Account-based marketing (ABM) has, over the last few years, become a go-to tactic for technology brands that are targeting large enterprise customers.
The approach, which some may (quite rightly) deem just good or smart marketing, has traditionally been delivered around a model of targeting accounts as a market of one, or taking a clustered approach to targeting a handful of organisations.
With the advent of intent data, predictive analytics and programmatic ad targeting, a few organisations have developed effective models for using ABM on a 1:Many basis, but these tend to centre around businesses within the technology sector.
Our B2B marketing agency, Pulse, is dedicated to technology-based companies. The organisation has launched a sister agency, Transmission, to leverage the same approach, knowledge and experience gained in the technology space and apply this to a broader set of B2B verticals.
That said, certain B2B industries have a mature approach to B2B marketing, so some industries are effectively doing ABM whether they are calling it that or not. Where there is big scope for wider B2B verticals to drive success, is in doing ABM at scale. In fact, organisations can win big by using data and technology to identify propensity to buy, develop deep understanding of decision-making units in target customers, and deliver bespoke campaign messaging at scale across targeted programmatic media in real time.
ABM at scale: the case study
A real-world example of this approach would be work we delivered for the tech database company Couchbase. In 2017, Couchbase approached Pulse with a brief to raise awareness of its NoSQL solution among a new, higher value audience. Couchbase wanted to boost net new customer acquisition, up-sell and cross-sell within existing customers and, ultimately, significantly increase average order value (AOV).
What followed was a new form of ABM program which:
- Identified the best fit accounts to target.
- Compiled detailed analysis of the Decision Making Units (DMUs) in those accounts, creating robust personas.
- Built/repurposed content by persona and stage of the buying cycle to ensure it addressed their precise pain points.
- Adapted existing content and messaging that had a technical focus to the more strategic, high-value, audience centric content based on insights.
- Utilised deep data insights to build an account list and to determine the right people within target accounts.
- Created in-depth understanding of the content consumption habits of target accounts to ensure content spoke to these people on a personal/human level.
- Built an activation plan to deliver the right messaging/content to the right person, at the right time.
Intent data and predictive analytics
Couchbase already used predictive analytics (Infer) and we overlaid extra intelligence with the use of an intent engine (Bombora) to give an extra layer of context which created a new level of insight. By creating keyword lists for Bombora alongside Infer’s propensity to buy models, a unique account segmentation ranking of all of Couchbase’s identified accounts was created while highlighting completely new accounts.
Personas
A persona workshop was run with all customer-facing personnel, to understand the roles, pain points, reservations, buying cycle relevance and content consumption habits of each function in the DMU. This was supplemented with data generated from Couchbase’s CRM, as well as manual and automated social listening against target accounts.
Content research
The intent data on accounts that were highly active around certain keywords, plus social persona data and search-based volume data, helped create a robust content research document. This removed the gut feel from content creation and informed Couchbase on EXACTLY the right content to create for each persona within identified accounts. And where and when to deliver it.
Activation plan
What’s the point of engaging, relevant and authoritative content if it never gets seen by the intended audience? These new insights gave the ability to create persona-led activation plans for the content suggested. Subsequently, as programmes were run, there was now the ability to understand whether the account selection models were accurate and could then be refined accordingly.
Results
Very detailed reporting was developed to show which accounts were engaging; where those accounts were originally (new or existing Couchbase accounts); and their relevant account score. Two months into the programme, this approach has generated $1.5m worth of sales pipeline which then allowed the business to move into phase 2 of account acceleration for those highly engaged accounts. It also generated an ROI of $10:$1 and a 1371% increase in AOV.
The approach, technology, tactics and insight used to deliver results for Couchbase can be readily adopted in other verticals outside of the technology space.
Companies in the manufacturing sector are facing a number of challenges such as increased competition, squeezed margins and smaller budgets. As a result, marketers are under pressure to secure more leads to support new business activity and, importantly, these are now also being more closely examined for quality. In addition, according to research, 31% of marketing departments are struggling with a lack of resources, meaning that it’s crucial to ensure the money spent produces high-quality results.
Leverage the power of data to create targeted, bespoke marketing campaigns that drive engagement and deliver true return on investment. Highly sophisticated B2B marketing solutions are designed to support the creation of quality sales leads – and help to satisfy those management teams that focus on ROI.
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