The long-standing tradition of wide-net marketing is increasingly ineffective for B2B technology firms. Why? Because the traditional market they are often chasing is not as easy to identify as it once was. Therefore, using traditional strategies to try to reach them often result in unsustainably high costs to generate a large number of low-quality leads that rarely match the high-value opportunities that sales teams want. This wastes the sales team’s time, which costs money, and quite a bit of it.
A disconnect between marketing, which typically focusses on marketing qualified leads (MQLs), and sales, who typically prioritise sales qualified leads (SQLs), is often a source of friction. When marketing delivers a high volume of seemingly unfocussed leads and sales teams spend valuable time working through unsuitable prospects, it erodes alignment, diminishes efficiency and, overall, makes everyone grumpy.
Ultimately, these shortcomings are why traditional lead generation methods are short-circuiting what modern B2B technology marketing and sales needs to propel a business forward.
Can account-based marketing improve lead generation for B2B tech companies?
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a targeted growth approach designed to address the shortcomings of traditional B2B lead generation. Instead of a net cast wide, ABM focuses marketing and sales resources on a select group of high-value target accounts. The process of identifying those targets is consistent and straightforward. First, you simply identify the most valuable accounts; you then engage them with highly tailored marketing and sales initiatives; and once landed, you expand and deepen the relationship from the inside to identify and explore additional opportunities within those accounts.
The ABM approach, done right, has many advantages, for example:
Personalised outreach ensures that messaging resonates with the specific needs and priorities of each target. This makes your approach more meaningful and “sticky”.
Focusing on accounts that are most likely to benefit from your solutions increases the likelihood that leads will progress through the conversion funnel and ultimately convert.
Resources are allocated to target only the most promising prospects, thus greatly reducing the amount of money squandered on low-quality leads.
Because effective ABM demands close collaboration between sales and marketing, it ensure that both teams are working towards the same high-value opportunities. This has the additional benefits of reducing internal friction and enabling both parties to jointly celebrate successes.
Overall, by shifting the focus from quantity to quality, those who adopt the ABM approach deliver more relevant leads, shorten sales cycles, and ensure that marketing and sales are working in harmony.
What does a successful ABM campaign look like?
A successful ABM campaign looks a lot like ABB Electrification’s collaboration with Napier.
To boost awareness and generate demand for its products and expertise within the food and beverage (F&B) sector, existing Napier client, ABB Electrification, leveraged the expertise of F&B specialists to create a series of eBooks that were distributed using popular, interactive Turtl documents. This ensured that the content was both relevant and engaging for the specific audience at which it was aimed.
The campaign involved strategically gating the eBook content behind Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) landing page forms, with a robust, lead-nurturing flow to follow up. Carefully selected paid LinkedIn and Google Ads campaigns drove traffic to these landing pages, with LinkedIn’s one-to-many ABM targeting individuals based on firmographic and demographic criteria to maximise relevance and impact.
The campaign’s results exceeded expectations. it achieved more than 60 million impressions across LinkedIn, Bing, and Google, garnered 1.4 million views on the campaign’s Pardot landing page, and generated more than 2,700 high-quality leads. This is a clear demonstration (to all parties) how combining personalised content with precise targeting and close sales-marketing coordination delivers outstanding outcomes.
How do you implement an ABM strategy for lead generation?
Fundamentally, an ABM strategy requires a structured, step-by-step approach that ensures your efforts are focused on attracting and engaging high-value prospects. Following is an actionable guide to help you launch an ABM programme for your business.
Start by bringing your sales and marketing teams together to set shared objectives and clearly define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This alignment at the very beginning is crucial for identifying and pursuing the right opportunities, and for ensuring that both teams are working in unison toward common goals.
Utilise the ICP you’ve just created to list companies that are most likely to offer the highest potential value. This approach shifts the focus from quantity to quality by prioritising the accounts most likely to convert and deliver long-term business value.
Identify and implement the essential technology tools you’ll need, such as customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, marketing automation systems, and intent data solutions. These tools are designed to help you manage campaigns efficiently and track engagement throughout the buyer’s journey.
Be sure to carefully craft tailored content with messaging that directly addresses the unique challenges and objectives of your target account. Personalisation has been well documented to increases relevance, foster deeper engagement, and help your brand stand out.
Once you’ve launched your ABM campaign, carefully monitor key metrics such as account engagement, pipeline velocity, and deal size. By regularly analysing performance data, you can refine your strategy and demonstrate the positive, tangible impact that your ABM efforts have on the business.
The overall aim is to firmly establish a strong foundation for ABM-driven lead generation. You achieve this by ensuring your sales and marketing resources are concentrated on best-fit prospects, which maximises the return on your marketing investment.
What are the common mistakes to avoid in B2B tech ABM?
B2B tech companies need to avoid a few common errors that many embarking on the ABM journey will make. This will enable you to establish and maintain a more effective and sustainable ABM strategy.
Always remember that ABM is not a quick fix. To be effective, it must be a long-term, strategic approach designed to grow deep and meaningful relationships that drive positive business outcomes for all parties. If you see ABM as a one-off campaign, it undermines its effectiveness and limits your results, often to the point of not being worthwhile, which you don’t want to have to explain to the boss. Success requires ongoing collaboration between sales and marketing, regular analysis and refinement of target accounts, and persistent yet unobtrusive engagement.
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On a personal note:
Dear Jane. I’m writing to tell you that simply addressing contacts by name is not enough. ABM demands genuinely bespoke messaging, using content that speaks to the specific opportunities, challenges, goals, and context of each specific account. Without this degree of personalisation, you will sound superficial and miss opportunities.
So, Jane, I am delighted to hear that your daughter graduated with honours. I’m sure she’ll follow in your footsteps as a vital member of her professional community. Speaking of professional communities, are you aware of the webinar we are hosting on personalisation….
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Many companies focus ABM efforts solely on new business acquisition. That’s a mistake. ABM is for that of course, but it is equally vital for growing revenue within existing customer accounts. By ignoring post-sale opportunities, you risk losing out on the potential for upselling, cross-selling, and strengthening customer loyalty. ABM is multi-faceted, not a one-trick pony.
There’s nothing wrong with tracking your success (or lack thereof), but use the right ones, in the right way. Contrary to popular belief, vanity metrics such as email opens or click rates do not reflect the real impact of ABM. In fact, they can give you a false sense of success that will not be reflected in bottom-line results, potentially making you look a bit foolish at best, or an unacceptable drain on resources at worst. What you must do instead is measure real-world business-impact metrics like pipeline generation, deal size, demonstrable levels of account engagement, and customer lifetime value. These indicators provide a far more honest and crystal-clear picture of programme effectiveness and ROI than any number of often irrelevant clicks.
Don’t let your ABM campaign fall victim to tradition. Campaign the modern way, by inviting to the dance the ones that invited you to theirs.
