Tips for Creating an Account-Based Marketing Strategy for a Small Business

[Guest Blog]

As a small business owner, you probably don’t have the same size budget or marketing team of a large enterprise. That doesn’t prevent you from reaching your customers and connecting with them on a deeper level. In fact, smaller companies have a unique opportunity to build relationships with loyal customers through more personalized and specific campaigns.

One excellent way to create memorable moments as a small company is to apply an account-based marketing strategy. This approach aligns sales and marketing processes to focus on improving your emotional connection with a specific set of customers.

Account-based marketing is often an appealing choice for smaller companies because we can’t afford to throw money at the wall with broad targeting strategies to see what might stick.

So, how can you use that kind of marketing effectively?

Make Marketing and Sales Messages More Personal

A typical Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy for a small business will feature a small number of highly focused “target accounts” that you want to attract.

The aim is to focus your efforts on the audience members who are most likely to respond positively to your campaigns. By narrowing your focus, you reduce your risk of wasting money on leads that won’t convert.

To make your ABM strategy work, you will need to make each message as personalized as possible.

Use all the information you have about each “target account” from your marketing tools, CRM system, and sales teams to get clear on your customers’ pain points, expectations, and even the tone of voice they use to communicate.

Researching your audience and creating an ideal customer profile is vital for this.

Building an in-depth user persona for each of your accounts should help you to create a message for each of your accounts that feels custom-written for the customer you’re approaching.

Leverage Social Media

When you’re creating your account-based marketing strategy, it’s always important to make sure that you’re leveraging the right platforms for your campaigns. Creating dedicated content and landing pages for each segmented audience group is a good start.

If you’re keen to really get personal with your messages, you can apply ABM to social media too. Social media marketing platforms are great for creating highly personalized campaigns,  because you can get granular with the kind of people you want to target. You can even send specific messages and campaigns to people based on things such as their job role, location, and hobbies.

Make sure to research in advance to find which social platforms your customers are most likely to use. Facebook is a good start for broad brand reach, but it’s worth looking into things like LinkedIn and Instagram too.

Optimize Your Website Content

Creating unique campaigns on social media to attract the right accounts to your company is a good first step. It’s important to set your website up for success in the right way, too.

Optimize your website content so that it specifically appeals to the kind of target audiences you’re looking to attract. A good option could be to collect information from your sales and marketing teams about the common questions customers have. Answering these questions in your blog posts will make it easier to attract the right customers. It could also help your clients as they progress through their buyer’s journey by dealing with any concerns they might have.

Another point to focus on is creating the right landing pages. Account-specific landing pages should include images, offers, and reports that will appeal to the individual you’re trying to reach. The aim of optimizing your content here is to show your customers how much you understand them and can respond to their problems and needs. If you’re just getting started, it might be a good idea to use some A/B testing to see what kind of tone of voice, offers, and other information make the best impact on your audience.

Retarget for More Opportunities

Even with a highly personalized strategy for your account-based marketing, there’s a good chance you won’t instantly convert every lead. Ideally, you’ll need to set up a strategy that gives you more opportunities to work on a conversion. Retargeting is a great way to repeatedly engage with target accounts, reminding them of your value and giving them another chance to get in touch.

There are various social media platforms that can support retargeting ads based on previous actions that users have taken on your website. Depending on the technology you have for your advertising campaigns, you could set up a strategy that automatically sends leads an offer based on a product or service they’ve looked at on your website before. This is a great way to strengthen your chances of conversions without having to restart the relationship from scratch.

Don’t Forget Other Personalized Channels

Finally, remember that there are more ways for you to connect with your target audience today than ever before. You don’t have to rely exclusively on your website and social media.

One of the best options could be to reach your potential client in one of the most intimate ways possible – using a mobile app. Mobile apps give you an excellent way to regularly connect with your existing customers / clients because you’re constantly in their pocket.

You can send automated offers and deals through a mobile app based on what you learn from their account profile and actions. Moreover, you can even send contextual push notifications through your users’ phones to remind them of your company when they’re in a specific location. Apps give you an easy way to continue building your relationship with your customers.

Create your New Marketing Campaign

An account-based marketing campaign is one great way to strengthen your chances of earning loyal customers with personalized and focused advertising strategies. Just make sure you have the right plan in place to deliver a campaign that really speaks to your audience.

Guest Author: Michelle Laurey

— Michelle works as a VA for small businesses. She loves talking business, and productivity, and share her experience with others. Outside her keyboard, she spends time with her Kindle library or binge-watching Billions. Her superpower? Vinyasa flow!

Talk to her on Twitter @michelle_laurey or LinkedIn