3 Steps to Becoming an ABM Rock Star – Part Two
In Part One of our blog: 3 Steps to Becoming an ABM Rock Star, we took an in-depth look at Account Based Marketing (ABM) and outlined what you must do in order to take the first step: Identifying Your Top Customers. In Part Two, we continue our journey with the final two steps that are essential to your ability to execute a rocking ABM strategy.
Fast Fact: 75 percent of executives will read unsolicited marketing materials IF they contain ideas relevant to their business!
2. Rank Customer Needs for Content Clarity
Once you have created your short list of accounts, it’s time to dig deeper and identify all of the people involved in making the decision to purchase. Next, you will begin mining your data for insights. Your goal is to identify the primary need, want or issue each person has that would make them choose your solution. If your data is short on inside information, you may have to form a team to do some legwork that includes:
- Talking to customers or sending brief surveys
- Tracking customers on social media like LinkedIn and Twitter
- Following their company blog and reading other company publications, i.e. annual reports, investor newsletters, etc.
- Purchasing insights from a vendor
When comprising the ‘needs’ list, you should have several different needs that emerge. For example, if two of the decision-makers in an account are the CEO and CFO, they are going to have different reasons for considering your solution. Upon finalizing your needs list, rank each need according to its importance. The simplest way to do this is to go Hollywood with your list, and use titles and perceived influence levels to create a ranking system for whose needs get addressed first. Completing this exercise equips your marketing team with the insights and information necessary to develop compelling campaigns that provide your most desired accounts with valuable content that speaks directly to their needs.
3. Scale Personalization Across All Channels
Marketing to every customer in a way that resonates with each deeply, without overwhelming your budget and resources is a matter of automating as much of the process as possible. Of course, there are a variety of levels of personalization, from broad approaches that are industry and or job-title specific, to highly customized content created for a specific segment of accounts or a single account. A few of the simpler ways to personalize content include:
- Addressing the recipient by name and noting their title and role
- Using images that reflect the customer’s industry and experience
- Sending case studies specific to the customer’s industry or market
- Adding a personal note to pieces through a sales enablement tool
As you create and send campaigns to a variety of segments based on customer preferences, remember to pay careful attention to how they prefer to hear from you and develop your campaigns accordingly to ensure they enjoy a seamless experience.
The Rocking ABM Martech Lineup
Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) – This tool houses all of your customer interactions. When connected to a Marketing/Data Dashboard, it empowers you to glean valuable insights from all of those customer interactions and create data-driven campaigns.
Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)– This heavy-lifter takes center stage in your ABM performance and is essential to your ability to segment lists and coordinate and automate all of your omni-channel campaigns.
Content Management Tool – This versatile tool simplifies the process of personalizing content. When integrated with your MAP, it automates the process of sending personalized pieces by pulling content and attribute data from your marketing and sales systems. It also cuts down on content development costs, since information can be re-purposed for a variety of campaigns such as SMS, RSS, chat, email, etc. Your content management tool should also enable you to establish a searchable library of content that both marketing operations team members and sales team members can access and use on-demand.
The Benefits of Pursuing ABM
- 92% of B2B marketers consider ABM an important strategy in their marketing efforts
- 84% of B2B marketers give ABM credit for retaining customers and growing those relationships
- 87% of B2B marketers report that ABM delivers a higher ROI than other marketing initiatives
- 208% more revenue is generated by the marketing efforts of companies with ABM in place