5 Account Based Marketing Tactics You Can Implement Today

Account-based marketing is a critical tool in any outbound marketing strategy and any comprehensive marketing strategy. This is especially for B2Bs, who rely on fewer and more critical accounts to make their money than B2C operations. But overhauling your whole strategy right now isn’t the only way you can incorporate account-based marketing techniques in your overall strategy.

Here are 5 ABM tactics you can implement today to get account-based marketing strategy off the ground.

First, What Is Account-Based Marketing?

There’s a lot we could talk about with account-based marketing, and we’ve done some of that already in a recent post, What is Account-Based Marketing? (which you should check out for more info). Briefly, though, account-based marketing (ABM) is essentially super-focused targeting: you’re marketing toward the ideal accounts you’d like to have, specifically and individually. For example, if you were a Tier I automotive supplier using ABM, you’d target Chrysler.

ABM is really useful for B2Bs because it focuses marketing efforts on high-value prospects. Using ABM, content tailored specifically to the goals and challenges of your ideal account can hit multiple decision-makers within that account and increasing your impact and shortening the sales cycle. It has the highest ROI of any marketing strategy.

Tactic 1: Retargeting

Retargeting is one of the most effective marketing tools out there. Why? Because of the length of the sales cycle. Potential customers need on average 6 to 8 points of contact with your brand before they make a purchase. Retargeting gets you those touchpoints. 

Think about the last time you bought or even just looked at something online, like a pair of shoes. Later that day, a few days later, or even almost immediately after, you probably saw an ad on some other site—Facebook, Instagram, or even your local weather station’s website—for those exact same shoes. Did you buy the shoes then? Or a few days later? A lot of people do. 

It’s not much different for B2Bs. If you hit the relevant contacts from your target account with retargeted ads after they hit your site, you’re getting your name in front of them another time, adding to the likelihood that they’ll recognize you, and when they’re ready to consider what you’re offering, that they’ll remember to go to you.  

Tactic 2: Use Linkedin Ads

LinkedIn’s ad platform was made for ABM. Firstly, your audience is a professional one, and they are using LinkedIn. But most crucially, LinkedIn has amazing targeting options. You can serve an ad to the exact people you want to see it, and this makes it a perfect tool for account-based marketing. You can select the organization you want to target—that is, the account. You can further narrow your ad audience by job title, focusing on key decision-makers. 

Going back to our example, if you’re an automotive supplier and your ideal account is Chrysler, you can use LinkedIn ads to target all of the decision-makers at Chrysler who are relevant to your product: engineers, sourcing and purchasing specialists, the Purchasing Director, even the VP in charge of sourcing and purchasing.

Tactic 3: Use LinkedIn TeamLink

Yeah, we know, we love LinkedIn. It has so many amazing tools, how can we not? One of these great tools is TeamLink, which is a feature of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. TeamLink shows you connections between employees at your company and contacts at your ideal account. If those connections are relevant, the employee at your company can provide a personal introduction to one of these key decision-maker contacts. 

The world really is a small place, and you never know who might be connected to whom. Maybe one of your HR representatives is married to a purchasing specialist at your target account, or one of your Customer Service reps went to school with the Purchasing Director. TeamLink can help you discover these connections and leverage them for ABM.

Tactic 4: Use Social Data

If you want to market to a specific account, you’ve got to know what’s going on with them. What new products or services are they rolling out? What issues are they having? Set up Google alerts for the company’s name so you’re on top of their latest happenings, and follow them on social media as well. 

This social data can be used in many different ways. For positive news, like the launch of a new product line, your sales team can engage contacts by congratulating them on the exciting news. For negative news, like a major, nationwide recall, you have a chance to sympathize and perhaps even offer a solution. If your target account is Chrysler and you make airbags, a recall of faulty airbags in a new vehicle is an opportunity to answer a challenge your ideal customer is facing. It’s also an opportunity to find useful topics for content offers that will be sure to convert.

Tactic 5: Personalized Landing Pages and Account-Specific Offers

Create a customized experience when people from your ideal account visit your site by personalizing landing pages for them with copy, images, and offers that are specific to that company. Want an account to hire you to manage their social media? Write an assessment of their existing social media and use that as a content offer. 

Use the account’s name specifically in your content offer and on your landing page to get your visitors’ attention. Then you’re not just offering generic solutions to their problems, you’re offering them solutions to their exact problems. Which, of course, is what we all want. Have you ever asked a friend or mentor for advice and they just told you something generic and cliche, like “it will all work out” or “just keep at it”? That’s unsatisfying, right? If they instead said, “If I were you, this is exactly what I’d do, and why,” then laid it all out for you, that would be much more specific, helpful, and personal.

Interested to see what ABM tactics can do for you? Let's talk.