“This is the nitty-gritty, where the rubber meets the road.”
Anthony & Adel continue their conversation about Account-Based Marketing and go into detail about what steps you can take to make this strategy work for you.
Targeting Accounts and Personalizing a Message
Adel: “There’s three levels to the types of ABM in practice. For example, for Integris, we know that we work with professional services, so all of our messaging on our website, all of Facebook messaging, all of our LinkedIn messaging, everything for our blog articles is aimed at professional services. We are a B2B business. That is the light personalization that aims at your target audience. This is the broadest net that you’re going to cast, and this is not that much different from what you would do traditionally.”
Adel: “If you’re a B2B business that’s selling a service that requires a lot of conversations and commitment like we do, you’re likely not going to see new business come just from doing this. This is where you are start to hone in on those target accounts. For us, that’s about 300 to 400 companies, we have looked at their employee count, their revenue, their location, their website. We’ve looked at them and said, ‘we think that you would be a good fit for us.”
Adel: “Those folks, we want to get in front of their eyes. So we’re going to get their employees as a part of an audience on Facebook, we’re going to get their companies as part of an audience on LinkedIn, and we’re going to put paid dollars behind these folks in order to make sure that we’re actually getting our content to them. We’re also going to pick the content to make sure that it’s more personalization, it’s aimed at them for the buying process, as well as for the industry that they may be a part of. So for example, we tend to focus on law firms, so to have some legal specific content for those people.”
Adel: “Not waiting for them to come to our Facebook page, or search for us on Google, we want to be out there in front of them, from the get-go. So that when they do go to make a decision about an IT provider, we’re there, they know us already.”
Adel: “This level is a little bit harder because it requires some more work. It requires understanding of these social platforms and how to build the audiences. It requires list building, using a great tool like Zoom Info. A lot of times companies aren’t necessarily willing to invest to get those audiences. But, if you do it right, you can guarantee that your content is getting in front of the people that you want to be your clients.”
One-to-One Relationship Building
Adel: “The last level is one-to-one ABM. This is where your sales folks really come in and can start to build that relationship. So pick out the top 25 of the list that you have, your target accounts, and have your sales folks stalk them on LinkedIn. Have them start commenting on their posts, and engaging with their CEOs or CFOs. Invite them to events, personally. You can do gifts to catch their attention and some special mailers that will show up on their doorstep. Those kinds of things where you’re willing to really spend some money and time in order to build a relationship. These are the folks that you know you definitely want to be on your side of the table.“
Adel: “This is where the whole process starts. The mind switch happens here with identifying, when you can truly walk away from your insecurity of, ‘I just want anybody to be a customer. That’s a really hard flip for people to make in today’s world, because that’s not the conversation that’s been had before. That’s where the ABM is really changing the conversation across the board.”
Adel: “This doesn’t necessarily have to be folks who will be your clients, though that is very obviously the end goal. It can also be people in your community, your center of influences, that you know will be able to connect you with other people who will do business with you. So this can serve two purposes, and can really provide a lot of synergies for sales and marketing. “
Adel: “It helps marketing out, from the sales perspective, because then you can start to engage with them on social media, have more personalization, sending emails, calling them, and really elevating that very high touch, so that people are far more engaged.”
Adel: “The big thing to remember in all of this is that not all levels are for everybody. You don’t need to have all three levels. That’s the part that takes strategy, time, and a good CRM to make sure that you’ve clearly identified the activity that should go in each level and the people that should be in each level. It requires a lot of coordination because you can’t just throw things around willy nilly.”