An Overview of Account-Based Marketing
In the realm of B2B Marketing, Account Based Marketing (ABM) is fast becoming one of the most powerful strategies that marketers use. ABM is a strategy that allows companies to create a marketing plan that is account-specific and incorporates it with a sales plan.
ABM is used as an effective tool and makes it possible for both marketing and sales to be in the same mindset. In fact, it is so effective that according to global research and marketing firm SiriusDecisions, clients who use ABM have 20% deal increases and a 30% boost in their customer health scores.
ABM usually begins with personalized sales and marketing and then raises it to the next level using 21st-century technology. The use of technology allows it to be manageable and scalable. One of its main benefits is it allows marketers to know exactly the key accounts to focus on. Marketing can partner with the sales team to generate interest and influence buyers throughout the decision-making process.
LinkedIn Account Based Targeting: Uses and Benefits
Companies can use LinkedIn Account Targeting in creating an account target segment. This feature allows marketers to choose which specific company to target. Marketers can choose up to 100 companies.
LinkedIn Account Targeting takes the guesswork out of the process. A company representative is able to consult with a LinkedIn account team member, working together to match the company’s key account list with the database of existing LinkedIn Company Pages. LinkedIn currently has more than 8 million Company Pages. This precisely identifies the target audience. It even makes it easier as it enables the uploading of an unlimited amount of target companies in CSV spreadsheet.
From the matched target audience that the LinkedIn Account team is able to generate, marketers can further refine the target group by specifying additional criteria such as seniority, company size, job function, etc. This allows the creation of a custom-targeted audience for content campaigns. All this information is also beneficial to sales teams as it helps target their leads and identifies the decision makers who are involved in the sales process.
Sponsored Content Campaign
LinkedIn Sponsored Content is another digital marketing service which is a part of LinkedIn Account Targeting. The LinkedIn Account team will assist companies in setting up, testing, and launching their Sponsored Content campaign. The aim is to provide content and creative assets that are tailored and personalized for each of the identified custom segments. It is essential to get the right message to the right people and to display relevant ad content to an identified audience segment.
How can a company effectively use Sponsored Content to engage with their target audience segment? The first thing to do is to ensure that the Sponsored Content introduction is brief and to the point, with a clear call to action that directly leads to a customized landing page or LinkedIn Lead Generation Form. Content should be crafted with the perspective of the target audience in mind. It should be valuable and relevant.
Here are helpful guidelines in crafting compelling Sponsored Content:
- Effective content goes through a brainstorming session and is iteratively developed like a science experiment.
- Examine content through a different lens: from the audience’s mindset. Make sure that the audience will find the topic exciting.
- Think about what industry-specific conversation your company wants to own.
- Research on the keyword that the target audience is searching for.
- Track successful posts in each campaign. Continue to run these successful posts in multiple iterations.
- Determine which variables are working and which are not.
LinkedIn Sponsored InMail: Reaching the Previously Unreachable
Described as an ABM “silver bullet”, LinkedIn Sponsored InMail is a great weapon to use for hard or impossible-to-reach audiences through traditional email and other content. LinkedIn InMail is effective because it has these two important characteristics: it is of high-quality and low-frequency. Hence, LinkedIn members find these messages valuable and tend to pay attention to it compared to email messages in their crowded inbox.
With LinkedIn Account Targeting, the account team assists companies in setting up, testing, and launching their Sponsored InMail campaign. Sponsored InMail locks the target audience for 60 days, excluding them to receive other Sponsored InMails during that period of time. It is also equipped with social sharing capabilities so that a company’s target audience can spread the message further.
The Final Word
Account-based marketing is not a new marketing concept, but technology and data has supercharged it with advanced features that will benefit marketers and advertisers. LinkedIn is an ideal ABM partner because it has a network of over 400 million professionals and 8 million Company Pages. This data is beneficial because it will specifically identify and effectively engage with key accounts and has the ability to be scalable in order to achieve unprecedented targeting and segmentation.
