4 key ingredients for successful account-based marketing

We live in a world where we’re inundated with information on a daily basis—on our phones, in our work emails, online, and even on our daily commute. We’re constantly bombarded with messages, and it’s only gotten worse since the pandemic. In fact, it should be no surprise that as many as one third of all consumers said they felt “overwhelmed by tech management” during the pandemic.

This trend poses a serious challenge for marketers, where what worked well in the past stops delivering a good return on investment (ROI). In fact, in many cases marketers are required to increase their campaign spends to increase visibility, only to achieve flat results.

Given today’s environment, marketers need to find new and more effective ways to reach customers. That’s where account-based marketing (ABM) comes in.

ABM lets marketers deliver high-quality touches to highly targeted prospects and existing customers, ultimately providing higher ROI than many other marketing approaches. By better aligning sales and marketing teams, ABM enables teams to deliver on their goals in a more coordinated manner. The ability to do so is particularly important today when marketers are expected to wring every last ounce of value out of their budgets.

Let’s take a closer look at how this approach works and what you need to do it successfully.

What is account-based marketing?

ABM is a B2B growth strategy that targets current and qualified prospective customers through personalized messaging. ABM is highly effective for nurturing leads, closing sales, and upselling or cross-selling.

Most important, ABM delivers results. For example, 53% of marketers say ABM efficiently uses resources and 37% say ABM delivers a clearer path to ROI. Time and time again, ABM campaigns perform exceedingly well, as a number of our customer success stories illustrate. Perhaps one of the reasons behind this success is that ABM is somewhat medium agnostic. Organizations can use ABM with printed direct mail, digital content, corporate gifting, and other methods to connect and engage with clients. This flexibility allows marketers and sales teams to develop a unified, multitouch approach that lures in customers.

ABM offers three crucial outcomes that bolster success.

Increased response rates—Unlike traditional advertising, which can be disruptive, ABM allows prospects and customers to choose what information they receive and how they receive it. This approach lets you focus on honing your message, which in turn generates higher response rates. What’s more, you can automate a significant number of touches, such as automatically sending a thank-you note and gift card after a meeting.

Increased ROI—ABM removes a significant portion of the guesswork in campaigns because it is highly targeted. Compared with traditional advertising, ABM is far more precise, focusing on prospects that are more likely to convert, resulting in higher conversion rates and, in turn, higher ROI.

ABM is also far more affordable because it eliminates the need for expensive ad buys that may or may not hit the targeted audience and may or may not work. Organizations can even use ABM in conjunction with highly targeted ads by using retargeting and other advanced digital advertising models. With lower cost and higher conversion rates, ABM can significantly increase ROI.

Improved customer experience—We all know that metrics like response rates, conversion rates, and ROI are extremely important. But creating an excellent customer experience is possibly the most important benefit of ABM. Today’s B2B customers have grown accustomed to highly personalized B2C buying experiences, both online and off, and expect their B2B vendors to present similar experiences.

Memorable customer experiences are extremely valuable, although their worth may be somewhat intangible. They grab the customer’s attention by offering something they’re more likely to want, and they also help earn the customer’s loyalty. Basically, when customers know they can expect a great experience from a company, they’re more likely to become repeat buyers.

Now that we’ve discussed the basics of what ABM is and the benefits it offers, let’s take a look at what makes an ABM campaign successful.

Ingredients for ABM success

A variety of factors contribute to the success of any marketing campaign. With ABM, there are four main ingredients you need to achieve success. Get these things right, and you’re likely to hit your goals.

1. Sales and marketing alignment

Ever been in a situation where one department promises a customer one thing, only to learn from another department later that it’s not possible? If you have, then you know how bad that looks and how quickly it can lose a sale.

Although ABM can’t fix all your organizational woes, it can help to bridge the gap between sales and marketing teams. In fact, the success of an ABM campaign relies on these two departments working closely together to deliver cohesive, personalized messaging to targeted accounts.

This approach requires teams to listen to each other’s insights based on their own data (both quantitative and anecdotal), develop messaging together, and agree on a customer journey that leverages another key ingredient: knowing your audience.

2. Knowing your audience

To achieve synchronization between departments, it’s essential for organizations to develop a 360-degree understanding of their customers. It’s not enough to just know their pain points and key aspects of their business; it’s essential to know things like what social media networks they participate in, what their interests are, and other personal information.

We’re not just talking about building a marketing persona. You can spend a lot of time and money on building personas and still not really know your audience. We’re talking about getting this granular information for every single prospect and customer. You can then translate all this data into an ABM campaign that delivers highly personalized experiences that engage customers better than simple segmentation by persona.

3. Personalization

This is where Sendoso comes in. Because Sendoso is a Sending Management Platform, sales and marketing departments can leverage its capabilities to provide incredible customer experiences that help build relationships. And it’s all based around personalization. The more you get to know your customer, the more you can personalize the experience you provide.

For example, if your sales development rep (SDR) knows that a customer’s child is graduating high school, the SDR might choose to send a gift that congratulates the child—or the parent—for their achievement.

But personalization isn’t necessarily limited to one-to-one communication. Teams can set up an automated workflow in Sendoso that sends gifts with personalized messages at key stages of the sales cycle, such as sending thank-you notes, gift cards, or even bottles of champagne when a deal closes.

Because gifting can be challenging in regulated environments and industries, Sendoso makes it easy with full General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance and Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 certification. What’s more, we have a team of global sending experts who can not only ensure adherence to local regulations and laws but also help you choose culturally appropriate gifts for every recipient, no matter where they live.

4. The power of integrations

It’s one thing when departments don’t communicate to get things done. It’s an entirely different challenge when your software platforms don’t communicate and share data.

Integrating the platforms your team already uses is one of the most important ingredients to drive success in an ABM campaign for two reasons:

• Teams don’t want to have to learn a completely new system to do their jobs.
• Having data flow across systems makes it easier to test and gain insights into campaign performance, allowing teams to fine-tune their campaigns for even better results.

At Sendoso, we offer integrations with some of the most popular marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), and sales enablement platforms, including:

• Salesloft – Enhance and boost response rates by adding personalized gifts and eGifts within your team’s Salesloft Cadences.
• Outreach – Personalize your prospecting by allowing teams to send, trigger, and track statuses directly from Outreach.
• 6Sense – Add sending to your account engagement strategy by triggering sends based on intent, behavior and AI data from 6sense.
• Chili Piper – Add your Chili Piper link to an eGift send, requiring recipients to book a meeting before accessing their gift.

You can check out our full list of integrations here.

Is gifting the ultimate ABM tool?

Gifting is an essential component in a successful ABM strategy, and the Sendoso Sending Management Platform empowers teams to coordinate with personalized messaging and customer experiences. Best of all, Sendoso enables you to deliver the right gifts to the right person, at the right time, almost anywhere in the world.

Want to see Sendoso in action? Schedule a demo to learn how Sendoso can power ABM campaigns that improve customer engagement and increase ROI.