In B2B, companies are often faced with a team of decision makers, and a long sales cycle where it is vital to keep a prospect engaged.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) provides companies with a strategy that can support long term business plans and is an approach that uses personalized messages, campaigns and outreach programs to attract and maintain the attention of specific, high-value accounts.
With 56% of marketers strongly agreeing that personalized content is key to ABM success, and 95% of B2B buyers choosing a solution provider that ‘provided ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process’; it’s more important than ever to ensure you are producing ABM content that is relevant, timely and highly personal.
So how can you make sure you are using personalization effectively in your ABM campaigns?
In this blog, we share 5 effective ways you can apply personalisation to your ABM strategy, to ensure the buyer engages with your content and company.
Define Personas to Develop Core Content
As step one in any marketing campaign, the approach should be no different with ABM; it’s important to define your personas and understand what content will be of interest to each one.
With 72% of consumers in 2019 only engaging with marketing messages that were customized to their specific interests, it’s vital to understand the challenges, preferences and interests each persona has. This will allow you to develop your core content in the formats that are right for each persona. For example, one persona might prefer receiving content in short video formats via email or LinkedIn advertising, whereas another persona might prefer an in-depth whitepaper on the same topic or perhaps a more old-school approach with a direct mail gift.
Whatever the preference might be, its important to map this out for each of your personas, and also understand which type of content will resonate the most at each stage of the buyer journey.
Enhance ABM with Storytelling
Your ABM messaging doesn’t need to follow traditional B2B communication. You can use a storytelling approach to showcase your brand and develop a relationship with key individuals from target accounts.
This approach can take on many forms, and storytelling can be portrayed through:
- Combining product videos with case studies relevant to target accounts needs and pain points
- Utilizing relevant success stories, and allowing target accounts to relate directly to the business in the case study
- Highlighting the customer experience the target accounts can expect to have with your business. This can be achieved through customer testimonials which feature real stories about real people’s experiences.
- Sharing company culture and milestones. You can create a story around your company by humanizing the team behind the brand and providing a unique insight into the way your company works.
Personalize Your ABM Destination
Many companies often forget there is the opportunity to personalize at every stage of your campaign. This includes personalizing your landing pages and website to give prospects a tailored experience.
Personalization can include tailoring content describing experience and expertise based on industry, or tailoring text to talk about the services that interest the prospect the most.
Using platforms such as Webeo, there is also the opportunity to take this one step further and personalize landing pages automatically for specific accounts, which can feature the company’s name, or even the individual target contacts’ name, providing a highly personalized journey for the prospect.
Use Visuals to your Advantage
There’s no reason to stop your personalization at your text copy, you should also use visuals to your advantage. This could be via the ads you run, the images you use on your landing page, or perhaps the creatives that feature in your email.
Swapping out generic imagery for specific visuals can make a big difference in attracting attention, and you can personalize via industry, or even per job role, for example by emphasizing technology if you are targeting a developer, or using images to communicate cost-efficient messages when targeting someone in purchasing.
Take it One Step Further with Video
As prospects interact with your website and ads, there is the opportunity to enhance their experience with your company as you find out more about them.
One way to do this is to use personalised videos within your ABM strategy, which are made specifically for individuals and sent directly into their email inbox, often addressing a pain point and detailing a solution or proposed recommendations to help them.
The fantastic thing about video is that it can be used at each stage of the buyer’s funnel with different levels of personalization. This includes:
- Stage 1: Awareness – Videos can include simple personalization tokens such as the company’s logo or company name with the aim to connect and generate awareness of your company.
- Stage 2: Consideration –Videos aims to build trust and engagement, and focus on known pain points or discuss the challenges personalized by specific industry or job roles.
- Stage 3: Conversion – Videos can provide a great way to close a deal by answering specific questions about cost or features related to the target account or showing custom demos based on the individual’s requirements and interests.
I hope this blog has shed some light on the different approaches you can take to personalise various elements of your ABM activities. If you have any questions or would like to know more about the ABM campaigns we implement for our clients, why not get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.