Account-Based Marketing Examples: How to Evaluate Them

1. Tailored content marketing

Tailored content marketing helps to deliver personalized content in various forms like blog posts, social media posts, white papers, e-books, or landing page content. The content helps to address the pain points while offering solutions for them that can impact the processes and goals.

Tailoring content to your services and prospect requirements is highly important to label yourself an expert in the specified area so that your audience will know who to come to when they are looking for the solution you are offering. Keep track of your content marketing campaigns by checking impressions, visits, time spent, or inquiries.

GumGum once targeted T-Mobile by sending out 100 copies of a custom comic book they created named “T-man and Gum” when they found out that T-Mobile's CEO is a Batman fan. This was a highly appreciative move that initiated a genuine relationship.

2. Social media marketing

Use social platforms to connect with your audience as the majority of people nowadays spend significant time on social media regularly. Keep each platform’s approach specified for the platform and account requirements. 

You can upload informative and engaging videos on YouTube whereas you can utilize Facebook and Instagram for a more casual engagement approach. However, you have to ensure that the content, in any form, is tailored to your target audience and they must be compelled to interact.

Payscale once had their sales and marketing teams join heads for their digital marketing efforts. The sales team would dig out the data like accounts, designations, locations, etc, whereas, the marketing teams would run campaigns. They saw a 500% increase in their traffic with ROI expanding 6X. Moreover, the timeframe to close deals dropped by 45%.

3. Hosting and attending interactive events

In this digital era where you do not have to meet prospects in a physical setting only, try to arrange virtual events and on-site events like webinars, seminars, or interactive sessions. You can create an agenda for the event that revolves around a topic that is relevant to your prospect. 

After creating the event, make sure to send personalized invites to each high-value account and offer them an insight on why it would be beneficial for them to join and their presence will be highly appreciated.

Attending events where your target accounts will be is equally important. Once Engagio wanted to grab the attention of their target account’s key decision makers, so they went to the SalesForce annual conference and set up a table with tailor-made bobbleheads of each targeted decision maker. Then they emailed all the accounts with a picture of the table alerting them to get theirs. This led to a 31% increase in their meeting attendees. 

4. Email marketing campaigns

Launch email marketing campaigns relevant to each prospect by creating sequences. Try to first draft the content of the email personalized for each account with an engaging element like a catchy subject line or warm and personalized greetings to grab prospects' attention. 

Most companies tend to respond to business emails especially if they are adding value to their operations. Keep track of email marketing analytics by checking rates, click-through rates, or spam rates along with responses.

Calendly occasionally hosts virtual events and sends out emails regarding the invites. Within the email, they offer free account access and one-on-one sessions during the events. This strategy helps them increase conversion rates. 

5. Newsletter campaigns 

Start a newsletter campaign that focuses on sending regular updates, industry insights, market trends, and useful information specifically detailed to your targeted account. Make sure your newsletter is engaging and to the point so that the prospect does not consider it spam. Keep track of your newsletter campaigns by checking subscribe or unsubscribe rates along with responses.

6. Personalized outreach

When you plan on reaching a prospect or a high-value account, make sure to add a personalized touch and keep a conversational tone rather than a direct sales pitch. Try to build a relationship first through two-way communication and then address the pain points with the solution you are offering for it. Personalizing is highly important as companies tend to ignore sales speeches or messages they are getting. Keep track of your personalized outreach by checking the response rates and message seen rates.

7. Tailored landing pages

Create landing pages with content, graphics, and intent tailored to your prospect's requirements, pain points, and the solution that might impact their operations. Try to create a tailored landing page for each account individually and offer highly personalized CTA within and make that landing page reachable by adding it in newsletters, outreach, or content occasionally. Keep a check of landing page analytics by monitoring the landing page traffic and actions taken on it.

8. Targeted ad placements

While running social media campaigns make sure to plan your ad campaigns targeted towards your high-value accounts. With the content, timing, visibility, and personalized CTA. That should be value-oriented with highly engaging graphics that grab prospect attention right away. Keep track of ad metrics by impressions and actions taken including likes, comments, shares, or queries.

Personify chose to list down their targeted high-value accounts and created tailored ads for them after segmenting their leads. This resulted in a 39x increase in their website traffic.

9. Executive heads engagement

High-value accounts tend to respond more often when they are being approached by another C-suite executive. During personalized outreach, try to use the executive heads' LinkedIn profiles or email platforms for better open rates and engagement. This helps to arrange quick executive-to-executive meetings with high-value accounts. You can compare the results of executive account outreach with an SDR account outreach for analytics and engagement rates.

Cognism once sent out a book to their high-value accounts written by their CMO, Alice de Courcy as their ABM strategy. This personalized gift coming from an executive was an amazing move and it was taken quite appreciatively by the prospects.

10. Targeted case studies

Create planned and targeted case studies highlighting how you have helped other clients with similar pain points, industries, or services. Present the case study in a very engaging and informative way that gives a complete picture of the specific industry company, what they do, what were the pain points, how you addressed them, and what were the outcomes they achieved with your solutions.

DocuSign once sent out highly engaging case studies, customer testimonials, and white pages tailored to each account individually. It led to a 300% increase in their page impression with a 60% increase in their engagement rates.

11. Following decision-makers

Use account-based marketing to keep track of decision-makers in a company along with their digital presence. Platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator help to highlight the key decision-makers present in a company. 

Make sure to keep track of new hires within decision-makers as they tend to be more open toward collaborative conversations and discussions surrounding improvements in operations. Create genuine relationships with them and eventually lead them towards a nurtured sales account.

What is account-based marketing?

Account-based marketing refers to the process of developing a blended sales and marketing strategy that is focused on targeting high-value clients or accounts instead of generic pitching and outreach. Account-based marketing is focused on identifying and solving the pain points of the accounts that need to be prioritized.

ABM is highly precise and personalized with the goal of focusing on the quality of lead more than the quantity. Various channels and approaches are used by both sales and marketing to target these accounts.

How does account-based marketing work?

The account-based marketing works through a series of steps as listed below:

• Identification of high-value accounts to list down the potential leads that you need to target. Set criteria on the basis of which you will identify accounts as high-value ones. For example, you can select a certain revenue number, use case, or location for this. You can use online databases and check company details comprehensively to classify your accounts.
• Thoroughly review and research the accounts individually to ensure their needs, pain points, and goals so that you can have a personalized approach in everything along with company understanding.
• Create a personalized strategy and approach you will be using to bring your marketing and sales efforts to life while targeting these high-value accounts. Everything including your content, channels, or communication should be customized for those account accounts.
• Use multiple channels to engage the company. For example, you can use LinkedIn, email marketing campaigns, or call calling to determine the best-suited approach.
• Check the results you are getting out of your strategy regularly and make sure to change or improvise as required.

What are the benefits of account-based marketing?

The benefits of account-based marketing are better ROI, personalized approach, more conversions, better customer experience, company growth, and value-oriented conversations.

Some of the main benefits of account-based marketing are listed below:

• Better ROI: Account-based marketing helps get better ROI in contrast to the resources invested to target and close those high-value accounts. When targeting a few accounts having a potentially higher payout with precision, teams can make good ROI than targeting a higher number of accounts without an aim.
• Personalized approach: Account-based marketing is ideal for research-based personalised sales and marketing approaches. The team can use personal, technical, or company data to craft a perfect strategy to create a connection with each account.
• More conversions: Personalized account-based marketing leads to better conversion rates as the prospect lies within the requirements of the ideal customer profile (ICP). This ensures that the prospect is likely to buy and you prepare your approach accordingly.
• Better customer experience: Account-based marketing creates a genuine relationship with the prospects rather than just reaching and selling. You can show empathy and better understanding regarding their pain points, goals, and requirements creating a good overall customer experience.
• Company growth: Making small sales might keep the company alive however, it will not allow it to grow. Targeting high-value accounts helps the company to grow and scale. They have a potentially higher payout rate and the effort put into onboarding them will be worth it once the ABM efforts make ROI increase extensively. 
• Value-oriented conversations: Account-based marketing helps to schedule meetings with prospects that are more value-oriented rather than having the prospect in a confused state. By the time prospects come to a meeting with you, they will have a complete understanding of how your solutions will benefit them.

What are the drawbacks of account-based marketing?

The drawbacks of account-based marketing are more resource allocation, data inaccuracy, boundary limits, costly failure, and fewer leads.

Some of the main drawbacks of account-based marketing are listed below:

• More resource allocation: The research and strategy development part for account-based marketing requires a higher number of resources, including time, effort, and finances. Try to create a strategy that brings better ROI in contrast to work resources used in the process.
• Data inaccuracy: Account-based Marketing is highly dependent on the data you have about the targeted account. The whole process and sales effort might go to waste if the data turns out to be inaccurate in the end. Make sure you are using the data after double-checking it from multiple sources to ensure its credibility.
• Boundary limits: When doing account-based marketing, there is a chance that you might end up over-personalizing and stepping outside the boundary elements. Some prospects might not want you to discuss any personal detail you have found during your research and this can offend them.
• Costly failure: The failure of an account not closing can be more costly than in normal sales strategies as extensive resources are invested during the ABM processes. The sales and marketing teams both put in effort, time, and allocated budget into targeting accounts.
• Fewer leads: Account-based marketing shifts the focus from quantitative to qualitative leads. This results in a drop in the number of leads you are getting in a week or month. ABM is time-consuming and requires focus on a limited number of accounts rather than targeting every account that comes in sight.

How to implement the strategy of account-based marketing?

To implement the strategy of account-based marketing define goals, choose accounts, conduct research, create strategy, launch campaigns, and monitor results.

Some main steps involved during the implementation of account-based marketing are listed below:

• Define goals: List down the goals that you want to accomplish using account-based marketing. Clear and measurable objectives like increased ROI, X number of closings, or retention help to lay out a good strategy. Your goals should start from smaller factors leading to higher expectations so that they are achieved in a strategic manner.
• Choose accounts: Create a list of high-value accounts that you want to target. Set criteria to determine which accounts fall into your ideal customer profile (ICP). You can consider factors like annual revenue, location, or use case. Follow some patterns that are common in the high-value accounts for you. For example, you can set a minimum of 10M company’s annual revenue to be considered within the ICP.
• Conduct research: After finalizing the list, individually conduct thorough research about all accounts. Note down the important details that might help your approaches like website, updates, social platforms, buying intent, and analytics. The research part might take time, however, this is the most important part which will eventually determine the outcome of your account-based marketing approach. 
• Create strategy: Map out the channels, approaches, and content you will be using to target those accounts. The strategy has to be personalized for each account based on the requirements and data you have gathered. You can create strategies for emails, called calling, social media marketing, and outreach. Choose the platforms you will be using for each action and based on the platform and account data, map out how you will be implementing your strategy. 
• Launch campaign: Start a timely and consistent campaign related to selected accounts as per your strategy. Keep a tab of your campaigns by analysing the results to know where you need to bring a change. Try to follow the agile approach to monitor every step for improvements where necessary. It helps to monitor all stages of the strategy at the same time rather than making changes and bringing improvements at the end after checking the final results. 
• Monitor results: Keep track of how your account-based marketing approaches are performing using analytics and action responses. This helps to identify areas that need improvement and approaches that are doing well to further enhance them. Use different matrices for different strategies like impressions and engagement for content-related strategies whereas like, comment, and shares for social media approaches.

What to know more about account-based marketing?

To know more about account-based marketing you must understand that it is a highly precise and personalized approach to the whole sales and marketing cycle where both teams need to work together on limited yet powerful accounts. The closing rates with higher profit increase once you start account-based marketing in contrast to randomly going after anyone and pitching your services.

Some of the noteworthy aspects of account-based marketing are listed below:

• It is tailored to individual accounts with maximum personalization to align with their goals and requirements.
• Few of your team teams will have to collaborate for a focused outcome, especially sales and marketing teams.
• Account-based marketing highly relies on the data you gather about each account. It has to be relevant, updated, and applicable.
• Account-based marketing is usually for B2B sales where one company is offering its products or services to another company that might benefit from it. For example, a software development company can offer a custom mobile or web app to a local bank by researching their current pain points and goals.

What is the purpose of account-based marketing?

The purpose of account-based marketing is to increase conversion rates and ROI by targeting accounts with higher buyer intent and payout. Moreover, to build healthy client relationships and enhance the sales pipeline.

What are the best account-based marketing platforms?

The best account-based marketing platforms are BookYourData, 6sense, Apollo, or Demand Base to get company information, data and insights or if you need to buy email lists.

What is the difference between account-based marketing and customer marketing?

The difference between account-based marketing and customer marketing is that account-based marketing is focused on new high-value accounts with a personalized approach to improve conversion rates. However, customer marketing is focused on retention and loyalty building related to existing customers.

How does account-based marketing differ from lead generation?

Account-based marketing differs from lead generation as ABM is focused on high-priority targeted accounts, whereas lead generation revolves around capturing maximum leads or prospects.

How does account-based marketing differ from account-based sales?

Account-based marketing differs from account-based sales as ABM is focused on creating brand awareness for conversion whereas account-based sales revolves around closing and maintaining deals.

Is account-based marketing the same as demand generation?

No, account-based marketing is not the same as demand generation as ABM has a comprehensive focus from brand awareness to closing whereas demand generation is focused on brand awareness and lead generation.

How can email marketing complement an account-based marketing strategy?

Email Marketing can complement an account-based strategy as it helps to send out personalised email sequences to prospects and engage them via that channel.

What is the difference between account-based marketing and traditional marketing?

The difference between account-based marketing and traditional marketing is that ABM focuses on high-priority accounts with a personalized approach whereas traditional marketing covers a broad range of audiences with a genetic approach.

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