Account-based Marketing 101 – Phase 3: ABM Play & Value Proposition
By Sven Blaukat
Part 1 of the 6-part ABM series: >>Link<<
Part 2 of the 6-part ABM series: >>Link<<
An often underestimated part of account-based marketing (ABM) is the careful preparation and tailoring of all content to the desired target audience. As part of our #MarketingClass23, we’re taking a closer look at the different phases of ABM in a series of articles. This time, it’s about “ABM Play & Value Proposition.”
In the first two parts of the ABM MarketingClass series, we discussed important preparations, such as defining objectives and segmenting buyer groups.
The third part is about tailoring the content of products or services to the needs of individual accounts or the appropriate segmentation to draw attention to specific challenges, build thought leadership and partnership, and ultimately offer a solution.
Here we look at a 1:Few campaign as an example (ABM Lite). The same principles apply to strategic ABM campaigns (1:1), but they are more focused on individual companies and people. Company-specific factors such as personality types, interests and public appearance are examined.
Various studies show that in the B2B sector, approx. 70% of the purchase decision process is already completed before contact is made by sales or the supplier. However, this is not necessarily true for complex projects. It is therefore important to know what information buying committees usually need.
SWOT analysis
It is recommended to perform a classic and honest SWOT analysis also in relation to the competition in order to identify differentiating factors for the account list. This should clearly identify the factors and their implications for the customer of your product / solution by category.
ABM Play Creation
The “ABM Play” is necessary because an individual roadmap must be developed for each customer, segment or buyer group. Careful preparation of the play enables the unique advantages of the products / services to be communicated in a tailored manner for each customer and to demonstrate the differentiation from the competition. In doing so, it helps to focus on promising topics.
The GE McKinsey Directional Policy table can help prioritize the topic (example):
Messaging development
Now the messaging is prepared by defining a detailed value proposition for each pre-defined persona / decision maker / influencer group separately (workshop if necessary). The added value is weighed against pain points and divided among the decision-maker segments. From the results, content specialists create a messaging framework that is divided into several phases of the customer journey (awareness, education/evaluation, justification). The messaging is later translated into advertising materials, landing pages and content assets. It has proven useful to already think about a visual theme suitable for the ABM campaign in a timely manner to ensure a recognition value during the campaign. A lot of time must be planned for this part, because the content leads to the trigger points that lead to prospects and business opportunities.
Tip: Say goodbye to perfectionism, especially if there is not much ABM experience yet. Try & error phases must be planned in. With growing experience, the addresses per segment automatically improve.
Once the various messages have been roughly defined, segmented, and planned based on the customer journey, the question is what to do with them now. At this point, it doesn’t make sense to already create all the promotional materials, download assets or videos / webinars, etc. Why this is so and what the next step is will be explained in the upcoming part 4 of this series. Then it’s all about the activation plan.
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Source title image: Evernine Group