6 Smart Account Based Marketing Examples for B2B Companies

Account-based marketing covers a set of strategic tactics to bring in precise leads and accounts into your sales funnel. ABM has become increasingly popular; it enables you to optimize your marketing spend and resources towards fewer leads, increasing the chance of closing qualified sales and decreasing the cost per lead.

Before jumping into an ABM campaign, take a look at common reasons why ABM campaigns fail. There are misconceptions about this marketing tactic that you should try to avoid.

In this article, we'll cover how to run a successful ABM campaign for B2B companies.

Use LinkedIn Target Audiences With Ads, InMail

LinkedIn is a great lead generation tool for account-based marketing. On this platform, you can target leads on a granular level to get in front of a specific audience. Different types of campaigns, such as sponsored content, ads, or boosted posts, are excellent ways to start an ABM campaign. You can even collect leads natively on the platform with lead generation forms. 

There are several methods to implement to reach your ABM targets. First, upload the email addresses directly into your targeting. However, there are two important notes. 

1. Many people use their personal email addresses for LinkedIn, so if you have a list of business email addresses, you may not be able to "match" all of your contacts. 

2. You will need a minimum of 300 email addresses or companies to match for the campaign to run. However, LinkedIn recommends at least 1,000 accounts or 10,000 contacts to achieve a large enough audience reach.

If you have difficulty reaching the minimum number of account matches, try the second method: build an audience based on precise factors such as company name, company size, job function, or even specific business role and seniority. By testing these factors and building a custom audience, you can capture your target leads successfully.

Consider sending sponsored InMail to get directly into the inboxes of your target accounts. Send a personal message and add a conversion opportunity, such as a LinkedIn lead generation form or a content offer.

Develop Content for Attracting, Converting, and Nurturing Target Accounts

Content is crucial for lead generation, especially for ABM. ABM campaign for B2B companies requires targeted content offers for your target leads throughout the buyer's journey.

• Awareness-stage content captures leads early in the funnel using content like a report or eBook, which belongs on a landing page with a form.
• Consideration-stage pieces foster interest in your company. 
• Decision-stage content like sales one-pagers and demo videos help further down in the journey.

Create new content or use existing content and repurpose it for a precise part of the target audience -- for example, repurpose a survey as the "[Job Function] 's 2021 Benchmarking Report." The ABM target account prospect will pay attention more if they see personalized content.

To draw qualified leads to your content, use SEO best practices and optimize your content around key terms. 

Personalization of Your Website for Segments

We recommend personalizing your website content, images, and conversion points. If you have a CMS like HubSpot that allows for real-time personalization, you can automate various content blocks based on lead factors. For example, target based on a specific list of contacts. Create a list of contacts who have already expressed interest in your company and change the website copy from "Get our content offer" to "View a free quote."

Create separate website pages or a subdomain (such as info.[websitename].com) if your CMS does not allow for real-time personalization. You will need to set up tracking URLs to measure your ABM campaigns' success in driving leads to these pages.

Uploading Email Lists and Remarketing With AdWords

Like LinkedIn, you can upload lists of email addresses to AdWords for targeted campaigns on the search or display networks. Remember that you need at least 10,000 email addresses to build your audience. You can also layer your email addresses with retargeting pixels placed on your website globally or specific landing pages. But we suggest starting with no more than two or three targeting "layers" to start.

We advise running a campaign based on what your audience has already expressed interest in. If you gather your list based on one or two specific website page visits, you can build your ads around those specific terms to create engagement.

Tip: Even before you run (or plan to run) a remarketing campaign, make sure your tracking pixels are in place from the major networks, such as the Google retargeting pixel and the LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter pixels. It may take up to three-to-four months to gain enough traffic to use these audiences for remarketing organically. However, if you are running a driver campaign with a high budget above roughly $1,500/day, you may can generate enough traffic in a few days or weeks for remarketing.

Website Revisit Alerts With One-to-One Email Follow-Ups

If your CRM or CMS permits, set up website revisit alerts to tell you when target account leads are revisiting your website. Make sure these notifications are obvious to you via push notification to your desktop or email. Next, have your business development or sales team follow up promptly with these leads.

Follow-up emails should be highly personalized. Introduce yourself, and write in a useful and targeted way related to the content the lead was consuming. Always be relevant. For example, if a lead read an eBook, don't jump right into the sales pitch. Instead, address the topic at hand, offer personalized advice, and ask questions such as, "Do you have any concerns about this subject area?" or "Are you struggling with this pain point?" Do not push sales before you've made initial contact and established some rapport with the prospect. 

Uploading Target List to Twitter Tailored Audiences

Twitter works much like the other ABM channels we've outlined here, such as LinkedIn and AdWords. Twitter will match email addresses to the users' Twitter handles. However, there is a minimum of 300 matches required to start your campaign.

As with all account-based marketing campaigns, your content must be targeted. For example, you can design a graphic that includes a company's name -- or even a company's competitor's name -- to capture attention immediately. Use statistics in your sponsored tweets that are highly relevant to that account's pain points and industry.

Success with ABM campaign for B2B companies

Use various ABM tactics, like these six tactics for B2B companies, to drive progress with a specific set of leads. Invest in targeted downloadable content, website positioning, and at least two-to three different account-based marketing channels listed here to get measurable insights and see the impact of your campaign.

To succeed with ABM, B2B companies need to connect the dots between teams, sales, marketing, and data sets. Account-based marketing must have these connections to be successful. Review our account-based marketing model for growth below. As an ABM agency, Ironpaper builds a strategic roadmap for growth starting with fundamentals, as represented in the model below.