When done correctly, ABM consistently delivers the personal and relevant experience that customers demand. Leaders are realizing what ultimately drives growth: creating value for the customer.
However, some people find the prospect of executing ABM campaigns daunting – after all, there’s a myriad of tools, processes, and people you could leverage to help you succeed. But don’t let that fool you and get in the way of seeing massive results with this powerful strategy. There are plenty of ways to use your current tech stack, systems and team to start executing ABM today.
The goal of this post is to pull back the curtain and give you a glimpse into some of our most successful ABM campaigns. It will give you some ideas on how you can get going with ABM right away. You may not be able to execute all of these, but chances are you’ll be able to leverage your current marketing setup to get going on enough ABM campaigns right now to give you better marketing results.
ABM In Real Life
To be successful and scale ABM, we prescribe to the three-tiered approach to ABM. We cover this extensively in our Clear and Complete Guide to ABM, but here’s a quick overview of how it works.
A Tiered Approach to ABM
- Strategic ABM: One-to-one ABM with a very limited number of accounts worth seven figures (or more) annually.
- Scale ABM: One-to-few ABM for high-value accounts worth six-figures grouped into micro-segments.
- Programmatic ABM: One-to-many ABM for five-figure accounts that are worth some customization and personalization.
Now, let’s dive into the examples and bring ABM to life! I’ve included a few examples from each of the three tiers and separated them accordingly.
Classic ABM: One-to-One ABM Examples
Custom Direct Mail Play
When you’re looking at breaking into an account, you need to do research. In this case, we found out that this decision-maker loved wine and chocolate. We then put together a personalized one-to-on package with Cadbury chocolate, wine, customized content and a handwritten note that started with “Cadbury and wine for 5 minutes of your time.”
Stage: Mid-funnel
Target: A specific VP of Marketing at a Tier 1 account
Play:
- Touch 1: Send package via Sendoso
- Touch 2: Send email upon package delivery
- Touch 3: Phone call
Results: Meeting set
Resources Leveraged: ABM intern
Custom Content Play
A large buying committee may require you to educate many decision-makers across different departments. In this example, we created a piece of content to inform the account of the benefits of ABM and demonstrate how their company could apply it. This included relevant case studies and quotes, custom graphics and even personal information about the ABM team to further build the relationship.
Stage: Mid-funnel
Target: One buying center at an enterprise account
Play: The content team created a custom ebook that outlined how they could benefit from ABM and how they could get started. The ABM team delivered the content to all of the decision-makers and influencers at the buying center.
Results: The outcome was a meeting between executives on both teams, which lead to a closed-won deal.
Resources leveraged: Designer
Onsite Executive Presentation/Workshop Play
For large deals that need a little help to cross the finish line, sending an executive onsite with your team to give an executive presentation can have a major effect. In this example, our CMO, Heidi Bullock, accompanied the sales rep onsite to help sell the value of Engagio to Autodesk. From one CMO to another, Heidi revealed exactly how Engagio used Engagio, which gave Autodesk the confidence to pull the trigger on the purchase.
Stage: Bottom of funnel
Target: One buying center at Autodesk
Play: Executive presentation
Results: Closed-won deal
Resources leveraged: designer
Scale ABM: One-to-Few ABM Examples
Gold Standard Package Play
When you have a really good direct mail package that works well for a wide range of people but don’t have the budget or resources to send it to every one of your target accounts, this is where your scale ABM comes into play. Sendoso has our standard packages ready to for us to just say “go-go gadget, scale ABM play” and these boxes will go out on queue. The contents of these packages could be branded socks, shirts, notebooks, some content and a handwritten note to the team.
Stage: Top of funnel
Target: Directors-level and above of Marketing, MOPs or Demand gen at tier 2 accounts.
Play:
- Touch 1: Send Package via Sendoso
- Touch 2: Email
- Touch 3: Replay over email
Results: 19% increase in meetings set
Resources Leveraged: Sendoso or PFL
Bobblehead Door Opener Play
To open doors at target accounts, we took Director of Marketing and above titles and based on their LinkedIn profiles, created custom bobbleheads that looked like them. Our reps took a picture of the final product, pasted them into a pre-built play, and invited decision-makers to come pick up their personalized bobbleheads at Dreamforce. If they were not able to pick them up or were not attending Dreamforce, we offered to send it to them after meeting with a rep. After all, who doesn’t want their own personalized bobblehead?
Stage: Top of funnel
Target: Director of Marketing and above at target accounts
Play:
- Touch 1: Email inviting the decision-maker to pick up their personalized bobblehead
- Touch 2: Hosted event where we handed out the bobbleheads
- Touch 3: Offered to ship the bobblehead directly to them if they attend a meeting with a rep.
Results: 31% meeting rate
Resources Leveraged: Bobblehead vendor on Etsy & ABM intern
Executive Breakfast Play
In-person events are highly effective ways to build relationships. This event wasn’t catered to a single company, but rather a segment of our target accounts. Reps were onsite to network and nurture existing relationships and gently guide opportunities along.
Stage: Bottom funnel
Target: Decision makers at target account in the Silicon Valley area
Play:
- Touch 1: Invitation to event
- Touch 2: Reply over to invitation
- Touch 3: Event
- Touch 4: Follow up for event
Results: Increase velocity by 22%
Resources Leveraged: field marketing team
Custom Web Page Play
Using powerful platforms like Uberflip allows you to deliver a personalized web experience with hand-picked content for your accounts. With Uberflip’s templates, you can start to scale your efforts without having to use up all of your website designer’s time. You can see in this example that we went beyond the personalized URL and header to create custom content specifically for Salesforce.
Stage: Mid-funnel
Target: One buying center at Salesforce
Play: The ABM team built a custom page and filled it with relevant messages, customized content, personal videos, etc. specific to Salesforce.
Results: Closed one deal
Resources Leveraged: Uberflip
Programmatic ABM: One-to-Many ABM Examples
Coffee Card Play
When you need to get a high-volume of messages out but still want an element of surprise and delights, we love using the Coffee card play, Enjoy a free cup of coffee on us while we chat about ABM and see how Engagio may be able to help! We’ve also tried more gimmicky messages “supercharge your ABM” but the straightforward message works great. There’s minimal energy that doesn’t into this one, which allows reps to maintain “air cover” to tier 3 accounts.
Stage: Top of funnel
Target: Director of Marketing and above at all tier 3 target accounts
Play:
- Touch 1: Send Sendoso coffee card
- Touch 2: Replay over email
- Touch 3: LinkedIn touch
Results: 32% increase in replies set
Resources Leveraged: Sendoso
ABM Ads Awareness Play
With account-based advertising, you can deliver relevant ads to decision-makers at the accounts that you care about most. We run “always-on” ads for awareness at our target accounts that give us good “air cover.” These are nice-to-have plays that can provide good brand awareness and serve to warm up accounts before our team reaches out.
Stage: Top of funnel
Target: Director of Marketing and above at all target accounts that don’t have any engagement in the last 30 days
Play: Launch ABM ads. Track engagement and follow up when an account reaches “Marketing Qualified” level.
Results: 27% more awareness at target accounts
Resources Leveraged: Metadata.io, RollWorks or LinkedIn
Personalized Video at Scale Play
The most forward-thinking organizations are using video to stand out in the noise. However, you must utilize personalization in order to get results. Our favorite tool for this is Vidyard’s personalized videos. The Vidyard platform customizes the content and delivers a video that looks like it’s just for a single prospect, when in reality, this is going out to thousands of accounts.
Stage: Mid-funnel
Target: Director of Marketing and above at all target accounts
Play: Once your data is clean and your list is segmented, launch your Vidyard video!
Results: 4.1x increase in response rates.
Resources Leveraged: Vidyard
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to execute each of the three tiers so that you can scale your ABM and your results. Some take extra technology that you may not have, but all of these are within reach. Of course, layering in different tech and tools for different categories (check out Engagio’s Market Map for a full breakdown) can help you optimize your results. But the point is you don’t have to buy all new tech to see success with ABM.
If you’re still looking at taking your ABM to the next level, don’t forget to check out Engagio’s Clear and Complete Guide to ABM.