power to anticipate needs and proactively address them, making their outreach more relevant.
- Automated Personalisation: AI can automate the personalisation process by dynamically generating personalised content for each account. This could include personalised email subject lines, content recommendations, and even website experiences tailored to the visitor’s profile. However, AI is not infallible, and its content must always be thoroughly vetted before it goes out the door.
- Enhanced Targeting: AI can help in refining target account lists by identifying new accounts that match the profile of existing high-value customers. This ensures that marketing efforts are directed towards accounts with the highest potential for conversion and revenue delivery.
Bringing it all together
For example, for our client Phi Partners, who are offering a new, capital markets trading technology housed in the cloud, we developed a highly targeted and continually optimised ABM campaign, aimed at a global audience of niche bankers.
After carefully analysing research conducted by the client, we identified our primary audience; 130 key decision-makers across 85 banks in key technology-based roles, including CTOs. Crucial influencers in other tech roles at target banks, along with other influencers in financial, operating and trading roles, comprised our secondary and tertiary audiences.
We created a comprehensive audience journey from discovery to conversion, with a lot of supporting educational material. A teaser email from the CEO to the core audience was followed by a video card direct mail piece, which directed the reader to our client’s landing page. The three-month campaign also included e-shots, infographics and blog posts, along with sponsored LinkedIn and thought leadership posts. Plus, additional content for retargeting other engaged users.
Within a week of receiving the video cards, four CTOs made direct calls looking for more information, And the campaign eventually produced seven Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) worth potentially worth 75% more than the KPI, while organic web traffic grew by almost half and LinkedIn page impressions rose 127%.
In conclusion… Content is still king, but in the future, it will be increasingly personalised and optimised. And as personalisation tools become more accessible and affordable, businesses of all shapes and sizes will be able to harness the power of ABM to drive growth.
