Account-based marketing is your way to reach your prospects. How can you make the journey shorter by adding a touch of personalization?
Account-based marketing helps you capture the attention of your ideal customers and convince your prospects that you are the right fit for them. Personalization is a powerful way to convey that message. If you take time to research your target audience and craft custom messages that speak to their pain points, you can show them that you are not just another brand and it is not just another sales pitch – you are the ideal match for them, and they can choose you.
What Does It Mean to Personalize Account-Based Marketing?
Personalization in ABM means speaking directly to your customers instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach. It may not be particularly for just one person – if you think a small segment might share the same challenges, you can create information for that segment. But it can never be for your entire eligible audience.
For instance, the brand voice of apparel brands would be different for people in their 20s and people in their 40s.
Personalization is getting increasingly influential today. As personalized marketing becomes more typical across B2B industries, more prospects will be waiting for customized offers that solve their distinctive challenges.
Personalizing Your ABM Strategies
Choose accounts to target
The first step of any ABM program is to create your ideal customer profile. It is foundational to know which organizations you should target based on criteria such as company size, industry, revenue, and more. You can adjust these metrics based on what suits you.
Additionally, you can review your list of current customers who love your product or service and then include similar companies (or their competitors) in your ICP. The next step is to determine which job titles and roles are in your ICP so you know which prospects you are exactly looking for.
Develop your ABM strategy
Start by specifying the best channels and tactics to reach your target accounts, conceivably with the help of an ABM platform. Then, develop personalized content for your ABM program by examining industry trends around the target account and researching the accounts you targeted. The content you personalize could Personalized could include custom landing pages, emails, digital ads, social media, and webinars.
Measure your success
There are multiple metrics you will want to measure in your ABM program to determine if your efforts are successful or if there is still scope for improvement. To check how much your personalized approach with ABM succeeded, you can look at metrics like form fills, time spent on landing pages, and overall content your prospects engaged with. There are no second guesses that you will want to measure which accounts finally turned into paying customers.
Determining What Is Important to Individual Accounts
The data you have is your goldmine in determining what matters to a specific account. You must have a clear understanding of the following types of data when researching your ICP:
- INDUSTRY DATA – It gives you a bird’s eye view of what your target prospect is most likely struggling with and what solutions and messaging will likely appeal to them.
- FIRMOGRAPHIC DATA - This is data about the precise company you’re looking to target. It tells you its earnings, employees, growth, and locations.
- INTENT DATA – Intent data tracks your target’s behavior. For example, it may indicate which ads they’re clicking on, which keywords they’re searching for, or which content they’re downloading from your site.
Top Personalization Tactics in Account-Based Marketing
Website Personalization
Your website is kind of like your first hello and the last goodbye – think of this your website is the one where your prospects land the most. From the first glance to the introspection of whether they should or should not buy from you happens based on how appealing your website is.
Here are a few methods you can deliver a super personalized and relevant experience to keep your prospects moving down the funnel:
- Personalize web copy, images, layouts, and CTAs for the majority of your visitor based on who they are and their previous behaviors and actions.
- Insert dynamic content like a company name, logo, review, or case study – give your audience a reason to stay longer on your page.
- Recognize returning visitors and serve them content based on previous visits, like pointing them to where they left off.
Just as important as your personalization ideas is selecting the proper website personalization software. Every business is unique and certain solutions will suit your needs better than others. Two common types of personalization software you might consider are:
- Rules-based personalization: This type of website personalization software concerns creating “if this, then that” statements for various of your target audience. With rules-based personalization, there are often three main elements: demarcating the audience the rules apply to, creating the experience this specific audience will see on your site, and deciding which page(s) the rules will apply to.
- Predictive personalization: This solution goes beyond rules-based personalization by using machine learning to predict the best experience to offer each website visitor (as opposed to each segment). Rather than having to set up rules manually, machine learning automatically predicts which is the best combination of your personalization ideas to show each visitor to give them the most personalized experience.
Personalized Social Media Ads
Social media ads are a prominent way to relate with a targeted decision-maker and drive them to your website; in fact, 84% of C-level and VP-level buyers are influenced by social media, according to Articulate.
When developing personalized social media ads as part of your ABM program, consider the following:
- Speak to your prospect’s challenges or metrics they care about based on their industry and job title.
- Promote content that would appeal to your prospects.
- Promote products the visitor has already explored on your site.
Personalized Email Campaigns
Whether connecting with one prospect or many, personalized email campaigns are a valuable strategy to include in your ABM program. Here are two types of email campaigns you might consider sending to your prospects:
- One-to-one emails: With one-to-one emails, you first research your prospect online to know more about them (e.g., their interests or hobbies, their area of duties at work, which metrics or procedures they care about in their job, etc.) and then use this research to write well-crafted, personalized emails. This hyper-personalization catches your prospect’s attention and makes it clear that your emails were solely written for them.
- One-to-many emails: With one-to-many emails, you are still crafting thoughtful, personalized emails, but maybe to various prospects at the same company. Instead of focusing on individual interests, these emails will speak to the specific group’s needs or pain points they are weathering. You could also make these emails reach an even broader group within your ICP and write the same email to many prospects at several different companies that are all, say, in the same industry. The idea here is that those companies in the same industry have similar pain points, have identical metrics they measure, have similar case studies that would intrigue them, etc. While one-to-many personalization is at a higher level, it still focuses on the group’s appropriate needs and interests to capture their attention.
The Bottom Line
Enforcing ABM personalization is a crucial step in maximizing the effectiveness of your account-based marketing strategy. If you well understand the importance of personalization and follow the steps outlined above, you can create tailored experiences for your target accounts that drive engagement and eventually lead to increased conversions.
While executing ABM personalization can be complicated, it is well worth the effort when done correctly. By tailoring your content specifically toward the individual needs of your target accounts, you increase their likelihood of engaging with your brand on a deeper level. Strike a balance between relevancy and scalability – delivering personalized experiences without sacrificing efficiency.