Team Up with an Agency to Fast-track your ABM

Whether you’re interested in trying account-based marketing (ABM) for the first time or already running one or more targeted account programs and want to do more, there’s a great way to accelerate your program launch – work with a marketing agency. There are clear benefits to getting agency support to build your ABM program. Here are three that make it a no-brainer.

Perspective on Target Account Selection

Identifying ideal target accounts is critical to the success of your ABM program. Unfortunately, bringing marketing and sales together to get this right can be really challenging for a variety of reasons from schedules to egos. Working with an agency helps set a different tone for the initiative and brings an impartial third-party perspective to clarifying target accounts. A good agency will work with you to understand what types of accounts are driving your successes today and will bring a structured approach to recommending target accounts that are ideal to focus on going forward. Lean on your agency to do the research required to understand the intricacies of your target accounts such as identifying installed equipment and competitive relationships, the decision-making unit and key contacts, and what is currently happening in the business that may motivate a decision to purchase. These important insights can make or break the success of your program and are constantly changing, so getting an understanding at a point in time when your campaign will run is critically important.

Relevant and Personalized Communications

Persona-based communication is a fundamental element of ABM programs. Whether or not you’ve done persona work on your customer buying committees, an agency can be extremely helpful here. From mapping out and clarifying personas, to determining key messages and ideal content, to identifying the best approach to reach your audience, an agency can take this strategy work and accelerate getting it done. A good agency will give you a process and framework for how they will develop proper personas and messaging and will involve your marketing and sales teams in an organized, focused way to get the most out of the time spent together. An agency can do a content review to assess and leverage your existing content assets for the ABM program, and help develop new content to fill gaps. They can also do a review of your competitor’s messaging to avoid the risk of going head to head against your top competitors with too similar vs. differentiating offers.

Implementation Support How You Want It

There are a variety of ways an agency can support your ABM efforts from point support to full campaign implementation. If you are unsure of the tech required to run ABM, some agencies can provide guidance and help you get the right tools in place depending on your goals and budget. Lean on an agency to write and design your email sequences, ads, social posts, and landing pages. Depending on their expertise you may also be able to use them to develop high-value, easy to consume content assets. Let them create and implement your paid advertising and social programs as well as those non-digital touchpoints, such as direct mail and executive door openers, that are an impactful element of successful ABM programs. Specialty B2B agencies can bring you highly creative and innovative ideas, and can typically implement these elements at far less cost than if you did it yourself. You can work collaboratively with your agency to make adjustments to campaign elements based on feedback from your team, but the value of having a resource to work with can make the difference between launching a program in weeks vs. a quarter or longer.

Finding the Right Balance

While there are many things agencies can do to fast track your ABM initiatives, it’s important that you determine how they can best support you based on your resources, priorities, and budget. If you’re new to ABM, bringing on a partner is a great way to build a solid foundation and set your program up for success. If you’re already having success with ABM, consider an agency to fill gaps you’ve identified that need improvement or to help you scale your program faster than you could do on your own.

If you’re looking to explore options for how an agency can help your ABM efforts, we’re here to help. Let’s talk.