There’s a lot that goes into a successful account based marketing (ABM) strategy. We’ve covered the need to brutally align on your ICP across your customer-facing teams. We’ve looked at how best to integrate and audit your tech stack to make sure it’s ABM-ready.
But there’s one missing puzzle piece to make all systems ‘go’ and that’s having incredible content. These three factors work together to wow your prospective buyers and enable them to make the right choice (hint: you!).
Research shows that B2B buyers trust indirect information sources (like peer connections, online communities, analysts, online review sites, partners, consultants, etc.) more than direct information sources (like vendor marketing and sales materials).
But when they are doing their research and interacting with brands they want a personalized experience. In the era of empowered buyers, personalized and value-driven content is paramount. Understanding buyer preferences and delivering content across the entire buying cycle is crucial for ABM success.
Here’s the truth: We need to stop writing for Google, exclusively.
Yes, we need to ensure the content is competitive when searched, however, it’s NOT Google’s nor Bing’s SERPs who are signing your contracts. In fact, AI is going to put even more pressure on us. Instead, we need to write for our buyers. We need to enable them to make decisions. Your buyers are making decisions well before you talk to them, and so you need to be where your buyers are.
A 2024 research report driven by the ABM Alliance said that Paid Social was the most effective ABM tactic across all types of ABM strategies, 1:1 or 1:few.
But this might not be the most relevant for you. You have to understand where your buyers go to learn and then invest in those channels.
One thing I believe is relevant for everyone is building your community around great content. When I say community, I don’t mean a portal people log into. I mean your community who rallies around your brand, content, mission, and value to learn and educate each other.
So let’s dive in again, with some questions to ask yourself to see if your content is ABM ready.
- Do you know which content performs best for your target audience?
- Do you have content that speaks to the different buying committee personas?
- Are you satisfied with the quality of your content, and do you believe your buyers are as well?
- Can you/do you create highly personalized content?
- Can you activate your content across the entire buying cycle?
- Is your content creating community?
In most cases, you already have content that can work for your ABM strategy. You may have developed vertical- or challenge-specific content that requires just a few small tweaks to make it feel even more personalized for this special audience. Consider looking at things like:
- The specific client stories you’re using (or tweaks to your logo bank to be more inclusive of the target audience you’re trying to reach).
- The language you’re using (give it a wash against some recent client or prospect calls you’ve listened to, and get your customer-facing teams in Success and even Product involved!).
- Getting an SME that your target audience will respect. Depending on who you’re trying to reach, this could be an in-depth interview with a similar-looking customer, someone within your internal organization (your CFO, CEO, Head of Product, CTO for example?) offering best practices or showing how they’ve used your product in innovative ways.
The Value of Incredible Content to Drive an ABM strategy
Our client, Materialogic transformed their content strategy and revenue operations, resulting in significant increases in customer acquisition and revenue. They partnered with us to enhance their content, website, and revenue operations to drive account based growth.
The leading third-party logistics organization had a website and content that was product-focused, versus written to deliver value and optimized for conversion. They also had lead scoring and ICP automation that was contact-centric and treated everyone equally.
We first made sure the ICP definitions were fully defined. Those were operationalized into a strategic content plan, and drove the website that directed accounts to valuable, relevant content. Lead routing and scoring was transformed to prioritize and assign accounts at scale and workflows were built to deliver highly targeted and relevant email and advertising campaigns.
As a result, Materialogic saw a 33.7% increase in leads created just six months post-launch, and a 26% increase in sales conversions from opportunity to closed-won deals a year into the partnership.
They can confidently say that their content is reaching the right audience and the right potential buyers.
We know ABM success doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re here to help you get started. Our team excels in crafting ABM strategies that get results, building the foundations of an end-to-end ABM experience through ICP alignment, tech stack integration, and conversion-focused content.
Get started with ABM, today.
Get in touch with us today to learn more about our ABM Blueprint, designed to help you be ABM ready and understand how to unlock more meaningful growth in your business.
