The 4 steps to a great ABM strategy

An ABM strategy can be a good way of focusing your marketing efforts on the accounts that really bring value. It can be kind of difficult to put into practice, though, and so we’ve gathered 4 steps to make it happen. 

Starting with an ABM strategy can be a smart decision. It’s an approach that tends to have an absolute great ROI, as long as you pick the right, high-value accounts to go for. That said, it can feel a bit challenging to get started with ABM, why we’ve gathered a few steps to make it happen.

4 steps to a great ABM strategy

If we break down what you need to run a great ABM campaign, it can look something like the steps below:

These steps are a bit high-level, though, and so let’s dive a little bit deeper into each one. To give you a nice overview of what they actually mean.

You will need to gather customer data to have a solid starting point. Here, you can dive into data on your current customer base and get an idea of who your ideal customer really is. This is a worthwhile challenge and can help you cluster your customers and find those that are worth the most. Which will give you some solid ground to stand on for the next step.

Note: Since data has a lot do with a lot of things, you will come back to this step. After all, you will need to look at the data at every stage of your journey. To make sure that the choices you make are actually based on facts, and give your campaign the best possible conditions to perform.

2: Find and pick the right accounts

Now, you can use what you’ve learned to pick accounts from your customer base – if you only want to market to existing accounts. If you want to go look for new accounts, instead, you can use your ideal customer to find other companies that match. For example by going on LinkedIn and looking at companies that are similar to the ones you’ve already found in your customer base.

You can also look at marketing data to spot high-value leads who have engaged with inbound content. Then, you can compare those to your ideal customer, and take your pick.

3: Crunch your message and set the design

In this step you’ll go back to research mode and look at the accounts you’ve picked in detail. You’ll want to look at their markets, company and key stakeholders. Not to mention their organizational structure, that can answer questions like how they actually go about purchasing.

This will then help you crunch your message and product offering for each account, and design individual campaigns with that in mind. Remember, your content and campaigns should be relevant to the account (or group of accounts) they’re for. Which may mean that the campaign is made to fit the needs and pain points of an industry, specific company or even a specific role in said company.

4: Run your campaigns and follow up

Now, it’s time to run your campaigns in the channels of your choosing. I.e. it’s time to get the right content into the right hands, and work to nudge them forward in the buying journey.

It goes without saying that you also need to follow up on how it goes. This should really be done in regular intervals, so that you see what’s working and what’s not. Giving you a chance to adjust the content.

Once the campaigns are over and done, you’ll also want to gather your results and make them visible for the rest of the organization. To prove your case and show just how nice of an ROI you’re getting from your ABM strategy.

SP_CE for ABM

With these steps, starting to run ABM campaigns can be a little bit easier. That said, you may find that the right digital tools can be a great resource along the way.

Here, our own SP_CE Showroom can actually help a lot in the latter steps of your ABM strategy. This, by giving you the space you need to create, run and follow up on your campaigns.

For example, our Showroom can let you:

• Package your message and set a design for how your content is presented. This, by giving you a digital space that works sort of like a microsite, and that can be customized within minutes.
• Easily share your content and Showroom with a magic link. That way, you can quickly send it out to your high-value accounts, and make sure that it reaches your key stakeholders. You can even share it strategically in social channels, to find the stakeholders who can help you gain traction within your target accounts’ organizations.
• See how your content performs in real time. Which allows you to quickly change what doesn’t work, or add more of what does. Plus, it makes it easy to show the final result of your campaign as well as the ROI of it all.

Do you want to hear more about our Showroom, and where it fits into your ABM strategy? Contact us for a demo to get a live tour!