Account Based Marketing (ABM) is fast becoming the go-to strategy for B2B companies worldwide. According to Gartner, effective ABM strategies can increase pipeline conversion rates by as much as 14 percent.

The secret to its success lies in the fact that account based marketing as a strategy focuses on quality over quantity, making your business more specifically relevant to a select few high-value accounts to turn them into lifelong customers. 

This article will give you a deep understanding of how to best build the perfect ABM campaign for your business needs in order to generate a higher return on investment (ROI) for each client account.

Before we dive in, let’s first understand what an ABM Campaign entails.

What is an ABM Campaign?

An account based marketing campaign is a B2B digital marketing strategy that incorporates sales and marketing tactics and channels to target, engage with, nurture, and convert high value business prospects into established client accounts which have the highest revenue potential.

Not only does ABM focus on providing consistent customer experience and personalization for a list of target accounts, it also understands marketing on a holistic level by nurturing current customers via upselling and cross–selling, thus generating more value.

This versatile business strategy is compatible with a variety of digital outreach approaches, including but not limited to

  • Email campaigns, including cold emailing
  • social media marketing
  • seo blogging and other inbound marketing strategies
  • sales development representative (SDR) outreach
  • pay per click (PPC) advertising
  • webinars and other events

making it a perfect fit for the B2B Saas world!

The building and successful execution of a good ABM campaign takes time, skill, and effort to accomplish. Personalization is the name of the game, with highly targeted accounts more likely to convert to lifelong customers, so your research needs to be thorough.

Without further ado, let’s get you started on building your first ABM campaign!

A Step By Step Guide to Building the Perfect ABM Campaign

1. Define Your ABM Goals

Before you even begin to craft your campaign it is crucial to define your marketing and sales goals. 

What do you want to accomplish? What is your best-case scenario? What is your worst-case scenario? What’s the perfect end result for your business?

Defining your ABM goals will help you to intentionally organize your campaign steps to reach it in the long run. 

Considering that ABM campaigns have a long gestation period before you see results, having a concrete end goal in mind will better prepare you for the amount of time and resources you need to allot.

2. Agree on the Best Type of ABM for Your Business

Depending on how you aim to allot your time and resources, you can choose from one of three different types of ABM strategies or choose to combine them across multiple accounts with lead segmentation to achieve the best results.

The three types of ABM strategies are:

  • One-to-one ABM

This type of ABM focuses on picking a select few high value accounts and directing your budget into targeting them with the most personalized experience possible.

The one-to-one (1:1) stands for marketer to account ratio, iterating that this ABM type is best applicable when one strategically chosen high value account is intentionally targeted with very specific messaging.

This method can be applied to a maximum of five individual accounts, depending on your company size and its data processing capacity.

  • One-to-few ABM

One-to-few ABM or 1:few ABM is when the ratio of marketer to account tips to accommodate a few more accounts. It is more relaxed than the hyper personalized nature of the one-to-one model, while still allowing for enough wriggle room and lead segmentation.

Selecting accounts from the same industry, or accounts whose industries overlap or are functionally adjacent to each other and in your business’ purview is key  to executing a successful one-to-few ABM campaign.

This type of ABM is ideal for targeting around 10 to 30 sector-specific accounts with different marketing initiatives.

  • One-to-many ABM

This type of ABM is the closest to traditional marketing strategies, but with added adjustments for more customer-centric messaging. It can be used to target 30 or more key accounts.

Because one-to-many (1:many) refers to a ratio of marketer to account that is heavily in favor of the number of accounts, this ABM method is most often supported by artificial intelligence in its targeting of a larger number of organizations at scale.

The table below succinctly outlines the key differences between the above mentioned account based marketing methods:

3 Types of Account Based Marketing (ABM) Strategies

One to one (1:1)

One to few (1:Few)

One to many (1:Many)

Directs all your budget into targeting a handful of high value accounts

Involves sector-specific targeting of a larger pool of accounts

Puts a customer-centric spin on traditional marketing efforts

Can accommodate one to five accounts

Can accommodate ten to thirty accounts

Can accommodate over thirty accounts

Relies on a very high level of personalization

Medium level of personalization since accounts are from the same or related industry

Low level of personalization, can easily be outsourced to AI tools

 

3. Select the Metrics to track 

Once you know your marketing and sales goals and have decided which type of account based marketing strategy you’d like to adopt, it is time to define your business metrics. To this end, it is important to know both your business’ priorities as well as what ABM can help you achieve.

Studies note that ABM can provide a lift across key sales metrics, including a

  • 28 percent increase in overall account engagement
  • 25 percent rise in marketing qualified leads (MQL) to sales accepted lead (SAL) conversion rates
  • 20 percent increase in ad performance tracked by click rates

If you want to stress on how your ABM campaign can bring about a higher return on investment, then set the intention to track related metrics before you formulate the specifics. 

Since ABM strategies take time to reach fruition, keep in mind that the metrics you decide on are conducive to being tracked over a long period of time. Similarly, it is advisable to track some engagement specific metrics at all times.

Before you proceed with your campaign, ensure that

  • Your team and your heads agree on the ABM performance metrics that are necessary to track. You can even consult other departments who have the data you need to arrive at a decision. 
  • The primary departments working on the ABM campaign, notably the sales and marketing teams, are fully aware of what metrics need to be prioritized.
  • You are transparent when it comes to cross-functional communication with respect to ABM activity even as the campaign progresses, so that your resources are shared and time saved.

4. Align Marketing and Sales

Aligning marketing and sales is arguably the most important step in your journey to build an effective ABM campaign. Lack of cross functional collaboration and transparent communication can prove to be immensely detrimental to a campaign that relies on everyone pursuing the same goal.

In account based marketing, aligning your sales and marketing teams ensures that they are on the same page about 

  • Your campaign’s end goals,
  • Which metrics to prioritize and which key performance indicators (KPIs) to track,
  • Your target audience and ideal customer profile (ICP),
  • Your lead scoring or lead qualification system,
  • The decided upon budget for the campaign, and
  • Role differentiation between internal stakeholders.

This alignment also ensures that no team member is left scrambling for purchase when it comes to client interaction. Team members can pick up where others have left off, creating a collaborative environment that prioritizes seamless customer experience.

5. Assemble Your ABM Team

Next, you need to assemble your ABM team. Role differentiation with a deep understanding of common goals should be the cornerstone on which you construct your multiskilled ABM team to ensure that your campaign has the most diverse and holistic approach.

Your ABM team should ideally include:

  • Sales development reps (SDRs), or sales reps to solely focus on outbound lead generation in the sales process,
  • Marketing development reps (MDRs) or marketing reps who will ensure that marketing demand generation processes go smoothly,
  • Sales operations to drive efficiency in your sales team,
  • Marketing operations to optimize your marketing team,
  • Campaign marketers to develop your highly personalized messaging from scratch and have the required multi-channel ABM marketing experience to do the campaign justice,
  • Content producers, including but not limited to content writers, graphic designers, and video producers and editors, and lastly,
  • Customer success managers to responsibly develop important customer relationships and promote customer retention and loyalty.

It is imperative that you schedule regular follow-up meetings to keep all the internal stakeholders across your sales, marketing, and customer satisfaction teams tuned in with respect to the campaign’s development.

6. Build Your Target Account List

This is where you can finally set up your campaign in earnest. ABM campaigns do not leave much room for improvisation, so you must make sure that you meticulously plan for all outcomes.

Begin by putting together a list of potential prospects to target as leads. To make the process easier, break it down into the following steps:

  • Define your ideal customer profile (ICP)

In order to do this, you must first specify the type of account you wish to target with ABM. An ideal customer profile takes into account the various demographics you want to convert and helps identify leads who would most benefit from accessing your product or service.

Since ABM is about narrowing down your potential prospects, it is best to be extremely specific with your list of qualifying requirements for leads. 

Remember, the key to running a successful campaign is to identify just a few high profile accounts that will yield a very high revenue when targeted with hyper personalized outreach methods throughout their customer journey.

Alternatively, you can also arrive at your ICP through the process of elimination – by defining who you don’t want to target!

  • Measure first-party intent

First-party intent takes into account information from the user end and measures the likelihood of leads becoming buyers by considering their engagement with your company or brand.

You can find potential prospects by combing through 

  • Business representatives who have attended previous events
  • Digital users who have viewed or downloaded certain links or online content
  • Interested parties who have filled out online forms

This part of your B2B buyers list building relies on finding people who have directly engaged with your business or brand so you can leverage their interest through your campaign!

  • Measure third-party intent

Unlike first party intent, third party intent is a measure of potential prospects who have not yet expressed an interest in your company or brand. These people do not yet know how useful your product might be for them and need to be introduced to it.

Since these potential customers have overlapping pain points with your ICP, they can be found

  • browsing websites of your competitors
  • entering specific keywords on search engines

Thus, to find them you need to first define a set of keywords relevant to your business or product and cross check them with the help of an AI tool. Shortlisted users can then be added to your target list!

  • Order your target account list

Once you have your target accounts list ready, all that is left is to prioritize them according to the order you will approach them.

Some tips to keep in mind as you organize your list are:

  • Look for high value target accounts that are most suited to what your product or service offers.
  • The closer your leads are to your ICP, the better!
  • Prioritize accounts with a strong intent to buy.
  • Don’t prioritize big businesses simply because they are well-established. Make sure that they fit your desired profile.
  • Be thorough with your knowledge of all target accounts so you are better equipped to compare and order them!

  • Use a Prospecting Tool

Marketing and sales automation tools have come a long way. Consider using tools such as Adapt Prospector to build your target list. You can find data on multiple stakeholders from specific organizations through their ‘company search’ feature and filter your search by department and level.

Using a prospecting tool will not only help to determine whether your potential target fits your ICP, but can also help you with targeted outreach later in your campaign!

7. Create Personalized Content

One reason why account based marketing has become so popular is because every account is treated as a market in its own right. The strategy hinges on hyper-personalization in a way that convinces your potential buyer that what your company has to offer is the only right fit for them!

To better execute this level of personalization, be sure to follow these steps:

a. Identify the decision making unit (DMU)

  • Go through your ordered target list and start by identifying the decision making unit in each of your target companies. The DMU is formed of a group of business executives with the power to make or influence purchasing decisions.
  • Unearth all the information you can find on every single member of the DMU. Remember, this is the set of people who have the power to close a deal!
  • Connect with them through trusted networking platforms such as LinkedIn.
  • Identify the kind of messaging and engagement they prefer by going through their purchase history or using AI.

b.Define their pain points

  • Define pain points for all members of the DMU. Construct buyer personas so approaching them becomes easier.
  • What are they aiming for? Do they prioritize cost reduction, sales growth, or time saved?
  • Use information from sales reps who have interacted with members of the DMU to curate your ABM content!

c.Choose the right medium

Coordinate with your sales team to choose the medium best suited to your target list’s members. Depending on their age, gender, industry, and history, there might be certain mediums that they prefer. 

Some mediums that you can choose from include

  • Blogs
  • Video content
  • Reports and surveys
  • Webinars and podcasts
  • Case studies
  • Direct emails

d. Select the right channels

Now that you have selected your primary medium, it is important to plug it in the right places! Identify which digital channels are most utilized by members of the DMU and customize your content to best suit their format! 

e. Time it right!

Seniormost members of the DMU have a lot on their plate. Make sure that the first step of your content and its presentation does not take up too much of their time. If your targeted member is a bit lower in hierarchy, they can afford to spend a bit more time.

You can make your pitches longer and more detailed as your targeted members advance along the sales funnel!

8. Launch Your ABM Campaign!

Congratulations! You have finally finished your preparation and can now officially launch your campaign.  

  • Begin by distributing the content that your content producers have created across the distribution channels and mediums you have chosen. 
  • Ensure that your target list is appropriately prioritized by your sales reps so that you can start making progress towards their conversion.
  • Make calls, set up meetings and give product demos to interested leads.
  • Once your distributed content is well-dispersed, identify buyers who know your reputation.
  • Nudge your qualified leads along through the marketing funnel to close your deal! 

An ABM campaign can take a long time to run through the steps and processes of an otherwise shorter sales cycle, that is, from inquiry to order, so make sure that everyone on your team is well-briefed and persistent!

9. Track ABM Engagement

Closely monitor the kind of engagement your campaign attracts. This is not only important for your process going forward, but also works as a reference point for future campaigns your business undertakes.

ABM engagement can be of two types:

  • Digital engagement, which refers to any online or indirect interaction your prospect has with the campaign, including opening emails, visiting your website, filling out a survey, etc.
  • Physical engagement or any direct interaction from your prospect such as onsite visits, phone calls, SMS, demo attendance, etc.

Make sure that the metrics you measure are shared across all departments involved!

10. Evaluate Your Data

Running an ABM campaign generates a lot of useful marketing data. In addition to studying your data during an ongoing campaign, it is important to consider it retrospectively as well.

Engagement rates, data processed by automation tools, and personal reports from your sales reps – all need to be analyzed to understand the kind of messaging that works best for the campaign. You can also use A/B testing to determine what needs to be worked on or scrapped entirely.

Don’t hesitate to make changes along the way, and keep honing your strategy as you go along!

Challenges to Overcome in Your First ABM Campaign

ABM campaigning can prove to be a daunting undertaking at first. Some common challenges you might face while executing your first ABM campaign include:

  • Incompatible Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 

Most businesses are designed to focus on marketing qualified leads (MQL) and lead generation. While these metrics can be useful they may not be the most appropriate for an account based campaign, where marketing and sales are closely aligned.

It is important to shift your team’s focus from being contact focused to being account focused. Remember, each account in ABM is treated as a market in its own right. 

Furthermore, business KPIs are generally quarterly. Since ABM campaigning is a long term undertaking, it is best  to use metrics that are compatible with this shift, and do away with vanity metrics such as email engagement and social media click rates.

Instead, focus on reputation, relationship, and revenue centric KPIs, such as

  • Brand perception
  • NPS scores
  • Customer loyalty
  • Account coverage and engagement
  • Win rate
  • Average deal size
  • Customer lifetime value

These will help you get a better idea of the long term implications of your ABM campaign!

  • Lack of Dedicated Resources

37 percent of marketers say that a lack of budget and resources is their biggest challenge when it comes to executing ABM campaigns. Many businesses make the mistake of fitting their ABM campaign strategy within existing resources. 

This is unfair for two reasons: 

  • First, because it puts an undue amount of pressure on marketing and sales teams to deliver on the campaign front in addition to their existing responsibilities. 
  • And second, ABM is an organization-wide strategy which must align with larger business objectives and be supported by executives at the top.

Thus, collaborative engagement through a dedicated ABM team and a separate budget sign off are crucial to the success of the campaign.

  • Lack of True Sales and Marketing Alignment

Some businesses might skip the step of sales and marketing alignment, and only focus on targeting accounts according to their needs. However, this cannot be classified as accounts based marketing.

A fundamental shift in aligning marketing and sales is a non-negotiable aspect of ABM. Without this, your business will not be able to mutually set objectives and follow through on them collaboratively.

The high level of personalization which characterizes ABM campaigning comes with a long sales cycle, with multiple decision makers involved in the reviewing and purchasing of your product or service. To make it through this sales process, your marketing and sales teams must work together to provide a consistent customer experience.

The emergence of marketing and sales automation tools, use of intent data and precise funnel tracking also enable hyper personalization and better marketing and sales alignment, so consider using them as well!

Key Takeaways

  • Accounts based marketing (ABM) campaigning entails the targeting, nurturing, and conversion of a select few high value business prospects into lifetime customers through sales and marketing tactics.
  • There are three types of ABM – one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many, with varying ratios of marketer to account(s). You can choose the one best suited to your business according to the resources at hand and objectives you wish to set.
  • ABM campaigning relies heavily on the aligning of sales and marketing teams to provide seamless customer experience.
  • Choosing the right metrics to track is crucial to getting the relevant data to better organize and execute your ABM campaign. Move away from vanity metrics to accommodate key metrics that are compatible with and yield more long term insights.
  • Use sales and marketing automation tools that make your job easier!
  • Be prepared to invest a lot of time, energy, and resources into your campaign. With ABM strategies, you are in for the long haul and might not see results immediately. Keep persevering, and good luck!

FAQs

It is best to experiment and find out. Start with the one-to-many method, since it is less time consuming and requires fewer resources and keep a close eye on the results to gauge your success. Depending on the kind of business you wish to attract, you can then switch it up to a one-to-few or one-to-one ABM strategy.

Moreover, email marketing has the best conversion rates among social media or SEO, so you know you’re getting a bang for every marketing buck.

Ideally, you would be able to secure a separate budget for your ABM campaign after taking your proposed strategy to the C-suite.However, if that’s not the case, anywhere between 25 to 50 percent of your marketing budget can be allocated to ABM efforts.

Depending on the amount of data you need to process, marketing automation platforms can be very useful for B2B growth, because they help streamline time-consuming processes such as building your target accounts list by identifying best-fit accounts. Having a shared AI tool can also strengthen coordination between marketing and sales and make your content marketing more relevant!