Today's post is an excerpt from The MFS Guide to B2B Account Based Marketing.
There are any number of marketing and sales tactics you can use as part of your ABM program. The best ABM campaigns are tailored to the needs of decision-makers at target accounts. You must figure out through in-depth research the needs and priorities of target decision-makers and then you need to decide which tactics or channels to focus on to get your message in front of the right person.
Creativity here is also important. Don’t be afraid to go down alternative or left-field routes. Lots of B2B marketing today is generic, so it may well be the creative route that opens the door to a large target account. In this section, we will go over 20 ABM tactics we have seen to generate the best results.
20 Effective B2B ABM Tactics
1 - Target Account Research
Not so much a tactic as a necessity, researching your target accounts is a non-negotiable. One of the best ways you can research target accounts is simply to go on to their websites and navigate to the investor relations area where you will be able to see transcripts of quarterly earnings calls and annual meetings. Here you will be able to learn about key strategic initiatives for the company as well as their priorities and challenges. You will also learn about the key personnel and who is involved with each initiative. For those target companies that are not publicly listed, you will have to do some further digging into news stories, social media posts, and any other publicly available information that might be relevant. Don’t forget to do some searches on internal systems like CRMs etc. where valuable insights on target accounts might already be stored.
2 - Target Account Alerts
Set up real time alerts for news stories about your target accounts via Google Alerts and other services. Monitoring social media mentions is also advisable. For this tactic to work, you need to think in terms of “triggering events” - is there an event be it software breach, management change, supply chain disruption etc. that would highlight the need for your service or product. By staying on top of the latest news about target accounts, you will give yourself the best chance to strike while the iron is hot and time your outreach to perfection!
3 - Map Out Decision Makers at Target Accounts
ABM is not easy. There is no silver bullet. It requires research, careful planning, and expert execution. Another research step is to map out the key decision makers in each of your target accounts. You need to be aware of who is involved in the decision-making process and what their concerns and priorities are. Some of this info you might glean from websites and publicly available information, while some accounts might be more difficult to map and will require investment in market intelligence tools like ZoomInfo and others.
4 - Tailored Multichannel Case Studies
Take the time to tweak your existing B2B case studies in such a way that they can be made more personal to your target account decision-makers. The way you can do that is to go in and add or edit any parts of the case study that might be particularly relevant to your target account. You should also create different versions of your case studies for the various marketing channels available. If you can get a video from a client, that can be hugely valuable for your website or channels like YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc. Putting together graphics with customer quotes that would resonate with target accounts will be valuable for your slide decks and possibly too for targeted social media ads. Condensed case studies can also be used as part of a one-to-one email or email marketing campaigns.
5 - Personalized Web Pages
If you are linking back to your website as part of your outreach to target accounts, you don’t necessarily want to lose that personal touch. In fact, you should ensure you don’t link back to a page that provides a general value proposition about your product. Instead, develop personalized web pages that speak directly to your target accounts needs. Work with your team to figure out what this web journey will look like including what messaging to lead with and what additional materials or pages you will link to for the personalized web page.
6 - E-Books
Materials like e-books can still bring a lot of value in an ABM situation. An example could be where the ABM team puts together e-books that offer practical advice for each of the roles involved in the target account’s decision-making process - e.g. The CIOs Guide to Secure AI Implementation or something to that effect. The way to tailor this ebook then would be to attach a foreword addressed to each CIO at each target account.
7 - Video Messaging
Tools like Loom can bring a lot of value to an ABM program and will allow sales reps to reach out directly to key decision-makers in a personalized way. Loom and others allow screen and camera recording so reps can leave video messages with stakeholders where they talk about and demonstrate the product in a highly personalized fashion and how it can solve the company’s pain points.
8 - Direct Mail
Creativity, as we have said, is key. Don’t be afraid to leverage some of the more traditional channels that might have less noise than other more modern options like social media. Direct mail can be a very effective way to get your message in front of an important decision maker. There are even tools that will integrate with marketing automation platforms like HubSpot where you can build an automated direct mail step into your outreach.
9 - Targeted Online Ads
PPC has an important role in ABM - particularly in the area of targeting and retargeting. LinkedIn allows you to run ads that target individual companies, while other software tools focused specifically on retargeting will help you stay in front of key decision-makers.
10 - Target Account Slide Decks
This tactic probably goes without saying, but slide decks will need to be personalized for each target account. Include things like updated graphics that include both your logo and your target company’s logo. Have slides that speak to the priorities of each decision-maker involved with key high level points highlighted. Include slide versions of case studies that are tweaked to meet target company pain points.
11 - Events
Yes, events can still be included as part of an ABM initiative. If there is a separate event marketing team at your company, it is worth looping them into your ABM initiative. Events are a great chance to meet key target account decision-makers in person. Relationship building is another ABM fundamental and events give you the chance to build and nurture those key account relationships.
12 - Newsletter
Everyone and every company has a newsletter today - but that is not a reason to overlook this channel. In many ways, the popularity of newsletters is itself a manifestation of the growing desire for personalization in every communication. People are now happy to receive the newsletters that they desire into their inbox daily rather than going into google and searching for topics that interest them. The way ABM can utilize newsletters as a tactic is by creating personalized target account newsletters that can contain things like industry news, product updates, and thought leadership - all framed in such a way that it relates to the target account.
13 - Offline Ads
Again, no channel can be overlooked as you put your ABM playbook together. If a magazine or print ad will help you get seen by a target account decision maker, then you should consider incorporating it into your marketing mix. Some ABM campaigns have even gone so far as to buy up billboard ads that targeted a key decision-maker on their route to work. Whether or not you will need to go to that level of extreme is up to you, but the point is that sometimes it is the outside the box approach that will unlock key accounts.
14 - Webinars
There are a few different ways you can incorporate webinars into your ABM strategy. In a situation where you already have a relationship with a target account and you are looking to expand your business with them - you might invite your champion on to speak about a relevant industry topic, helping them boost their personal brand and benefiting your company by firstly demonstrating social proof of your product’s success and secondly further embedding the image of the companies working together in a successful manner. In a situation where you are trying to land a new target account, you could run a webinar specifically for the target account with invites sent to all stakeholder and even supporting stakeholders. The webinar could be run as a Q and A session where you have put together a panel of experts from within your own company to speak and answer questions about issues that are high priority for the target account.
15 - Email Marketing
While email marketing might not always be associated with the level of personalization associated with ABM - it still does have a role to play. You can use marketing automation platforms like HubSpot and others to put together multi-step email campaigns that are targeted purely towards the target account. For added personalization, you can build multi-step campaigns for each target account stakeholder, tweaking the language and content for each campaign to relate it to the different stakeholder priorities.
16 - SEO
Are there some terms or search queries that are particularly relevant to your target account? It might be a low volume or long-tail search term that could be related to a particular priority or initiative taking place within the target company. Ranking organically here might not give you a huge boost in web traffic, but it could get you the targeted visitors you need to open doors at specific accounts.
17 - PPC
PPC can be used as an ABM tactic in a similar way to organic SEO. In fact, PPC can be an even better starting point, because it can be rolled out immediately and will let you test out your hypotheses. An example might be - your sales team has learned that a particular target account is unhappy with one of their software providers - a competitor - and is weighing up alternatives. The goal here would be to get your product in the mix. A quick way to rank here would be to bid on terms related to this software provider and alternatives to this software provider. The person who is conducting this search is a highly targeted visitor and getting them to your website can help you generate opportunities.
18 - Podcasts
You can tie podcasts into an ABM initiative in a number of ways. Similar to webinars, you could invite an existing customer on to talk over industry trends and pain points that would be relevant to target accounts. If, for example, you have a CIO at a customer account who you know is a big fan of your product, then you could invite the CIO onto your webinar with the dual carrot of boosting this person’s personal brand and helping them show their company in a positive and professional light. This podcast could then, in turn, be shared with CIOs at target accounts who would have similar priorities and speak in the same CIO parlance. Another way to use podcasts would be to put forward your company’s in-house industry expert to appear on industry podcasts that would include your target companies as listeners.
19 - Sponsorships
The first step here is figuring out which websites, magazines, podcasts, newsletters etc. your target decision-makers subscribe to or are most likely to subscribe to. If you are in the early stage of targeting an account and have not yet built up a relationship, then sponsoring one or some of these publications can be an effective tactic.
20 - VIP Events
Similar to sponsorships, running VIP events can help you build relationships with key decision-makers. An example might be an invite only dinner that you host around major business conferences like Dreamforce, HubSpot’s Inbound, or other events relevant to your industry.The list - though long - is not exhaustive. In terms of ABM, there are any number of tactics you can use. Stay creative and open-minded throughout. ABM is a cross-functional effort that requires strategic thinking, close-knit cooperation, and also the flexibility to pounce on opportunities as they arise.
This post is an excerpt from the MFS Guide to B2B Account Based Marketing. If you would like to read more you can access the guide in full here. If you have a marketing challenge you are looking for support with, you are welcome to set up a no obligation initial strategy consultation with our team.