ABM campaigns serve as strategic go-to-market approaches to create personalized coordination between marketing and sales. These campaigns are anchored to increase engagement with specific accounts. Various market surveys have shown that the majority of marketers consider ABM as an extremely beneficial marketing campaign. They believe that ABM marketing strategy is an art and science that can bring high returns almost always when applied well.
Now, we intend to help every marketer with actionable insights so that they can make strong strategic decisions for growth. In this article, we have decided to present some great examples of using Account-Based Marketing to create better growth opportunities effectively.
In this write-up, let us look at some of the splendid examples of account-based marketing campaign strategies.
1. Personalized and Customized Content Experience by Snowflake
Snowflake is a popular cloud-based data warehousing company. Snowflake initiated and progressed conversations with specific accounts using personalized and customized content. This helped the company engage in meaningful interactions with target accounts. They created a library of high-quality content and utilized them to provide a customized content experience for individual target accounts. Snowflake used the content to educate the target audience based on their position in the account lifecycle stage. Snowflake focused its campaigns on creating credibility and reliability rather than driving conversion. Accounts that engaged with this free high-quality content was then retargeted for a better rate of ROI.
The idea of a personalized content experience can be utilized by any company that has high-quality content for its target audience. All you need is to redesign your content distribution strategy.
2. Personalized Storytelling by GumGum
GumGum, an applied computer vision company, used ABM to win over business deals with T-Mobile. Upon finding out that the CEO of T-Mobile was a great fan of batman, they created and printed 100 copies of a comic book called T-man and Gums. This was distributed to people across T-Mobile agencies. Here, the company learned about its target audience and then created content around their interests.
This way, they identified their client’s interests and then used the information to create a story to build personal bonding with them. There are many different ways to create targeted interactions with brands using unique information about them.
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3. Billboard Message by Intridea
Intridea, a web product and services company, used bold messages on a billboard to initiate an engagement with an ad agency called Ogilvy and Mather. For this, Intridea put a billboard at its Manhattan office with the message “ogle this, Ogilvy..” The message was followed by a customized URL that contained funny GIFs and a personalized message asking them to hire Intridea. This experiential Account-Based Marketing Campaign method worked for Intridea and might work for you as well.
The idea here is not to copy them but to see how bold ideas can be implemented if you have trust in your method.
4. Hyper-Targeted Approach by LiveRamp
LiveRamp is a well-known identity resolution provider. They have proved that the hyper-targeted ABM works way better than broad marketing campaigns that focus on selling to everyone possible. LiveRamp helped several Fortune 500 companies’ market better using multilevel and multichannel approaches. But their main tactic is to be hyper-focused on target. When they first implemented their approach, they made a list of just 15 high-value clients and were able to achieve a 33% conversion rate in just four weeks. Over a period of two years, they increased their customer LTV by 25 times.
Identifying the most valuable accounts – is the main lesson to learn from LiveRamp’s campaign. This is the first step for a successful ABM campaign. The next step would be to plan strategies accordingly.
5. Picture Showcasing by Robin
Robin is a company that sells conference room scheduling software and tools. And their most successful ABM campaign to date was as simple as showcasing beautiful pictures. Obviously, talking about software and tools was plain boring for most of their target audience. So, they decided to showcase pictures of beautiful office spaces of their established clients. And this idea that looks simple on the surface helped them win many clients. Their website traffic increased by 50% just by showcasing those beautiful office spaces and leads increased by 20%.
This example is to make you understand that you do not need hefty investments in advertising ideas… provided you have a brilliant no-cost or low-cost idea.
6. Direct Mailing Strategy by RollWorks
RollWorks showed one of the most unique ABM strategies. It focused on Tier-II and Tier-III clients in their conversion funnel, and that too with the old-school method of direct mailing. They recognized accounts that did not progress for 35 days and then mailed them a ‘Door opener kit’. The kit contained a notebook with a checklist of steps they needed to complete further. It also contained testimonials from existing clients every few pages. It further explained the benefits of adopting the full-suite package by RollWorks. They achieved an impressive 41% closing rate.
The experience of RollWorks shows that ABM can work fine even on Tier-II and Tier-III accounts as well! Provided you need to layer the content well with the existing marketing campaign.
7. Marketing and Sales Team Collaboration by Salsify
Salsify had a unique approach to ABM. They planned a roadshow in New York City where brands like Johnsons & Johnsons and Google were to speak on their behalf. Meanwhile, their marketing team took to social media to connect with their targets. They followed up with targeted ads and emails and then let the sales team take charge. This collaborative approach between their marketing and sales team helped them close dozens of accounts within 2 hours. Additionally, they exceeded their conversion target by 22%.
This shows that ABM’s strategy utilizing multichannel and collaboration between marketing and sales team can bring results beyond expectations.
8. LinkedIn Sales Navigator Strategy by Emails that Sell
The founder of ‘Emails that Sell’ swear by LinkedIn sales navigator as one of the most beneficial ways to connect to prospective clients. They find it relevant, especially for B2B businesses. The idea here is to personalize your message just like you personalize your emails. But the subject here is a little more serious as a low acceptance rate on LinkedIn may lead to an account ban. So, Emails that Sell have the strategy of defining their target account. It does so based on the second-degree network and also the account’s activity in the past 30-days. This makes sure that the account is active and has something in common. The personalized message is either based on some commonalities or unique information about the account. They boast of 40-45% of acceptance rate and 30-35% of reply rate on LinkedIn.
For any B2B company, LinkedIn is the best place to start connecting with key decision-makers of the target company account and get a quick conversion.
9. Segmented Approach by DocuSign
DocuSign is an e-Signature transaction management solution providing a company. The biggest challenge faced by this company was that its target audience came from six different industries. And it utilized ABM strategy to provide its customers with more personalized experience and driving traffic. It integrated segmentation and content targeting into its web platform. The visitors were asked a few questions to determine their industry among the six targeted industries. Based on their answers, DocuSign sent industry-specific messages, images, testimonials, and peer logos. Their segmented and adjusted content offerings for their customers boosted their sales pipeline by 22%.
This approach can work quite well for any B2B company that serves audiences from different industries.
10. Giving before Receiving ABM strategy by O2
O2 is a British telecommunication service provider that had to deal with heavy competition in its industry. It adopted a unique ABM strategy to boost its credibility in the market. The company created a list of its target organization and more than 2000 key employees working for those companies. The company took the pain of creating personalized reports for each of its target companies. These reports included detailed information like how much the organization can save and how much more revenue they can generate using the services of O2. These personalized reports were shared with the clients. The sales executives at O2 then followed up with individual clients for face-to-face meetings. They achieved a 67.5% conversion rate using this strategy.
If you can give something to your clients before approaching them as a salesperson, you can win their trust more easily. And this Account-Based Marketing example can work fine for your brand too.
Final Thoughts
Account-Based Marketing Campaign Strategy is one of the most effective strategies, and many companies stand testimonial to this. It works every single time because the strategy focuses on a few targeted accounts and does not make a futile attempt to make a sale to everybody. The first thing for the success of any such targeted approach is to find out your exact target. Unless you do not define your target customer precisely you cannot carve out an account-based marketing strategy. The above given ABM examples give you an idea of how this approach can be utilized for the maximum benefit.
Stanley Deepak is an accomplished sales and marketing professional with 15+ years of experience. He loves tech products and book reading. He writes on philosophy and culture on LinkedIn.
Published April 20, 2022, Updated November 18, 2022