5 Easy Hacks to Creating an Account-Based Content Marketing Strategy

I know, I know. It seems like every time you read a blog, go to an event, or open an email, the topic du jour is Account-Based Marketing (ABM). As a content marketer, I know you’ve been thinking—ABM is great and all, but how do I support an ABM strategy with content marketing? And, we know that your demand generation team has been asking you for target account content—which makes you want to run in the opposite direction. I mean, imagine how much work that could be!

ABM sounds great, and you get it, but as a content marketer, how do you think about creating account-based content at scale?

Take a deep breath. It doesn’t have to be so daunting. Here are five hacks to help you create content for your ABM strategy.

Hack #1: Look at Your Current Content Inventory and See What You Can Update

In order for your ABM strategy to be effective, you need personalized content. Because you’re focusing your marketing efforts on building relationships with a select group of target accounts, you don’t want to use a one-size fits all approach. And the key to personalization is targeted content and messaging.

However, creating a lot of new content to support this strategy can be daunting. Before you go and change your entire content calendar, do a content audit to determine what you can repurpose. You don’t need to re-create an entire asset for ABM.

Here are some suggestions on how you can easily update old content for your target accounts:

• Choose your top 15 target accounts and add their logos to a new cover page.
• Take a look at the asset and do some minor copy changes throughout to reflect a target account or target industry.
• Add an introduction page to the asset that speaks directly to your target account or industry.

Hack #2: Leverage Interactive Content for Easy Updates and Changes

Leveraging live, interactive content is a great way to create highly-targeted ABM content with minimal work. If you use an interactive content creation platform, you can easily clone a piece of content and add custom copy or images to each version.

For instance, let’s say you created a generalized interactive infographic, but you want to create two other versions of this infographic—one for your target account Acme Corp and one for a target industry, healthcare. You can clone your interactive experience and simply add custom copy where needed to make your content personalized.

Not only are you creating interactive content (which will already help you stand out), but you’re also making it relevant to key prospects.

Hack #3: Create Customized Content Hubs

Since most content marketers don’t have the bandwidth to create lots of customized assets for ABM, creating a customized hub is a great way to go. A content hub is a webpage where you can store a select grouping of content. At EverString, we use Uberflip to create custom hubs for our target accounts. Each hub can be customized with the name of the target account, the photo of the sales rep, and content specifically selected for the account.

We use these hubs for direct sales outreach and also for email campaigns. Because the hub itself can be branded for a target account or specific attribute such as industry, we don’t have to create as much customized content.

You can also create these hubs without using a specialized platform by creating a webpage that isn’t in your navigation. (Make sure to use a Noindex and Nofollow tag to prevent search engines from crawling it.) Then you can send that link directly out to target accounts.

Hack #4: Implement Easy Website Personalization

Website personalization is extremely useful for employing an Account-Based Marketing strategy. Your website is likely the first impression a target account has with your company, so wouldn’t it be nice if your site was personalized? Using a website personalization tool, you can show target accounts different creative, copy, and even a different site experience.

However, if you don’t a have personalization tool, you can still create personalized landing pages in your marketing automation platform. When sending an email to target accounts, send them to the landing page instead of the generalized website. Then you can customize your language, imagery, and messaging to reflect your audience.

Hack #5: Leverage Partners to Create Specialized Content

Sometimes, you just don’t have bandwidth to create new content for ABM. Another great ABM content hack is leveraging partners for joint content creation.

Go through your list of strategic partners to determine who might have expertise in a target industry, vertical, or geography.

For example, let’s say that you’re targeting financial services companies, but you don’t have any existing content for financial services—nor do you really have any in-house expertise.

However, you learn by going through your partner list that you have relationships with other companies that know a lot about financial services. You then reach out to those partners and see if they’re interested in creating a joint piece of content. Determine how to break up the work—who will write, who will design, and so on—and then get to creating! Hopefully the new content asset will benefit both parties.

In Conclusion

Account-Based Marketing is a must-do for today’s modern marketers. While you need to put in place a program designed specifically for your target accounts, there are multiple hacks you can employ in the meantime to ensure you’re creating highly personalized, relevant experiences without building a bunch of content from scratch.