Meta: ABM is often misunderstood. It’s touted as a magic wand. It’s not. It’s so much more.

You’ve heard ABM campaigns work and that they’ll fix your pipeline problems.

Gartner reported in 2021 that programs that assign 32% of their budget to ABM campaigns had a high-quality pipeline.

Yet, many have found that their ABM campaigns are not working. And you’ve done all of it— identified accounts interested in offers similar to yours, accounts with intent, and everything a good ABM practice should entail.

But it just doesn’t work. Where are the high-quality pipelines that the statistics had promised you?

Leads are still down.

Marketing campaigns are still not reaching their audience. But trust in ABM is at an all-time high.

Why wouldn’t it be? It’s an effective way. But only when done right.

Businesses are missing a vital piece of the ABM puzzle: the multiple stakeholders.

Stakeholders and decision-makers have a list. And perhaps, you’re not on it.

The accounts you’re targeting have a committee of around 11 buyers (on average). These decision-makers, like most people, have vested interests that they wish to achieve from the sale. Maybe the CSO wants a tool with better security and integration. The CTO wants a tool that seamlessly collects and collates data.

There are many cases where the committee will want different things. But they’re working for one common goal: The organization’s profits.

To keep their vested interests protected and ensure organizational growth, the buyers come to a compromise— they create a list of vendors they would want to work with. This list is a shared one.

And as HBR puts it, 90% of the buyers buy from this list.

Even if you use ABM, if you’re not on the list, your tactics are going to be futile.

The solution is straightforward.

Multi-stakeholder engagement is the secret recipe to ABM.

Now that the secret’s out. What can you do about it?

ABM is not easy.

It’s resource-intensive, requires personalization, and a molecular understanding of the buyers. This is where most teams mess up.

ABM is not what the blogs are telling you— they lack depth and nuance to explain a complex process. And the fulcrum of this process lies in multi-stakeholder engagement.

Your first step for ABM is to understand if your budget allows for it. A chat with your finance team comes way before strategy and planning.

If yes, then

Identification

You must discover your high-value accounts.

• What problem is your product solving?
• Why is it solving it?
• How?

When you answer simple (yet multi-faceted) questions like these, you understand what market you’re catering to and the specific gaps you solve.

Once you have that, you have your high-value accounts.

1. In comes intent.

You can either use tools like 6Sense, Bombora, or an agency like your very own Ciente to discover the intent behind these accounts.

1. Are they actively looking for solutions?
2. Why?

But now comes the tricky part— competition and the list play a huge part in this.

Whatever solution you’re solving probably has industry leaders or a fair amount of competition. Your accounts/buyers are so self-aware that they know about the risks in their industry before even knowing about your solution.

That list helps them narrow down the options. And it is this list that you must influence.

There are a lot of conversations regarding ABM, but the one mistake everyone seems to make is not understanding that it isn’t a plan but a strategy to create a ripple effect. And that takes time. Quite a lot of it. For a successful ABM campaign, you have to start by engaging the buying committee. And how will you know who’s on it?

Spray and pray?

Two Methods

In a conversation with our CMO, the marketing team asked her: What actually runs the ABM campaign? Can you identify the stakeholders without talking to someone in the organization?

The answer she gave drives our conversations here. She said, “It’s not the person who visits the website a few times. That’s just interest. But if you see a whole group of people on your website or product listing and they’re from the same organization, you can bet some of those are going to be decision-makers or at least people in the know-how. We can start there.”

That’s the first one. The second one is a bit simpler but a bit on the expensive side.

Essentially, you will be running a campaign on your account. To everyone. The C-suites. The directors. The board.

This data is public knowledge. But that does not mean you just start blasting them with messages; your campaigns should reflect the role of the people involved and the specific problem you solve for them. From your email marketing campaigns and ads to informational content, all of it will be focused, in some way, to cater to your accounts’ needs.

This is resource-heavy because it requires hyper-personalization. This is what the successful ABM campaigns you hear about are doing.

Sales’ Role

Without your sales team’s active involvement, your engagement strategy is bound to fail. At the end of the day, no matter what the ABM campaign does, your SDRs must convey the same energy.

The faltering of your promise or over-promising something that does not exist will not be good for your sales teams. Ideally, after an ABM campaign, you would want them to call you.

But, ideal scenarios rarely pan out; there will be moments where your SDRs will have to call multiple people at the same time. They will have to ensure brand voice and understand the problem.

And they have to be savvy enough to have a conversation with them instead of pushing for an aggressive sell. As they will be engaging people who share common information and communication space, their job would be to: –

1. Create goodwill and trust.
2. Foster relationships
3. Act as consultants

The great news is that your sales teams know buyers better than marketing teams. All the marketing department needs to do is give them brand guidelines— the perception you want to display.

The rest is up to them. And seldom sales team fail at that.

As their support, you will have to: –

1. Craft sales enablement
2. Create brand guidelines – think TOV but personalized for the sales team.
3. Highlights of the product
4. Product demos and all relevant material.

As you work your way through ABM, you will realize.

ABM will not be a fix if you get stuck in rigidity.

There are a lot of ABM playbooks out there. The marketing noise, as the industry calls it. From ABA to personalization-at-scale, there are a lot of plays marketers are vying for.

But the industry needs to wake up to reality— the rigidity is not working. Either marketing is high art or it’s a thing to over-optimize.

Some traditional methods still work irrespective of what gurus say, and the converse is also true. But what’s not working is playing it safe.

And ABM does not work on safety. It is risk and wallet-intensive. ABM is the hunt, and make no mistake, the multiple stakeholders of any given account are your trophies.

It’s an obvious indication that cold calling and other conventional lead generation strategies aren’t working as well as they once did. Companies should reconsider their B2B marketing strategies. And the answer lies in account-based marketing (ABM).

Instead of chasing every lead, ABM focuses on targeting specific accounts that are most likely to turn customers. The marketing professionals then provide them with personalized content at every stage of their buyer journey. For businesses, this means:

1. More effective marketing campaigns
2. Less wasted resources
3. Higher ROI
4. Greater customer satisfaction

So, if you are still thinking about whether to make the switch from traditional lead generation to ABM, this blog will explain how both approaches differ and why ABM emerges as the winner. So, let’s dive in!

ABM vs. Lead Generation: What Sets Them Apart?

The ultimate goal of both traditional lead generation and account-based marketing (ABM) is to push revenue growth for businesses by acquiring new customers. Still, both these approaches take a different route to reach there. So, let’s understand the difference between ABM and traditional lead generation approach in detail:

Targeting Approach

Traditional Lead Generation

It focuses on contacting a large pool of people who may or may not be interested in making a purchase. Businesses generally use these tactics:

1. Email Campaigns: Companies send emails to large lists of contacts with generalized content and offers.
2. Print Advertising: Ads and offers are placed in local publications to direct customers to a landing page or phone number.
3. Referrals: Companies ask loyal clients to spread the word or offer them incentives for the same.

While these are some of the top approaches, their success rate is under question. For email campaigns, the open rate is just 37.27%, whereas the global average referral rate is just 2.35%. Thus, the likelihood of conversion is quite low when using traditional lead generation methods.

Account-Based Marketing

On the other hand, ABM determines certain high-value clients (individuals or companies) that are most suitable for the business’s goods or services. The companies then tailor messaging and strategies to those individual accounts by addressing their pain points and needs. The following are some of the ABM tactics:

1. Account Profiling: Companies use data analytics tools to find target accounts based on industry, company size, revenue, and pain points.
2. Personalized Outreach: Direct mail, content marketing, and ad targeting are used to pinpoint the lead’s pain points directly.

As per Gartner, companies using ABM see a 28% increase in overall account engagement rates.

Cost and ROI

Traditional Lead Generation

Traditional lead generation techniques, such as cold calling, email marketing, and referrals, generally have lower costs. Companies save money using generic materials (like mass email templates, flyers, and blog posts) to attract a large audience. This is because conventional approaches frequently prioritize numbers over quality.

Traditional lead generation techniques can produce a lot of leads, but because many might not match the ideal customer profile (ICP), conversion rates may be usually low. Compared to more focused tactics, this results in a lesser return on investment. So, companies frequently need lead nurturing, which ultimately increases the costs of getting a lead.

Account-Based Marketing

Businesses have higher upfront costs for personalized outreach and custom content that cater to the needs of each account. This cost includes investing in account profiling, gathering detailed data, and utilizing advanced tools to track account behavior.

Since ABM focuses efforts on accounts that closely match the ideal customer profile (ICP), it is more likely to result in high-quality conversions. According to a Forrester study, ABM yielded 21% to 50% higher ROI than non-ABM marketing efforts, with around 23% of all global respondents reporting that the ROI of ABM was 51% to 200% higher.

Scalability

Traditional Lead Generation

Scaling lead generation through cold calling and referrals is tough because it depends on manual effort and personal connections. However, other methods of lead generation ( lead gen email campaigns, digital ads) are highly scalable if automation tools and digital marketing platforms are used. Mailchimp, HubSpot, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads help businesses to easily target audiences at scale without requiring significant hands-on effort from the marketing team.

Moreover, 84% of the B2B marketers agreed that content marketing helped build brand awareness among people. This is because blog posts and downloadable resources that are created once can be used multiple times. As a result, businesses can reach thousands of potential leads at once.

However, scaling traditional lead generation also comes with challenges. As the focus is always on maintaining the volume, scaling means gathering more low-quality leads unless the business invests heavily in segmentation.

Account-Based Marketing

In the ABM vs. lead generation discussion, the former is generally perceived as less scalable due to its personalized and account-specific approach. Every account in ABM requires tailored content that will address their specific pain points and needs. This personalization can make ABM resource-intensive and difficult to scale quickly.

Despite its challenges, advanced ABM software such as Demandbase can help marketers scale their efforts. These tools automate the creation of personalized messages, track account engagement, and adjust strategies in real-time. Moreover, companies can scale ABM by targeting new verticals or segments where high-value accounts exist.

Sales Cycle

Traditional Lead Generation

The first interaction through methods like cold calling, email marketing, or paid advertising is generally with everyone, whether they want the product/service or not. If any of these leads express slight interest, they are nurtured further with offers or educational materials. Finally, the sales teams are involved when nurtured leads show higher engagement, such as asking for a demo or trial. Thus, the overall process may take a few weeks to several months, depending on the interest level of the leads.

Account-Based Marketing

ABM often results in higher-value deals and quicker conversions since sales efforts are focused on accounts that have a high chance of converting. The reason is that the account is already very engaged, and the communication is tailored to the individual needs. The process is more effective than traditional lead targeting and thus frequently leads to a shorter sales cycle, typically a few weeks.

Thus, when comparing ABM and lead generation, the former is a more effective strategy than the latter.

Effective Targeting: When to Choose ABM and How Data Powers It?

ABM is best suited for companies that want to target high-value accounts that require enterprise-level and customized solutions. Such companies can include enterprise software solution providers, IT consulting firms, cybersecurity services, B2B service providers, etc.

However, these companies require high-quality & relevant lead data to implement ABM. Businesses can identify the accounts most likely to interact and convert by collecting precise and current data related to their target audience. For this, web scraping, cleaning, enrichment, and validation are some of the essential data procedures. Let’s take a closer look at them.

Essential Data Procedures for Effective ABM

Web Scraping for B2B Data

B2B data is collected from online sources like company pages, job portals, news platforms, and social media accounts. The data points include names of high-level executives and managers, their contact information, LinkedIn profiles, company feedback from customers posted on social media or forums, and any information about any recent launches or updates.

Data Processing and Validation

This step involves removing duplicate entries & outdated information, filling in missing details, and standardizing data formats. After data cleansing and refreshment, cross-referencing is done with existing databases and other sources to check the information.

List Building for Targeted Leads

Once the data is updated, it is segmented to create target lists of leads or accounts that meet specific criteria for effective marketing and sales campaigns.

Businesses require standardized processes, data scraping and cleansing tools, and a staff of specialists to handle this complete data lifecycle. If handling this internally seems too much work, companies should seek third-party providers.

Selecting the Best Service Providers for ABM

When businesses hire service providers for ABM, it’s essential to choose partners who have not lead-generation services and custom list-building services. Here’s what businesses should look for:

1. ABM providers who have deep knowledge of B2B marketing strategies to identify high-value accounts and decision-makers.
2. Providers who follow ethical and legal data collection practices and adhere to compliance regulations.
3. Providers who offer flexible segmentation of data based on criteria like company size, industry, location, or specific needs
4. Outsourcing teams that update the list regularly to keep up with industry changes or lead status shifts
5. The data provided seamlessly integrates with your existing CRM and marketing tools, allowing easy tracking, segmentation, and follow-up on targeted accounts
6. Providers who can scale marketing and data support as the business grows without compromising on quality

Conclusion

ABM is a better approach for companies targeting high-value accounts with tailored messaging than traditional lead generation. These days, businesses are concentrating on real-time intent data for ABM campaigns, utilizing AI-powered solutions to automate tedious activities, and outsourcing list-building services to obtain precise account data. If you keep all this in mind and target customers using ABM, it will promote more business growth, quicker conversions, and deeper engagement.

Businesses are determined to derive the maximum value from their efforts. How can they spearhead their strategies toward the most promising accounts?

In the era of hyper-digitization, originality has taken a back seat. Every approach, which promises to be different, lacks authenticity and a voice that calls out to the masses. The essence at the base of almost everything entails a specific monotony.

It is prevalent in marketing.

ABM used to be a niche practice, but today it’s become a common B2B marketing strategy. Initially, the focus was only on leveraging this hands-on approach for long-term growth and a handful of accounts.

But with the increasing market competition and customer demands, different priorities were introduced in marketing. There was a pressing question as to why ABM was being used in the first place. We know the answer now – to create trust and a loyal relationship with the buying committee.

Modern marketing has a focused approach toward ABM strategies – one that is as narrow as it could possibly be – fewer but high-value accounts. It’s not about catching just any fish in the sea, but the ones with the highest conversion potential.

Overall, finding the key focus on which to base the strategies will always remain a forerunner.

The primary undertaking is not forgetting the lighthouse accounts and understanding the exact nuances to make the targeting more effective. Thus, a strategic ABM approach has helped curate user-specific content and segmented email marketing campaigns.

Marketing, at its crux, is about creativity and unique storytelling that offers significant value to those at the receiving end of it. This should be evident, not in the technical functionalities, but in campaign creation and execution.

It is where creativeness in marketing shines the most – across its practical application.

And some intelligent brands understand how this aspect is to be leveraged for their profit. From GumGum and Intridea to Snowflake and DocuSign, their marketing teams knew what should be done to gauge the attention of some of the leading companies.

But before diving into campaign strategies that worked for these brands, why not outline the basics of the know-how of effective ABM?

The Purpose Behind Running an ABM Campaign

If we wish to understand a single point, we can say that – because, according to Salesforce, B2B organizations with a robust ABM strategy have reported 38% win rates and 24% revenue growth.

While these stats facilitate brands to implement ABM in their marketing plans, is it as easy as just going ahead and implementing one? Not quite.

It requires in-depth research and planning on the marketers’ side to create a workable strategy for a brand.

Marketers have noticed how attention-deficit users have become. It often ranges from a few minutes to an entire customer lifecycle, but it is what marketers seek. The objective of any campaign is to grab and maintain a prospect’s attention.

In the times of scrollable 10-second long short-form videos, this is not easy at all.

Imagine the complexity of grabbing an individual’s attention as well as swaying their opinions. Now, consider the B2B landscape and the group of key decision-makers.

How complex would that be?

Trust is that commodity that offers to tie the threads together. And this is often introduced through personalized marketing campaigns such as ABM. Once the prospect starts hearing out what the brand offers, a marketer knows the prospect is engaged. One has to take the first leap towards this initial stage.

Afterward, when the prospect has converted into a buyer, the objective is to stay on top of their mind. If a brand loses this connection with a customer, it’s possible to lose out on them as clients. Hence, the steps after a successful purchase also hold significant weight.

The reasons for developing an ABM strategy are ample. However, they might not always work or drive results like Intridea or Personify did with their campaigns. For the strategy to one, there should be a focus – treating a single high-value account as the target market.

Technically, it’s changing the psychology behind how, as a marketer, one approaches a prospect. Concentrating on one account to theoretically encompass the significance of the entire target market can make a difference.

It has to go hand-in-hand with the traditional and the modern lead gen techniques instead of totally rendering them aside.

A Glimpse at the Key Aspects of Great ABM Campaigns

To ideally align with other marketing campaigns, what does a 360-degree, all-inclusive, and tailored ABM tactic entail?

1. It focuses on high-value accounts – the ones with the maximum conversion potential. The initial stage is identifying the correct accounts and those willing to spend through comparison and contrast. Leverage your CRM platforms that offer a 360-degree view of all the accounts.
2. You’re using the channels with the highest engagement. Personalized storytelling that caters to the heart of the decision-makers paired with a suitable channel can drive a lot of prospects to the next step of the funnel.
3. There is no disconnect between sales and marketing. Often, these teams’ functionalities don’t often align with each other. The goals are divided or unclear. But for campaigns to work, both teams should streamline their objectives to offer a consistent experience across all touchpoints.
4. Your brand has a trust-based and loyal connection with the buyers. Buyers are also humans and not merely a revenue source. Hence, connecting with them is highly vital to form a long-lasting relationship.
5. There are performance metrics and roadmaps set in place. Marketing is not only about creation and execution. It’s also about what comes after. How else will the team know what is amiss? Sometimes, the strategies don’t work in one go, so refining them is necessary to witness results.

Because an ABM strategy cannot just work wonders on its own, it requires support and consistent reshaping. Especially when brands carry out a multi-channel approach to boost their campaigns’ reach, ABM must complement the others, increasing their effectiveness.

It increases the sense of urgency and significance on one account, as losing it would lead to losing the entire market standing. A sturdy ABM campaign will allow businesses to retain these accounts for a long time while elevating the generated revenue.

But first, decide whether ABM is right for the brand to avoid unnecessary waste of resources.

A couple of leading brands did this. They found out that ABM actually works for them and crafted effective and praiseworthy ABM campaigns, illustrating a significant boost in their revenue.

Five Global Brands with Great ABM Campaigns

GumGum

GumGum, a global leader in computer intelligence, has one objective – innovate digital advertising through AI-empowered solutions. It leverages AI to assess text, video, and audio and then derive insights from the data gathered. It allows them to help their clients place their ads in the best possible location.

GumGum had one goal in sight – securing a loyal partnership with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile is a subsidiary of the German mobile telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom AG, with 230 million subscribers across the globe. And engaging them would be no easy feat.

To engage T-Mobile and persuade them to a deal, GumGum researched their client vigorously. They found that T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere, is enthusiastic about Batman. After gaining this information, their marketing team curated a tailored approach to gain the prospect’s attention, facilitating them to engage with GumGum. GumGum created several copies of a comic book with two superheroes – T-Man and Gums, aligning with the T-Mobile CEO’s interest.

The comic was titled “T-Man and Gums, the Girl Wonder, in the Data Knight.” Data Knight – owing to the movie, “Dark Knight,” which reflected how cautiously the marketing team at GumGum had researched and considered their prospect’s preferences – personalizing their initial engagement with T-Mobile. They sent over 100 copies of this comic to T-Mobile’s offices.

Their ABM campaign helped them land T-Mobile with ease due to hyper-personalization and unparalleled creativity in their campaign. By keeping the potential client, instead of themselves, as the leading hero, GumGum expressed the need for a trustworthy partner.

2. Snowflake

Snowflake is a cloud-based data storage organization. Being a scalable and cost-effective cloud data warehouse, Snowflake can scale its platform up and down to accommodate, integrate, and analyze data.

Hence, this made it possible to run several workloads virtually without any worries about resource contention.

Snowflake used to face a crucial problem – their advertisements and promotions didn’t receive enough click-throughs from their high-priority accounts. They had to transform their advertising campaigns to increase the number of clicks and significantly improve their conversion rates.

How could Snowflake make their prospects feel significant and not just one among many?

ABM came to their rescue. Their marketing team adopted a strategic approach where personalized ads were curated to resonate and engage their audience. The generic ad content was removed. Snowflake leveraged personalized and customized content to catch the accounts’ attention.

“We knew that to hit our targets, we were going to have to be laser-focused with the resources available to us,” said the Director of ABM at Snowflake.

They not only created personalized content that would remain consistent for similar accounts but rather developed customized attributes for each account they wished to target. Each target profile for them was unique.

How did they pull this off?

They did this by ensuring seamless alignment between their marketing and sales teams. Snowflake built a team of six dedicated marketers who simultaneously ran 500 one-on-one ABM campaigns. Their custom-made content, when perceived, seems to communicate with one potential client. It’s part of a library of such content published openly on their platform.

By not locking their content behind the gates, Snowflake’s initial step was to establish credibility. Now, 50% of their content is downloaded by their top 500 target accounts – only engaging those they want to convert – casting a narrower net.

Snowflake has. one could say, mastered the art of creating a successful ABM campaign.

3. Personify

Personify, a community experience platform, holds a digital suite of products meant to help non-profits and similar member-based businesses. Some of its services comprise membership management, event management, and productivity tools.

Amber Whatley, the first member of the demand gen team at Personify, discerned that the company required a dedicated ABM approach. The traditional tactics weren’t working out for Personify’s targeted market.

With an extremely limited budget, Amber and her team could only target specific fishes in the pond. Any alternative deemed impossible. So, the primary step was to align product marketing and sales to help find the ICP, considering their annual revenue and staff size and deciding the threshold.

This gave them a priority account list to target within the ICP. After this, they outlined the key segments and the personas within the buying centers. The next significant step here was to create personalized experiences for the buying committee. It must also be aligned with each persona’s positioning in the buyer’s journey.

The marketing team at Personify curated digital ad campaigns tailored around the sales funnel stage, persona, and company size, among others. It refined its ABM strategies to create brand awareness and boost engagement.

By tailoring a well-structured ABM campaign, Personify developed convincing arguments which appealed to the key personas. How? Marketing would discern the content each persona engages with and communicate this to sales. Sales would introduce topics the personas previously interacted with during their negotiation stage.

Collating accurate data about their audience and creating personalized messages improved their revenue stream by a large margin.

This is why Personify’s ABM campaign is one of the best.

4. DocuSign

DocuSign is a leading platform for streamlined digital agreements and signatures. With everything becoming digitized, an increasing number of businesses are sealing contracts online. And DocuSign is their go-to for a legally binding and seamlessly functioning platform.

DocuSign illustrated how ABM works better than prevalent conventional methodologies. They wanted to boost sign-ups on their gated content and the conversion rates of their high-value accounts. Additionally, there was an increasing need to drive traffic and boost CTRs for their ads.

With accounts spanning six diverse industrial domains, how could they manage all the leads?

DocuSign boosted its marketing campaign with a robust inbound strategy.

Their strategy was well-thought-out and straightforward – launching a creative display ad campaign to over 450 accounts. The ads comprised very specific visuals and messages, including whitepapers, case studies, and testimonials.

The crux of their ABM strategy was a tailored approach – from websites to logos and ads curated for each industry and across different buying stages. These were then integrated into their online platform to help reach the targeted accounts.

DocuSign’s ABM campaign was backed by content optimization and data analytics to ensure that the content reaches the right accounts at the ideal time. Through well-outlined web analytics, they were able to refine their content.

The results? A 22% increase in the sales pipeline, a 59% engagement rate, and a drastic decrease in bounce rates from 39% to 14%.

5. Intridea (now acquired by Mobomo)

Intridea is globally known for curating intuitive and straightforward web applications for optimized user experiences. They offer diverse web products and services for startups as well as enterprise clients.

Intridea’s executive idea behind this billboard campaign was simple – to catch the attention of one of the biggest advertising firms, Ogilvy & Mather. This unconventional campaign targeted a single account but a quite high-value one.

This customized billboard was set up near Ogilvy’s Manhattan office and challenged them to hire Intridea. After all, only a giant billboard would engage an advertising giant, isn’t it? The billboard had one personalized message “Ogle this, Ogilvy” with a URL leading them to Intridea’s cofounder’s profile, hoping the former would request a meeting.

This not only highlighted Intridea’s creative brilliance but also made them stand out among its competitors. And obviously, their campaign didn’t go to waste.

Intridea received a call from Ogilvy’s office to arrange a meeting.

What did we take away from these ABM campaigns?

The key takeaway here is sometimes traditional marketing means (with a modern twist) do contribute significantly to marketing efforts. It doesn’t always have to be a billboard, but dragging someone’s attention from the screen is a feat. And with the right advertising tactics, it wouldn’t be difficult to engage an account – be it offline or online.

As the great ABM campaigns outlined above, meticulously planned and executed strategies can work wonders to generate ROI for a business. ABM marketing, in its own right, ticks the right boxes – from targeting high-value accounts and shortening the sales cycle to boosting ROI and adopting customer-centrism.

ABM is more than just a marketing trend.

ABM is no longer a business trend but a resource – a catalyst that can elevate pipeline conversion rates by over 14%, says Gartner. Implementing it with the right expertise can prove transformative for a business.

And in the long term, harnessing ABM with the dynamic prowess of intent data can prove beneficial for modern marketing in the long term.

We are told that this appeals to a nostalgic past where simplicity and generality were the only way. But in an age where users lack the child-like wonder of the olden days, we are desperate for something fresh and unique.

We want to ask whether this is due to an exaggerated use of emerging tech at hand. But we are cautious – the answer might be an echo that we brought this upon themselves. And now we have to adapt and navigate the gloomy waters.

Data is a critical component of a successful ABM strategy. How can you leverage data-driven insights for effective marketing?

Designing a winning ABM strategy begins with market research, understanding your prospects and their buying patterns, and aligning sales and marketing teams to pursue the accounts. In this article, we have compiled resources to help you utilize data-driven insights to enhance the performance of ABM campaigns and achieve the desired outcomes.

Accelerating ABM with data

The success of ABM is paramount, with the tailored messages and personalized customer experience. And without data-driven insights, it can be challenging to hit the mark. The secret to accelerating the performance of ABM programs is to use the right database. A data-driven ABM approach will enable you to understand your best prospects and curate campaigns that resonate with them. An ABM program driven by data helps to launch a fast, effective start and makes it convenient to identify high-performing content.

Gathering and analyzing customer data is an essential ingredient of ABM’s targeted approach. You need current and accurate data to evaluate relevant target accounts, their pain points, preferences, and needs. You can procure relevant information using various routes, such as surveys, customer interactions (emails, cold calls, social media channels), and website analytics. The goal is to find out whether the target accounts resonate with your offerings and how you can tailor campaigns to win their interest.

Optimizing data

In the digital age, when information is abundant, you need to strategically use data to optimize the buyer’s journey. There are three steps to accomplish this:

Prepare the Data

The first step is consolidating information from all corners of your business. Bring all the data in one place and clean them to get a clear overview.

Enrich Data

You can enrich existing data by adding unique data points to get clarity about the customers. The more you know about them, the easier it gets to curate personalized campaigns.

Conduct Market research

Utilize data visualization tools to identify the segments where your strengths lie and where you have scope for growth. It also helps align sales and marketing teams to pursue the target accounts. Without a shared understanding between these departments, discrepancies may arise while utilizing organized data and implementing personalized ABM initiatives.

Data-driven insights for Targeting specific accounts

Precise targeting is the highlighting feature of data-driven ABM. When you identify the pain points and ideal solutions of prospects, you can personalize messages that help build strong customer-brand relationships. Categorize the data into segments, making it easier to identify the accounts you want to target first.

Implementing Predictive analytics

Analyze customer data using relevant information and statistical algorithms to understand the future outcomes of customer behavior.  Predictive analytics can be utilized to identify the ideal customers for your business based on the data collected, including historical buying patterns. It saves time you would rather invest on accounts less likely to respond.

Segment data for ideal profiles

ABM allows account targeting and segmentation to divide potential accounts into groups based on relevant characteristics aligned with the brand’s goals. These are some types of data that can be used for account segmentation and targeting, such as demographic, behavioral, and customer feedback.

• Demographic: gives an overview of the characteristics of the customers within the target accounts, including age, gender, designation, location, etc.
• Behavioral: looks into the buying patterns of the target account segments, their actions, and interactions with a company’s offerings. You can utilize this information to understand their purchase history.
• Feedback from customers: this can be a valuable resource to improve ABM by identifying the key accounts interested in the brand’s offerings and the decision-makers.

Integrate ABM customer base into sales and marketing data

Combine customer information for an ABM campaign with data outsourced from other marketing and sales efforts. This would give you a holistic view of the campaign performance by providing an idea of its impact on the sales and marketing efforts. The integration allows you to understand how the campaign impacts their efforts, thereby allowing informed decision-making. For instance, if a brand is launching an ABM campaign to target a specific group of accounts, they can learn how these prospects interact with other marketing initiatives like email campaigns, webinars, etc.

Wrapping it up

For your ABM strategy to be effective, the target-specific database must be robust. You need to know your ideal prospects at a deeper level. One way to achieve this is through data-driven ABM insights. While incorporating such information, identify the key metrics important to your brand like customer lifetime value, acquisition cost, and retention rate. Then, using a CRM system you can track and analyse them. The data can be utilized to create customer segments based on shared characteristics. You can utilize this data to deliver personalized messages and design customized campaigns. These can be launched on social media channels frequented by the prospects.

Sales and marketing teams work relentlessly to expand the customer base. How can you leverage ABM to garner high-value clients for brand amplification?

The tactics of an ABM strategy propel the dynamics of your marketing plan through strategized campaigns toward business growth. It shifts your focus from randomly targeting a pool of customers to implementing an audience-centric approach instead. According to 93% of marketers, account-based marketing is the secret ingredient for facilitating brand objectives.

There are three types of engagement programs: Strategic, ABM Lite, and Programmatic. Your brand objectives and customer pain points will decide the best fit.  Whether you invest a few cents or a handful, you must be clear on what clicks and what doesn’t.

Let us look into the nuts and bolts of the components of a remarkable ABM program.

Foundational principles

When we look closely into what works best for an  ABM framework, it can be found that its success rests on four principles:

• Collaboration
• Customer roadmap
• Lead generation
• CRM platform

Each of these pillars enhances the other, and unified they constitute a program that leaves a lasting impact on the audience.

A) Collaboration

A highlighting feature of an ABM strategy is bringing together the marketing and sales team, driven by the same goal of acquiring top-notch clients. When these two teams work in synergy, the success rate will likely be high.

B) Map the customer journey

This process involves looking into their previous purchases and business history. The purpose is to get a better understanding of the prospects and determine if there are any patterns in their decision-making. Conversely, you can modify your inbound marketing approach to synchronize with that of the clients.

C) Lead generation

This stage is an important marketing goal for 85% of companies. When you focus on sending personalized messages to high-quality prospects, the outcome will result in quality leads. 

D) CRM platform

You can build the desired client network, provided you utilize the right technology. Your best bet would be to sync ABM platforms with automation, AI-driven segmentation tools, and a CRM platform.

Key Benefits

There are several advantages of incorporating ABM in your marketing plan. Let’s take a glance at these:

Improved revenue cycle

Since it allows you to focus on a niche clientele, your ROI boosts rather swiftly than casting a net on clients who do not add much value.

Relationship with customers

A strong relationship with consumers will enhance the success of your ABM program.  This can be achieved by demonstrating to prospective customers your understanding of their needs and pain points, thus building trust.

Better deal size

This marketing approach is about lead quality over quantity, which results in larger deals, even if the number is small.

Brand visibility

You can improve business awareness and develop brand authority among the target audience, which also increases the chances of customer retention.

How to Design a Winning ABM Strategy

Adopting the program for effective results begins with evaluating the dynamics of customers— an initiative that would promote the delivery of tailored messages resonating with each account’s decision-making framework.

We have assembled a list of 5 steps that would facilitate the implementation of a successful ABM campaign.

Identify the target audience

Before developing a robust strategy, conduct thorough research to find your target customers. While filtering the ideal clients, make sure their preferences align with your brand’s offerings and values. These quick tips will help you identify top-notch customers:

• Select targets based on their size, annual revenue, or location
• Look into social media followers, blog readers, and other contacts who are interested in your business, and lastly,
• Network at industry events or conferences

After you have identified the accounts, understand their key considerations, needs, and pain points. At this stage, explore the existing solutions and understand why they did not work. 

Tier & Rank 

For an ABM approach to be successful, you require highly sophisticated and advanced lead-based targeting. Firstly, utilize a CRM to rank the clients and narrow down the relevant ones. The next step would be to segment highly valued and targeted accounts based on region, industry, company size, or other parameters. Segmentation helps customize your account-based marketing strategy, increasing the efficacy of campaigns. 

You can then rank the potential clients based on a list of categories. Run these questions:

• Which prospects have frequently visited your site?
• Who engaged in social media forums?
• Which of them are interested in your offerings?
• Within each company, which contact is more approachable?

Design personalized content

Customize your content as per the audience’s pain points, addressing innovative solutions. The curated content must specify how your brand addresses specific pain points and fulfills the requirements of targeted accounts. You can convey the solution through blogs, emails, whitepapers, ads, etc. Rolling out personalized campaigns will help you draw the target audience and get more leads.

Lastly, engage with your sales and marketing teams to ensure that proposed campaigns appeal to your audience. 

Select the best digital channels

The performance of your ABM campaigns could vary depending on the digital platform you select. Identify which social media channel is preferred by your B2B customers and craft a strategy accordingly. 

Track the performance

While implementing an account-based marketing program, monitor the responses and record which approach results in more leads. You can also use metrics for evaluating campaign performance and outreach. Tracking an ABM strategy will provide insights into what yields more leads.

Success Stories

Case studies of other companies can become an example of integrating the key ingredients that make up an effective strategy.

Take DocuSign, for instance — This company wanted to target six separate industries. They thoroughly researched the target audience and categorized their pain points. Once the data was collected, the brand decided to launch unique websites that would draw customers and promote communication.Salesforce is another example. This CRM software company improved customer interaction with its groundbreaking ‘Connected Tower’ experience. It created a virtual world where the users experience a tour of a smart building, highlighting their ability to help customers achieve their goals.

Final thoughts

High-value clients are an asset for your company, helping you accelerate to the peak of your business. However, getting the desired audience to sign up for your offerings may resemble an unpredictable cycle. A well-crafted ABM plan can transform the sales funnel, improving the success rate and overall ROI generation. What gives it a cutting edge is the sales and marketing teams working together to get high customer lifetime value, contributing to the expansion of the company.

Account-based marketing is your way to reach your prospects. How can you make the journey shorter by adding a touch of personalization?

Account-based marketing helps you capture the attention of your ideal customers and convince your prospects that you are the right fit for them. ABM Personalization is a powerful way to convey that message. If you take time to research your target audience and craft custom messages that speak to their pain points, you can show them that you are not just another brand and it is not just another sales pitch – you are the ideal match for them, and they can choose you.

What Does It Mean to Personalize Account-Based Marketing?

Personalization in ABM means speaking directly to your customers instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach. It may not be particularly for just one person – if you think a small segment might share the same challenges, you can create information for that segment. But it can never be for your entire eligible audience.

For instance, the brand voice of apparel brands would be different for people in their 20s and people in their 40s.

ABM Personalization is getting increasingly influential today. As personalized marketing becomes more typical across B2B industries, more prospects will be waiting for customized offers that solve their distinctive challenges.

Personalizing Your ABM Strategies

Choose accounts to target

The first step of any ABM program is to create your ideal customer profile. It is foundational to know which organizations you should target based on criteria such as company size, industry, revenue, and more. You can adjust these metrics based on what suits you.

Additionally, you can review your list of current customers who love your product or service and then include similar companies (or their competitors) in your ICP. The next step is to determine which job titles and roles are in your ICP so you know which prospects you are exactly looking for.

Develop your ABM strategy

Start by specifying the best channels and tactics to reach your target accounts, conceivably with the help of an ABM platform. Then, develop personalized content for your ABM program by examining industry trends around the target account and researching the accounts you targeted. The content you personalize could Personalized could include custom landing pages, emails, digital ads, social media, and webinars.

Measure your success

There are multiple metrics you will want to measure in your ABM program to determine if your efforts are successful or if there is still scope for improvement. To check how much your personalized approach with ABM succeeded, you can look at metrics like form fills, time spent on landing pages, and overall content your prospects engaged with. There are no second guesses that you will want to measure which accounts finally turned into paying customers.

Determining What Is Important to Individual Accounts

The data you have is your goldmine in determining what matters to a specific account. You must have a clear understanding of the following types of data when researching your ICP:

• INDUSTRY DATA – It gives you a bird’s eye view of what your target prospect is most likely struggling with and what solutions and messaging will likely appeal to them.
• FIRMOGRAPHIC DATA -‍ This is data about the precise company you’re looking to target. It tells you its earnings, employees, growth, and locations.
• INTENT DATA – Intent data tracks your target’s behavior. For example, it may indicate which ads they’re clicking on, which keywords they’re searching for, or which content they’re downloading from your site.

Top Account-Based Marketing Personalization Tactics

Website Personalization

Your website is kind of like your first hello and the last goodbye – think of this your website is the one where your prospects land the most. From the first glance to the introspection of whether they should or should not buy from you happens based on how appealing your website is.

Here are a few methods you can deliver a super personalized and relevant experience to keep your prospects moving down the funnel:

• Personalize web copy, images, layouts, and CTAs for the majority of your visitor based on who they are and their previous behaviors and actions.
• Insert dynamic content like a company name, logo, review, or case study – give your audience a reason to stay longer on your page.
• Recognize returning visitors and serve them content based on previous visits, like pointing them to where they left off.

Just as important as your personalization ideas is selecting the proper website personalization software. Every business is unique and certain solutions will suit your needs better than others. Two common types of personalization software you might consider are:

• Rules-based personalization: This type of website personalization software concerns creating “if this, then that” statements for various of your target audience. With rules-based personalization, there are often three main elements: demarcating the audience the rules apply to, creating the experience this specific audience will see on your site, and deciding which page(s) the rules will apply to.
• Predictive personalization: This solution goes beyond rules-based personalization by using machine learning to predict the best experience to offer each website visitor (as opposed to each segment). Rather than having to set up rules manually, machine learning automatically predicts which is the best combination of your personalization ideas to show each visitor to give them the most personalized experience.

Personalized Social Media Ads

Social media ads are a prominent way to relate with a targeted decision-maker and drive them to your website; in fact, 84% of C-level and VP-level buyers are influenced by social media, according to Articulate.

When developing personalized social media ads as part of your ABM program, consider the following:

• Speak to your prospect’s challenges or metrics they care about based on their industry and job title.
• Promote content that would appeal to your prospects.
• Promote products the visitor has already explored on your site.

Personalized Email Campaigns

Whether connecting with one prospect or many, personalized email campaigns are a valuable strategy to include in your ABM program. Here are two types of email campaigns you might consider sending to your prospects:

One-to-one email

With one-to-one emails, you first research your prospect online to know more about them (e.g., their interests or hobbies, their area of duties at work, which metrics or procedures they care about in their job, etc.) and then use this research to write well-crafted, personalized emails. This hyper-personalization catches your prospect’s attention and makes it clear that your emails were solely written for them.

One-to-many emails

With one-to-many emails, you are still crafting thoughtful, personalized emails, but maybe to various prospects at the same company. Instead of focusing on individual interests, these emails will speak to the specific group’s needs or pain points they are weathering. You could also make these emails reach an even broader group within your ICP and write the same email to many prospects at several different companies that are all, say, in the same industry. The idea here is that those companies in the same industry have similar pain points, have identical metrics they measure, have similar case studies that would intrigue them, etc. While one-to-many personalization is at a higher level, it still focuses on the group’s appropriate needs and interests to capture their attention.

The Bottom Line

Enforcing ABM personalization is a crucial step in maximizing the effectiveness of your account-based marketing strategy. If you well understand the importance of ABM personalization and follow the steps outlined above, you can create tailored experiences for your target accounts that drive engagement and eventually lead to increased conversions.

While executing ABM personalization can be complicated, it is well worth the effort when done correctly. By tailoring your content specifically toward the individual needs of your target accounts, you increase their likelihood of engaging with your brand on a deeper level. Strike a balance between relevancy and scalability – delivering personalized experiences without sacrificing efficiency.