With personalization being at the top of everyone’s marketing wish list, account-based marketing programs have become the most effective means of closing key accounts. As with any other marketing campaign, there are several steps necessary to make them successful. Here we’ve outlined seven steps for creating a successful ABM campaign.

Identify Your Target Audience

There are dozens of different parameters you can use to determine the target of your account-based marketing program. You can use a number of demographics, such as company size, industry, vertical, geographic location, job role, and annual revenue. You can also choose to go after those accounts that you’ve long considered to be large opportunities but have not been able to crack with traditional marketing campaigns. Whichever you decide, you’ll want to limit your audience to a finite number that will allow you to be highly personalized with your messaging.

Perform Comprehensive Research

With ABM, it is imperative that you learn everything you can about the organizations you’re targeting.  What pain point does their product solve?  Who are the key decision-makers?  What kind of budget are they working with?  Is there organization a fit for your solution?  Do they have an immediate need?  Where do they go to get their information?  Each of these questions, as well as many more based on your goals, will need to be answered in order to create an effective campaign. Much of this information can be found using data providers and diving into their website and social media pages.  To get more in-depth and accurate information, teleprospecting can play a key role.

Determine Your Marketing Channels

Is this going to be a purely inbound or outbound campaign or a combination of the two?  In most cases, using both sides will be most effective. You’ll want to determine if you’re going to use teleprospecting, social media, email, paid advertising, blogging, or a combination of several channels. Take a look at your buyer personas to determine the best way to reach this particular audience.

Develop Targeted Content

Every marketing campaign is going to require content, regardless of the channels you choose to use. For teleprospecting efforts, you’ll want to create a call guide, a knowledge base, and several email pieces that can be used as blasts or fulfillment pieces. When using social media, you’ll want to develop a calendar that includes visual and written content designed to educate and entertain your audience. If you’re going with paid advertising, you’ll need several versions of ad copy along with videos and images to draw attention to them. For a content marketing strategy, you’ll need several blogs along with premium offers to convert visitors to leads. Whichever channels you choose, you’ll want your content to speak directly to the wants and needs of your target audience.

Implement Your Campaign

This is where all of your preparation comes together. You’ll want to delegate responsibilities to your team based on their experience and expertise. Regular meetings throughout the campaign will help to uncover common challenges as well as what is working. This will allow you to make small tweaks throughout your campaign to ensure its effectiveness. There may be slight changes in your strategy or messaging that needs to be made that can only be uncovered through the implementation phase of your campaign.

Measure Your Results

Analytics should be looked at throughout the life of your campaign. During the campaign, the numbers can affect your messaging, marketing channels, target job roles and frequency of outreach. At the conclusion of your campaign, you’ll be able to determine which channels were most successful and be able to further refine your target audience. This will help you to make your future campaigns more successful.

Go Above And Beyond

For those few accounts that are at the top of your target list, a little extra effort may be in order.  This could mean creating a microsite for a specific company or industry or sending out three-dimensional mail pieces to high-level decision-makers. When you’ve determined that a particular company or industry represents a very large amount of potential revenue and is a good fit for your solution, these strategies should be implemented to give you the best chance of closing a deal.

Social media, email, paid advertising, blogging, and website strategies should all be audited periodically to ensure you’re getting the most out of each channel. This guide will walk you through many of the questions you need to ask when auditing your digital marketing strategy.