Introduction
Account-based marketing is a powerful marketing tool. 94% of B2B marketers are already using ABM to connect with valuable accounts.
Moreover, 97% of marketers say that ABM brings in a higher investment rate than other marketing strategies.
There is no doubt ABM is the best business growth strategy. But, it is a complex marketing strategy.
It involves data connection, segmentation, analysis, and monitoring potential accounts. It requires a constant analytical approach to implement account-based marketing in your business.
Apart from that, ABM statistics can generate leads in various ways. For example, you can create user-specific content or launch segmented email marketing campaigns with ABM.
Marketers must map out the custom ABM strategy for a business. They need to consider several aspects like business size, industry, and so on to develop a progressive ABM plan. That’s something not easy to achieve.
Thus, to help marketing teams, we have shortlisted 10 account-based marketing examples of leading brands that can help you develop the best ABM strategy for your company. So, let’s get started.
How to Implement The Best Account-based Marketing Plan?
Before exploring the best account-based marketing examples, let’s understand how to execute ABM plan to obtain maximum results. Here are a couple of points that you must consider while implementing an ABM plan:
Streamline sales and marketing teams
Account-based marketing implementation requires marketing and sales alignment. A customer must seamlessly transition from being acquired as a lead to the final conversion through a custom buying experience.
To improve marketing-sales synergy, organizations must commit to clear communication and find a middle ground to ensure that the marketing team acquires leads that the sales team can properly sell to.
Define account persona
Once marketing and sales agree on a strategy, the two departments can collaborate to ensure your company targets the right buyer persona.
This usually starts with research to determine which accounts to pursue. Marketers should consider their ideal customer’s mission, vision, and business objectives when developing customer personas for an account-based marketing strategy.
Define a roadmap to target an account
It’s time to create a plan to target a potential account. This entails collaborating with the marketing and sales teams to map out the potential leads they’ll need to attract to reach their target accounts. It also involves the content they’ll need to create to engage with this audience.
Build a relationship with potential accounts
As you cultivate relationships with key contacts, make sure that sales and marketing constantly involve everyone in the purchasing decision.
Though the sales team runs this stage of the buying process, the marketing team must also stay prepared to assist if salespeople require relevant materials.
Top 10 Account-based Marketing Examples & Strategies That Smart Brands Already Using
Now that you know what goes into implementing a successful account-based marketing campaign, the next step is to know which ABM strategies are suitable for your business growth.
After analyzing various brands’ ABM strategies, we have compiled this list of the best account-based marketing examples that can help every business. So, if you have no idea how to implement an ABM in your organization, you can refer to these examples:
Example 1. Personalize your content like GumGum
Creating personalized content is an excellent way to capture the attention of your potential clients and illustrate that you understand their pain points. GumGum did precisely that when it wanted to attract a new client — T-Mobile.
In this example, GumGum created a comic book depicting T-Mobile CEO John Legere as a superhero with his trusty sidekick, Gums.
As a result, GumGum acquired the account and increased its revenue because this content was personalized for T-Mobile and the CEO’s interests.
T-Mobile CEO was so impressed with the comic that he shared it on Twitter, giving GumGum a huge shout-out. That means GumGum gained new customers and increased its exposure and brand awareness on social media.
You can only create personalized content for some accounts in your sales funnel. Instead, you have to analyze each potential account using a lead scoring system to sort out the most potential accounts that can bring high value to your business.
Example 2. Use social media to establish emotional connections like Microsoft
Social media is a strategic channel for making a personalized first impression on high-value accounts and learning more about them before meeting them in person. In addition, social listening can help you understand the pain points of your targeted accounts.
You can engage with accounts by liking their posts, leaving comments, and even sharing them on social media to increase your company’s credibility. Consider sending them direct messages on social media. It gives you an advantage by getting your name out there early.
For example, Microsoft is already a well-established tech brand with a loyal customer base. But they still use their Instagram handle to build an emotional connection with their targeted audience.
Recently, Microsoft collaborated with an NBA player, Donovan Mitchell, to educate the young generation about technology and spike their interest in innovative gadgets. Partnering with NBA players helps Microsoft emotionally connect with its targeted audience — teens.
Example 3. Gift your way to your prospect’s pockets like Invoca
Everyone enjoys receiving gifts. Direct mail marketing has long used small gifts to entice people to consider unsolicited offers. It’s the most businesses can do if you’re going to send loads of money on their products, right?
B2B companies can afford to give their prospects bigger, fancier, and more excellent swag. That’s because you probably have a box full of stress balls, cord clips, and ballpoint pens if you’ve been to a trade show or two.
So, you must go bigger with your gift to entice high-value B2B clients. And that’s something you can learn from Invoca.
Invoca, a tracking and analytics company made sure that everyone who booked a meeting with them remembered who they were at the 2015 Dreamforce conference.
Because they distributed free Apple Watches.
It wasn’t just that Invoca was giving away an expensive, high-value item. An Apple Watch also served as a tactile reminder for the meeting appointment and follow-up, and it was integrated with the communications-centric services offered by Invoca.
What was the end result? First, Invoca significantly outperformed its own lead generation and pipeline targets.
Example 4. Go bold like Intridea
Intridea, a web product, and services company, used striking messages on a billboard to start an engagement with an ad agency called Ogilvy and Mather.
Intridea did this by putting up a billboard in its Manhattan office with the message “ogle this, Ogilvy.” The message was followed by a personalized URL with funny GIFs and a message asking them to hire Intridea. This experiential Account-Based Marketing Campaign method was successful for Intridea and may also be successful for you.
The goal here is not to imitate them but to demonstrate how bold ideas can be implemented if you have faith in your method.
If you want to work with a high-end client on your radar, you can go all bold and ask them to hire your services. You never know if your creative approach and passion might land your highest-paying client.
Example 5. Share information with accounts like Calendly
The best strategy to keep your potential accounts active in your sales pipeline is to share valuable information with them. People only sometimes want to know how good your product is and why they should get it.
Sometimes, they want simple information to make up their mind. But, again, this strategy is something that you can borrow from Calendly.
They host virtual events for their potential accounts to educate them more about scheduling and appointments. In addition, they sent email invites to people with free access to their software.
One-on-one interactions during events help them convert free accounts into paid ones. It is a simple yet effective marketing strategy to make personal relationships with your potential accounts.
Example 6. Use targeted ads like Personify
Personify sets another great account-based marketing example. It is a Constituent Management & Engagement (CME) platform that offers a comprehensive view of organization members.
The SaaS solution providers required more information about their target market and the factors influencing their sales pipeline and revenue. So, they decided on an ABM strategy.
Personify launched a comprehensive ABM program. They began by identifying their ICP and creating a list of their top accounts. The target markets and personas within them were then segmented.
Following that, Personify launched a series of personalized ad campaigns based on the buyer’s stage, company, and persona. Personify also increased its brand awareness and lead nurturing campaigns.
Personify saw results 11 months after launching its ABM program. They found 39 times more engaged website visitors.
Today, all digital ad display channels allow customizing your targeted audience. For example, you can choose age, gender, income, and other bifurcation to ensure your ad reaches ideal clients.
Example 7. Personalize content like UnboundB2B
Creating and sharing relevant content is one of the most effective ways to engage and nurture ABM accounts. However, this necessitates that B2B marketers understand the target account and contacts within those accounts.
Marketers must collect data on their pain points, challenges, preferred content formats, and even lengths to devise an effective content creation strategy.
Personalized content is also our secret growth weapon. We use analytical tools to understand our targeted customers’ pain points; accordingly, we choose our blog topics.
Going over our blog section, you can find topics related to advanced marketing techniques. Since our targeted audience is business executives and entrepreneurs, we only share expert information with them. However, we share modern marketing strategies they might need to learn about and would like to learn about.
Example 8. Gated content like Backlinko
Gated lead magnets should provide more value than your free content. Ensure lead generation content covers bottom-of-funnel topics to increase purchase intent and, improve conversion rates, address customer pain points.
Backlinko is using this strategy to collect potential account data. They publish gated blogs on their website, unlocking when a user enters their email address.
This strategy has two benefits – first, they get to know accounts who are interested in their content, and second, they can build their email list.
It is evident that if a person tries to enter their email address to access your content, they are interested in your solutions.
Example 9. A visual approach like Robin
Are you still looking for more account-based marketing examples? Then take a look at this fantastic example from Robin.
Robin designs office spaces and provides effective software that assists businesses in keeping their teams organized. Regarding account-based marketing, the key to driving more revenue is ensuring that your promotions reach your ideal prospects and encourage them to convert.
Robin did exactly that with their social media marketing campaign. Robin took a creative approach to differentiate itself from its competitors by showing prospects images of its office spaces.
They knew their target accounts wanted to create beautiful, well-organized office spaces, so they catered to that desire in their account-based marketing strategy.
As a result, they increased website traffic and raised brand awareness on social media platforms.
Example 10. Dynamic homepage content like DocuSign
Though account-based marketing is typically associated with outbound sales strategies, it is a valuable partner for inbound-focused teams when ABM is targeted to produce dynamic content.
DocuSign designed its lead generation strategy to complement an account-based marketing strategy.
DocuSign used account intelligence tools to create a powerful ABM strategy and attract leads that met very specific criteria.
DocuSign used an advertising tool to create a targeted digital advertising campaign to reach a list of 450 enterprise clients who met the company’s ABM criteria.
While this was an effective strategy for attracting appropriate enterprise-level accounts, DocuSign noticed that visitors were leaving before viewing the most valuable information.
So, DocuSign used personalization to improve on-page interaction by creating a series of industry-specific homepages with dynamic content such as customer testimonials. And that strategy paid them well.
Best Account-based Marketing Example!
All of the above-discussed account-based marketing examples must have left you with some thinking. Your brain cells must run wild to develop a unique ABM campaign to grow your business sales.
So, on this parting note, we will only advise you to be unique. You can refer to these account-based marketing examples, but don’t simply copy them. These strategies might have worked for these plans, but there is no guarantee that they can offer exact results to you too.
Therefore, do your market research and customize your ABM strategy. If you are new to ABM, you can consult our team to guide and create your account-based marketing plan using the latest technology.
Gaurav Roy
10 January 2023
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