8 Tips To Increase Your Account Based Content Marketing Game
Account Based Content Marketing for Professional Services
With the help of account-based content marketing, your marketing department and digital marketing agency can concentrate on a select group of accounts or clients. linkedin content marketing allows you to create content that is hyper-personalized and addresses their specific problems and demonstrates how your product can help them solve them.
ABM content that is efficient must convey the correct information to each stakeholder in the buyer center at the right moment. This involves identifying the needs of each individual at various stages of their journey.
The goal is to target specific accounts
Unlike traditional content strategies that seek to attract and convert people who are not leads through broad marketing campaigns, account based content marketing focuses on connecting with targeted accounts in a highly personal method. By identifying the key decision makers for each account and understanding their needs and goals, marketers can create and deliver customized content that is relevant to the specific accounts. This can lead to a more productive dialog with prospects and customers and ultimately results in better business results.
Once you've identified your desired accounts, the next step is to create accounts plans for each one. This involves analysing each account and determining which channels to utilize and which customers within the account should interact with, and what kinds of content are required to increase engagement and converts. This may include thought leadership content (e.g. whitepapers webinars, case studies, or whitepapers) as well as retargeting ads. personalized experiences on websites and other marketing strategies specific to each client.
Account-based content marketing can deliver greater returns on your investment than traditional content strategies. 84% of B2B marketing professionals who have incorporated account based marketing into their strategies have higher ROI than any other marketing strategy.
Although it takes longer and resources to cultivate only a few target accounts however, the benefits of an account-based content marketing strategy are crucial for companies who want to increase revenue throughout all stages of the sales funnel. This is particularly true for professional service businesses, where the quality of the prospects or customers is more important than how many people they are able to attract.
Additionally, ABM is a great option for companies looking to expand their business with existing customers through building trusting relationships over time. Research has shown that investing in existing customers is more cost-effective than spending money to acquire new customers.
Combining ABM with inbound marketing techniques can increase the effectiveness of content marketing. By utilizing a combination of the pillar content, retargeting and lead capture landing pages, marketers can give more relevance to prospects at all stages of the buying journey. This allows them to generate additional revenue opportunities through acquisition growth, acceleration, and expansion of their sales and marketing teams.
Create Hyper-Personalized Content
ABM is a hot topic in the field of marketing. It's crucial that marketers are aware of how to adapt their content strategies to the new method. It can be difficult to understand how ABM actually works. In a recent presentation at ContentTECH, Jenny Magic and Jennalee Reiff of Convince & Convert and Springbox provided a crash course on ABM that explained the main aspects to consider and what to expect in a successful execution.
The most effective ABM content strategy starts with understanding your ideal client's needs and their goals. Content that is in line with these goals will allow you to provide a more personalized service and increase conversions. Content should be tailored to the needs of each account. This is why it's important to map out the path of users within your target accounts. This will allow you to determine what content (and specific pages and items) is most engaging for your intended audience. This information can be used to improve the user experience for those with these accounts, showing the best performing content.
It can be difficult to create content that is hyper-personalized, however, it's a crucial step to increase the impact of ABM. According to State of Marketing 2023, 83% of respondents are willing to give their personal details in exchange for a more customized experience.
One method to create hyper-personalized content is by using AI processing of real-time data. This will help you control the way that your content is presented and provide suggestions for the next steps, and react to events in real time. While it isn't a substitute for multivariate testing or strategic planning, this can be a powerful tool to increase the effectiveness of your ABM campaigns.
Another method to personalize your content is to utilize the pillar and cluster content structure. This allows you to create a an extensive piece of content that explains the problem that your target accounts face, and then link to supplementary pieces that focus on specific aspects of the issue. Fitness trackers, for instance are able to provide a range of common advantages and goals however the method by which individuals use them may be quite different.
Aligning Marketing and Sales
Traditionally, professional service marketers were focused on creating a linear sales funnel using broad marketing campaigns that appealed to large groups of people with the expectation that one or more would convert. This approach may have worked in the past when B2B marketing followed a more broadcast-based model, but it's not as effective today with the Account Based Marketing strategy. Rather than trying to push all leads through the same stage of the process, it's more important to focus on attracting the most valuable prospects and providing them with content and experiences that are tailored to their specific needs and challenges.
The first step is to identify your ideal client profile (ICP). It's not as easy as creating buyer profiles, as you also need to look at the different types of solutions each customer is looking for and the best way to utilize them.
Once you have identified your ICP the next step is to design a strategy for your content that connects with these accounts across different channels. This could range from social media ads to email outreach.
When you are beginning to implement your ABM strategy, it's important to keep your sales and marketing teams on the same page. This will help ensure that your content is relevant to each account, so that you don't spend time and resources attracting the wrong audience.
The most important thing to do is to make use of the data you have about your most successful clients. You can determine the positive characteristics that your clients share by analyzing their historical data. For example, they may all belong to the financial services industry or have a similar company size. This data can be used to develop targeted campaigns for similar prospects.
In addition it's also important to keep track of the performance of your ABM strategy and make adjustments whenever necessary. For instance, if you notice that your target account isn't responding to your content, it might be time to contact them and see what else you can do to help them move along the sales funnel. You can align your ABM strategy with your content strategy by following these steps.
Measuring the success
Content marketing based on account is all about creating resources (videos reports, reports, blog posts and webinars) that are personalized and relevant to a particular persona or account. If you're looking to reach healthcare businesses for instance your content should be centered around their pain points and issues. This type of personalization doesn't just help with ABM but also builds strong relationships with potential customers.
The most appealing aspect of ABM is that it can be utilized throughout the sales funnel. In fact, it can be more efficient than traditional lead generation when utilized at the top of the funnel. This is because it will help you to identify and engage just a handful of accounts that are likely to convert, instead of trying to generate leads from an audience that may not be interested in your product or service.
While offline tactics such as in-person meetings and phone calls, or handwritten notes are effective, today's buyers are more inclined to online self-service and remote interaction. This is why it's crucial to provide them with the appropriate content at the right time, on the channel that is most effective for them.
ABM is particularly effective in engaging C-suite executives who are difficult to reach. They are often oblivious to the mass email marketing however, they are more likely to respond to content that speaks to their needs and use cases. In addition, ABM can help you accelerate sales by allowing you to connect with your prospects at key stages of their journey -- such as when they're researching solutions to solve a particular business problem.
ABM isn't as old-fashioned as traditional marketing and selling strategies, but it's rapidly becoming the most popular strategy for B2B companies seeking to improve performance and increase revenue. In fact, 76% of marketers who have adopted the ABM approach say it improves ROI, while 81% report that it increases deal close rates and upselling/cross-selling rates.