Account Based Content Marketing for Professional Services
Your marketing department and digital agency can focus their efforts on a selected group of clients or accounts that have account-based content marketing. This lets you create highly-personalized specific content that speaks directly about their pain points and describes how your product can help the issues.
ABM content that is effective must deliver the right information to every stakeholder in the buyer's centre at the right time. This means identifying the needs of each persona at different stages in their journey.
Aiming at specific accounts
Unlike traditional content strategies that aim to attract and convert people who are not leads through broad marketing campaigns, account-based content marketing focuses on connecting with specific accounts in a highly customized way. By identifying the top decision makers at each account and understanding their pain points and objectives, marketers can create and distribute content that is relevant to specific accounts. This can lead to a more productive interaction with customers and prospects and ultimately results in better business results.
After identifying the accounts you want to target, you need to create account plans for each. This involves analysing each account and determining the channels to utilize to reach the customers in the account should be engaging with, and what kinds of content are needed to encourage engagement and conversions. Full Posting could be thought leadership content, such as whitepapers or case studies. whitepapers, case studies, webinars) as well as retargeting ads. customized website experiences and other marketing tactics that are customized to each customer.
As a result, account based content marketing can deliver much better ROI than traditional content marketing tactics. In fact 84 percent of B2B marketers who have integrated account-based marketing in their strategy have higher ROI than any other marketing effort.
Although it takes more effort and time to cultivate small groups of targeted accounts, the rewards are significant for companies who seek to increase their revenues throughout the funnel. This is particularly true for professional services businesses where the quality of each prospect or customer is more important than the number of customers they can draw.
In addition, ABM is a great fit for businesses that want to grow their business with existing customers by establishing trusting relationships over time. Research shows that investing in existing customers is more cost-effective than investing money to acquire new customers.
Combining ABM with inbound marketing methods can maximize the impact on content marketing. Marketers can enhance the relevancy of their content to prospects at each stage of their buying journey by combining pillar content with retargeting and landing pages for lead capture. This allows them to generate additional revenue opportunities through acquisition as well as acceleration and expansion of their sales and market teams.
Create content that is hyper-personalized
ABM is a hot topic in the field of marketing. It's important that marketers understand how to adapt their content strategies to the new method. It can be hard to comprehend how ABM actually works. Jenny Magic of Convince & Convert, and Jennalee Reiff from Springbox gave a crash-course on ABM in a recent talk. They outlined the main aspects to consider, and what to expect for the success of implementation.
Understanding your ideal client's goals and issues is the first step towards creating an effective ABM strategy. Content that is in line with these goals will allow you to provide a more customized service and increase conversions. The content you create must focus on the unique requirements of each account. It is therefore crucial to map the journey of each user within the account. By doing this you'll be able see what types of content (and even individual items and pages) are most popular with these people. This information can be used to improve the user experience for those with these accounts, and show the most effective content.
Making content that is hyper-personalized isn't easy however it is an essential step to increase the impact of your ABM efforts. According to State of Marketing, 2023, 83% of consumers are willing to give up their personal information for a more customized experience.
AI processing of real-time data is one way to create hyper-personalized content. This will help you control the way your content is presented and provide suggestions for the next steps and respond to events instantly. This tool can enhance the effectiveness of ABM campaigns. It is not a substitute for multivariate testing and strategic planning.
Another way to hyper-personalize your content is to use the pillar and cluster structure. This lets you create a complete piece that addresses the issue your target accounts are facing and then connect it to other pieces which focus on specific aspects of the issue. Fitness trackers, for example, may have a number of common goals and benefits but the method in which individuals use them may be quite different.
Making sure that Marketing and Sales are aligned
Traditionally, professional services marketers focused on developing a linear sales funnel using broad marketing campaigns that appealed to large numbers of people in the expectation that a portion of them would convert. This strategy might be effective in the past when B2B marketing was more of a broadcast-based model, however, it's not as effective with the modern Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategy. Instead of trying to force all leads through the same process of the process, it's important to focus on attracting the most valuable prospects and providing them with experiences and content specifically tailored to their particular requirements and needs.
The first step is identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP). It's not as easy as establishing buyer personas since you need to be aware of the types of services that each customer is looking for and how they will be utilized.
Once you've identified your ICP, develop a strategy for content that connects with each account through multiple channels. This could range from social media advertisements to email outreach.
It's essential that your marketing and sales teams are on the same page when you implement your ABM strategy. This will help ensure that your content is relevant to each account, ensuring that you don't spend time and resources trying to reach the wrong type of audience.
Another key step is to utilize the data that you have on your most successful clients. By looking at your previous customer information, you will be able to determine what positive characteristics they share, such as being in the financial sector or falling within a certain size. This information can then be used to create targeted marketing campaigns for similar prospects.
In addition it's crucial to monitor the effectiveness of your ABM strategy and make changes as needed. If your targeted account does not respond to your content, you might need to reach out and find out what you can do to get them along the sales funnel. You can make sure that you align your ABM strategy with your content efforts by following these steps.
Measuring Success
Content marketing based on account is about creating content (videos reports, reports, blog posts and webinars) that are tailored and relevant to a specific account or persona. For instance when you're targeting healthcare organizations, your content needs to be geared towards their issues and concerns. This type of personalization does not only help with ABM but also builds solid relationships with prospects and customers.
The best part about ABM is that it can be used at any stage of the sales funnel. In fact, it could be more effective than traditional lead generation when utilized at the top of the funnel. This is because it will help you to identify and engage a small number of accounts that are likely to convert, instead of trying to generate leads from an audience that might not be interested in your product or service.
Although offline strategies like in-person meetings and phone calls or handwritten notes are still effective, today's buyers are more inclined to remote and digital self-service. It's essential to provide the right content at the right time and using the channel they prefer.
ABM is particularly effective in engaging C-suite executives who are difficult to reach. They often ignore mass emails and are more likely to respond to content that speaks to their needs and use instances. In addition, ABM can help you accelerate sales by enabling you to connect with your prospects at crucial points in their journey -- like when they're researching solutions to solve a specific business issue.
Although ABM isn't as well-known as long as traditional marketing and sales strategies, it's fast becoming a top strategy for B2B organizations looking to increase their efficiency and generate more 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.