How to Reach Decision-makers with ABM Marketing Content

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has evolved as a strategic approach that aligns sales and marketing activities towards specific clients in the ever-changing world of B2B marketing. It is a highly personalised strategy aimed at providing bespoke experiences to a restricted number of high-value accounts. ABM has been shown to outperform traditional marketing tactics in terms of ROI, making it an essential component of modern B2B marketing. This article digs into how to successfully deliver content to decision-makers, when developing an ABM marketing plan. 

Covered in this article

Understanding ABM
Aligning Sales and Marketing
Identifying High-Value Accounts
Personalising Your Marketing Approach
Distributing Your Marketing Content
Measuring Your Success
Your Step-by-Step ABM Guide

Understanding ABM

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a hyper-targeted marketing approach where marketing and sales teams collaborate to deliver personalised experiences for a mutually-identified set of “qualified” accounts. Unlike traditional marketing, which focuses on generating as many leads as possible, ABM emphasises quality over quantity. It targets specific accounts with the best revenue potential and leverages technology to serve personalised messages to these accounts. This results in shorter sales cycles, fewer wasted resources, and a more predictable ROI.

ABM is not a new concept, but its adoption has seen a significant increase in recent years. According to studies by ITSMA and ABM Leadership Alliance, ABM has consistently outperformed traditional marketing approaches in multiple critical areas, with 45% of ABM-oriented organisations generating more than twice the ROI realised from other marketing strategies. This demonstrates the effectiveness and potential of ABM as a marketing strategy.

Aligning Sales and Marketing

The first step in an effective ABM strategy is aligning your sales and marketing teams. This is a crucial step because ABM requires a high level of collaboration between these two teams. Both teams need to agree on the characteristics that define a “best-fit” account, how each account compares in terms of quality, the number of resources to be allocated, the specific roles required for a seamless customer transition between marketing and sales activities, as well as metrics that define the success of the ABM campaign.

Alignment between sales and marketing teams is not just about agreeing on targets. It also involves creating a shared language and understanding of the customer journey. This ensures that both teams are on the same page and working towards the same goal. It also fosters a culture of collaboration and mutual respect, which is essential for the success of any ABM strategy.

Identifying High-Value Accounts

The next step is to identify high-value accounts. This involves collaboration between marketing and sales teams to define what qualifies as a high-value account. High-value prospects can be found within your list of existing clients, your clients and past clients’ competitors, and companies that have multiple touchpoints with your marketing channels.

Identifying high-value accounts is not just about looking at revenue potential. It also involves understanding the needs and challenges of these accounts, their business goals, and their decision-making processes. This information is crucial in crafting personalised marketing messages that resonate with these accounts.

It's also important to identify key decision-makers within these companies for better results. These are the people who have the power to make purchasing decisions, and reaching out to them directly can significantly increase your chances of success.

Personalising Your Marketing Approach

Once you've identified your high-value accounts, the next step is to create personalised marketing content for each target account. This can be done through social media, email, and even offline channels. The goal is to design your marketing content to match your target accounts’ individual needs. Generalised content will defeat the goal of your ABM tactics.

Personalisation in ABM goes beyond just addressing the recipient by their name in emails. It involves understanding the unique needs and challenges of each account and tailoring your content and messaging to address these needs. This level of personalisation shows your target accounts that you understand their business and are capable of providing solutions to their specific challenges. It also helps to build trust and credibility, which are crucial in the B2B sales process.

Distributing Your Marketing Content

When it comes to distributing your marketing content, it's crucial to leverage the right platforms and strategies to reach your target audience effectively. Here are some insights from various sources on how to use Facebook and LinkedIn for your marketing efforts.

Facebook for Account-Based Marketing

Facebook can be a powerful tool for account-based marketing. It allows you to create custom audiences based on specific criteria, such as demographics, interests, and behaviours. You can also use Facebook's Lookalike Audiences feature to reach people who are similar to your existing customers. This can be particularly useful for expanding your reach and attracting new potential customers.

Facebook offers a wide range of targeting options that can be used to reach specific audiences. Some examples of these targeting options include:

1. Demographic targeting: This allows you to target specific age ranges, genders, locations, and languages.

2. Interest targeting: This allows you to target users based on their interests and hobbies, as indicated by their activity on Facebook.

3. Behaviour targeting: This allows you to target users based on their past online and offline behaviour, such as their purchase history or devices used.

4. Custom audiences: This allows you to target users based on specific lists, such as email lists or phone numbers.

5. Lookalike audiences: This allows you to target users who are similar to your existing customers or website visitors.

LinkedIn for Account-Based Marketing

LinkedIn offers a unique feature called  Matched Audiences, which allows you to deliver marketing messages based on website retargeting, account targeting, and email contact targeting. Here's how you can use these features:

1. Website Retargeting: This feature allows you to market to LinkedIn members who have visited your website. You can define target audiences and deliver relevant ad content based on the pages people visited on your site.

2. Account Targeting: This feature helps you reach decision-makers within your target accounts. You can run account-based marketing campaigns and upload a list of target companies to match against the 8+ million Company Pages on LinkedIn.

3. Contact Targeting: This feature allows you to upload or integrate your contact lists. You can build a customized audience by uploading your email address lists or connecting your contact management platform.

In addition to these features, LinkedIn also provides a unique and convenient way to target members by company, industry, skills, titles, and more. This can be particularly useful for reaching the people you already know and want to engage with your content.

By leveraging these features and strategies, you can effectively distribute your marketing content and reach your target audience on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Measuring Your Success

Finally, it's crucial to set up a system for tracking the performance of your campaigns. ABM approaches measurement differently because you won’t necessarily need to focus on clicks, page views, and impressions. Instead, you will monitor how companies interact with your brand’s social accounts, websites, and even sales teams. The aim is to see if you’ve been able to make each target company develop more interest in your organisation.

Measuring the success of your ABM strategy involves looking at both quantitative and qualitative metrics. Quantitative metrics include things like engagement rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated. Qualitative metrics, on the other hand, include things like customer satisfaction, brand perception, and customer loyalty. By looking at both types of metrics, you can get a comprehensive view of the effectiveness of your ABM strategy.

Your Step-by-Step ABM Guide

Account-Based Marketing is a powerful marketing strategy that can yield significant results when implemented correctly. By aligning your sales and marketing teams, identifying high-value accounts, personalising your marketing approach, and measuring your success, you can effectively distribute content to decision-makers and drive your ABM strategy to success.

1. Align Sales and Marketing Teams: The first step is to ensure that your sales and marketing teams are aligned and working towards the same goals. This involves defining what a high-value account looks like, agreeing on the roles and responsibilities of each team, and setting common objectives and metrics for success.

2. Identify High-Value Accounts: Using your agreed-upon criteria, identify the high-value accounts that you want to target. This could be based on potential revenue, strategic importance, market influence, or other factors that are relevant to your business.

3. Research and Understand Your Target Accounts: Once you've identified your target accounts, conduct in-depth research to understand their business needs, challenges, and decision-making processes. This information will be crucial in crafting personalised marketing messages.

4. Identify Key Decision Makers: Within each target account, identify the key decision makers who have the power to make purchasing decisions. These are the people you will need to engage with your marketing efforts.

5. Develop Personalised Marketing Content: Based on your understanding of each target account, develop personalised marketing content that addresses their specific needs and challenges. This could include tailored email campaigns, customised landing pages, personalised social media ads, and more.

6. Distribute Content: Distribute your personalised content through the appropriate channels. This could include email, social media, your website, or even direct mail. The key is to reach your target decision-makers where they are most likely to engage with your content. Just be cognisant of any applicable acts and legislations that might prohibit certain distribution methods. 

7. Engage and Nurture: Once your content is out there, engage with your target accounts and nurture these relationships. This could involve following up on content they've engaged with, answering their questions, providing additional information, and more.

8. Measure and Optimise: Finally, measure the success of your ABM strategy and optimise as necessary. This could involve tracking engagement rates, conversion rates, revenue generated, and other relevant metrics. Use this data to refine your strategy and improve your results over time.