How To Execute Account-Based Marketing At Scale

It used to be that Account-Based Marketing (ABM) was an analog tactic and could really only be executed to a few key accounts. The idea of scaling up ABM strategies to reach 500 or (gasp!) 5,000 target accounts was enough to make marketers break out in a cold sweat.

Fortunately for us, that isn’t the case anymore. There is a lot of great tech that’s emerged in the last few years, from IP Identification to predictive analytics, that gives us a lot more control over our campaigns when used with ABM.

But the prospect of scaling up your ABM campaigns to deliver targeted, personalized ads to your best accounts can still be daunting.

Marketers using ABM tactics these days have the technical ability to drive their campaigns to target hundreds or even thousands of accounts at once, without having to build massive marketing teams or huge catalogs of assets to get it done. But for ABM campaigns to reach their full potential at scale, you have to have a solid strategy behind them.

Here are four steps B2B marketers can take to execute their ABM strategies at scale.

Sync Up Your Sales And Marketing Teams (And Beyond)

Adopting an ABM approach requires cooperation from both your sales and marketing teams. You’ll have to sit down, compare goals, and sync up on target accounts to make sure everyone is on the same page before you start scaling up.

And remember, this isn’t a one-and-done kind of deal — you’ll have to continue to touch base with Sales to ensure goals stay aligned as leads start coming down the funnel.

From Sales and Marketing to Customer Success and Engineering, it’s important that your entire organization is on the same page. You need to make sure everyone is aligned and ready to cope with an inflow of new leads and customers.

Establish Your Business Priorities

Who are the most important drivers of business growth next year? What are your most critical priorities — new customer acquisition? Customer renewal and upsell? Developing your partner or distribution network?

Once you align around your business goals, you can determine which audiences are the most critical for your Account-Based Marketing plan. Should you target prospects or customers or partners? Or all three?

Every company we work with has prospects as part of their ABM strategy. New customer acquisition is important to most businesses.

A lot of companies also include customers in the mix. Then you have to determine how hard to turn the dial toward prospects versus customers. But some companies feel that all three are critical and add partners to their targeting list.

In any case, start with your business objectives and let your audience selection flow from there.

Prep Your Marketing Assets For Growth

While ABM is all about customizing the user experience, it doesn’t require you to create a new set of unique materials for each and every interaction. I’ve seen quite a few marketers balk at the idea of scaling up ABM because they assume delivering a personalized brand experience to each account will require developing a custom-made asset for each one.

Luckily, that isn’t true — I’ve found that marketers have just as much success when they leverage existing assets along with fresh, targeted copy.

You just need to start thinking smarter about the assets you use to reach your customers. As an example, you can templatize your best-performing assets so that they can be implemented across a range of industries or customers easily.

By focusing on creating a custom experience for users around your existing assets, you’ll be able to reach a broad audience without constantly playing catch-up with content production.

Scaling ABM For Better Marketing Performance

ABM reaches its full potential when it’s implemented at scale. Getting everyone on the same page and preparing your assets for growth can be a challenge, but once you make it work, you’re going to see some great results!

Whether you’ve got 50, 500 or 5,000 target accounts, ABM gives you the tools you need to make your marketing campaigns perform more effectively and help boost your bottom line in the long run.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Peter Isaacson

Peter Isaacson has over 25 years of marketing experience in both B2B and B2C marketing, ranging from branding, advertising, corporate communications and product marketing on a global scale. As CMO for Demandbase, Peter is responsible for overall marketing strategy and execution, including product, corporate and field marketing. Prior to joining Demandbase, Peter was CMO at Castlight Health, helping to scale the company and build the marketing team prior to its successful IPO. Peter got his start in advertising, working at agencies in New York on accounts ranging from Procter & Gamble to Compaq computers.

(Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)