ABM – Corrao Group Blog

6 Reasons to Use Video in Account-Based Marketing

Videos work because it helps companies stand out from their competitors; they grab the viewer’s attention in a way that a simple email cannot.

B2B companies are seeing higher ROI with Account-Based Marketing tactics (ABM) than they are with other marketing initiatives. Incorporating video technology into one’s ABM program can only boost its success. While those extremely nice and ground-breaking videos we see from Nike, Apple and others are amazing, even simple videos of a rep at their desk can boost ABM efforts. These videos work because it helps companies stand out from their competitors; they grab the viewer’s attention in a way that a simple email cannot. In addition to standing out from your competition, here are six reasons to use video in your ABM efforts:

1. Videos Boost Conversions and Sales

Having a video on your landing page can boost conversions by 80%. With vision being the most dominant sense, it’s not surprising. For sales, 74% of users who watched a product video ended up buying something. In today’s digital world, videos are outperforming white papers and enhancing landing pages to give the customer an easier experience.

2. The ROI is There

83% of businesses report that video provides great ROI. Whether the video’s quality is at the scale of Nike, or a simple product demo, it pays off. As technology advances, editing tools are getting easier to use and more affordable. Companies that don’t have experience in video marketing can easily get involved and start today.

3. Video Marketing Saves Time

Consumers are smart, and they know downloading a white paper means going through a sales demo at some point. They also know that it takes time to read and digest the content as the content tends to be more sophisticated than that of video. Showing a video helps viewers learn all they want about a company/solution if the video does the job right.

4. Provides Confidence and Validation

If the cost is large enough, the buyer will have to put their reputation on the line to justify it. Having a case study video testimonial will help the buyer, and their company feel more confident in your solution. Videos are also easier to share and don’t require additional information as white papers tend too.

5. Videos are Easier to Digest

In your busy workday, can you afford to spend 15 minutes reading a white paper, or would you rather watch a 3-minute video to obtain the same info? The average viewer retains 95% of info they watch versus the 10% when they read. Multiply this a few times because your colleagues will be reading/watching this content and it all adds up.

6. Communicates Emotion

A personalized video goes a lot further than a white paper, especially when it comes to first impressions. Emotions play a part in making decisions, and personalized videos can build a relationship. When the buyer narrows their choice down to two solutions and can’t decide on which one to choose, having that relationship is going to be the difference-maker.

Anyone can start using video marketing in their ABM strategy as soon as today! Recording a video containing content that would typically be copied and pasted into an email can be your simple start. Don’t have an ABM strategy in place yet? Don’t worry, it’s not required to use video in your outreach. If you’d like to start Account-Based Marketing, take a look at our 5 tips to get started blog post. Visit our website and contact us today if you’d like us to help run, or assist your marketing efforts through our digital marketing agency. We provide marketing services of all kinds, including content creation, paid advertising, filling funnels, and much more.

4 Tactics to Improve your ABM Process

“97% of practice leaders, marketers, and executives said that ABM provided a higher ROI than other methods, with just under 40% saying it’s ‘much higher’” (Alterra Group). Account-based marketing is a strategy that can provide significant benefits to retain and expand existing client relationships. There are four main ABM tactics to utilize when implementing this process in your workplace: 1) Identify Target Accounts, 2) Target Decision Makers, 3) Engage with Personalized Content, and 4) Close Accounts, Report on Metrics and Expand Accounts.

1. Identify Target Accounts

Identifying target accounts is the first critical step in the ABM process as sales and marketing come together to highlight the accounts that are the best representations of their ideal client. There are four different ways to select your target accounts. This can either be done manually, through CRM reporting, Advanced Technology, or AI-Powered Insights. Recently, we talked about how Artificial Intelligence is transforming the ABM process, and with a product like Einstein Analytics, it becomes easier to collect and analyze current data while identifying additional, similar accounts. When determining the number of your accounts, there is no magic number as every company’s pipeline is different. However, we do suggest that you break them down into three different tiers:

Tier A: Highest value with the highest potential of closing; Hyper-personalized. Ex: 1-50 Accounts
Tier B: High value with great closing potential; very personalized. Ex: 51-200 Accounts
Tier C: Low value; not their ideal client profile, somewhat personalized. Ex: 201+ Accounts

In terms of the number of accounts you should have in your tiers, it depends on what your Average Sales Price (ASP) is. Therefore, if your ASP is low, you most likely will not have a good number of tier A accounts, and if it is high, you won’t have as many tier A accounts. Furthermore, the last step of this process involves defining what your Ideal Customer Profile is (ICP). ICP’s play an essential role in ABM because it is necessary to have an idea of what you want from a potential customer or sale.

2. Target Decision Makers

Once the list of your target accounts is made and separated by tiers, it is time to target who makes the decisions for the company. This becomes a powerful ABM tactic because by targeting the decision maker of the company, it helps speed up the sales cycle and help shape your content. Building out personas at this stage can be the difference that separates you from your competitors. While your competitors send out generic emails, you will be sending highly personalized content that will win over and resonate with your customers.

Some information you should look at to build personas are:

Role – What are their top priorities? Who do they interact with daily? Do they make the decisions?
Challenges – Find out their top problems so that you can offer the solution to those challenges.
Personal & Preferences – Find out top information about them such as their education, employment history, or what city they currently live in. It never hurts to help build report with whom you are doing business with.

It is essential to take the time in this step to build relationships with your clients. Not only will you have a higher chance of expanding their account, but you might have found a customer for life.

3. Engage with Personalized Content

To engage with contacts, you need to have relevant content using the information you gathered in the last step. Those tier A and B accounts will appreciate you taking the time to create a highly customized email just for their account and personas. It is essential to understand that not all content has to be personalized for each account as it would be too time-consuming for the company. However, for those tier A and B accounts, engaging with highly personalized content is a perfect ABM tactic that can show you did your research. Tier A accounts should receive content specifically made for them, while tier B accounts can receive content that is custom to their industry.

The next step is taking the inbound marketing roots and applying them to content you’ve created for the decision makers. Your timing of the content does not change; however, the delivery channel does. It’s important to understand that there are other ways of delivering highly personalized content than just emails. Some of these ways include executive events, direct mail, phone calls, or face-to-face meetings. Consequently, implementing these ABM tactics can help your company stand out from the rest of your competitors because these attention-grabbers and little details will not go unnoticed.

4. Close Accounts, Report on Metrics, Expand Accounts

Your team has identified your target accounts, built up personas and personalized content for each contact, and engaged them on respective channels. Now it’s time to close! The closing of the deal is only the start of your relationship. If you offer a service, your service team will now take over and keep the client happy. Once that is over, it is time to set them up on an automatic nurture email campaign that continuously checks in with the client. Having a nurturing campaign allows you to stay engaged with the client, and when they need more work done in the future, they will know who to trust with their work.

After a few months of utilizing ABM tactics, it is time to prove to your executives that ABM is here to stay. If they need more convincing about ABM, use statistics from target accounts to show engagement growth and confirm that your hyper-personalized content is resonating with the contact. If you would like to learn more about ABM tactics, please fill out the form below to grow your marketing or visit our website.

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How Does Artificial Intelligence Transform your Account-Based Marketing Tactics?

Account-Based Marketing tactics are improving fast, and with the help of technology, it is becoming a marketing plan that every B2B company should explore.

Did you know that 89% of respondents reported a higher ROI from ABM (Account-Based Marketing) than traditional marketing initiatives (ITSMA)? While ABM is a strategy best suited for long term growth and potential, new technology – specifically, AI (Artificial Intelligence) could be the critical difference in getting more leads and maximizing your ROI. Account-Based Marketing tactics are improving fast, and with the help of technology, it is becoming a marketing plan that every B2B company should explore.

Imagine being able to recognize a target account the moment they are doing their initial research. Today that is all made possible because of artificial intelligence, and AI is transforming the game in 2019 because of its ability to provide real-time feedback. AI can synthesize through millions of analytics in real-time, delivering a list of potential targets. Naturally, this will improve identification rates, which in turn could make for better results for your company. Furthermore, it is now easier for companies to understand the early signals in regards to what an account is not only writing about but what they are searching for. In other words, AI is producing real-time intent, which is getting those early signals about what an account is searching for on search engines. This becomes an important step in the Account-Based Marketing process because the ultimate goal is to get them the moment they start their initial research into what their problems are and the solutions that are offered.

Additionally, AI is also improving account engagement which is following click behavior to identify in real-time who (person, company) is on your website, while also recommending content that is relevant to their specific needs. Improving account engagement allows marketers to know who was on their company’s website and what they were looking at (issues they have). This provides sales and marketing to have faster conversion rates because they are already sending their hyper-personalized content to that specific person. Artificial Intelligence works so fast behind the scenes that it allows the sales and marketing teams to work together to best identify the company’s pain points and provide them with solutions to their problems. Ultimately, the old ways of marketing that manually crunched numbers over a designated period are over; AI immediately processes the data and allows marketers to sit back and focus on the bigger picture. Leveraging the ever-changing technology can lead to quicker conversion rates for your company. If you would like to learn more about the importance of artificial intelligence and account-based marketing tactics, please contact us.

4 Frequently Asked Questions about ABM

What is ABM?

A recent study by Alterra Group has found that, “97% of marketers surveyed said ABM had higher ROI than other marketing activities.” Account-Based Marketing is a strategy using B2B sales and marketing principles to target company accounts. It is designed for long-term growth, rather than quick short deals. Based on the ability to send hyper-personalized content to targeted decision-makers, Account-Based Marketing tactics are a strategy that if it is managed right, can maximize your ROI over time.

Get the most out of Salesforce Workflows

Salesforce workflows

Every company has those tedious tasks that slow down their employees’ day. These tasks include high-priority case notification, updating shipment statuses if they’re delayed, and notifying an account owner of updates made by others. These are just some of the thousands of tedious processes that can be streamlined through Salesforce Process Builder. Ultimately, Salesforce workflows automate your business processes continuously in the background so your employees can work on other projects. We’re going to highlight some of the most widely-used processes below.

Business Processes

1. High-Priority Case Notification – Let’s use the example of your urgency scale ranging from 1 -3 with 1 being extremely urgent. Currently, a level 1 case is submitted and it takes hours, maybe even a day, for your team to reach out because they were sifting through level 2 and 3 cases. Set up these workflows to improve your customer service and receive instant notifications when urgent cases are submitted.

2. Delayed Shipment Status Update – In today’s world, people are tracking their packages from when they order it to when it’s delivery. Stay a step ahead with excellent communication to let the recipient know of a delay. No one enjoys their package being delayed, especially if they don’t receive a notification about it. Help alleviate this delayed shipment by being as proactive as possible.

“Will ABM completely replace my Traditional Marketing strategy”?

One of the first questions asked when looking into Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is, “Will this completely replace our traditional marketing strategy”? While it may seem that way at first, traditional marketing isn’t left in the dust when adopting ABM, the time-tested marketing strategy that focuses on understanding the customer at the account level. In this post, we’re going to go over how traditional marketing is consolidated into Account-Based Marketing tactics, as well as how they’re different.

Go Beyond ABM with Account Based Management

ABM

Over the last couple years at Corrao Group, we’ve been hearing the term ABM (Account Based Marketing) resurfacing from the 80’s as the Marketing world’s latest discovery of ROI results associated with aligned Sales and Marketing business marketing tactics.

This trend raises a number questions for us such as:

Why are companies just now embracing this concept?

How could a successful company afford to ignore each of their client’s unique and individual needs?

Category: ABM