Here at Overskies, before we even get started on the cool data and marketing automation technology, we believe it’s important to start with the basics. We anchor our methodology in two core areas:

1. Understanding a brand and their customers’ buying journeys and target personas first;
2. Creating a strategy to deliver meaningful content experiences. 

We focus on these areas due to the fact that:

• Customer personas drive results — Organizations with strong Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), which are similar to a buyer personas, achieve 68% higher account win rates.
  
  
• B2B buying journeys are complex — On average, almost 7 stakeholders need to sign off on a purchase, and customers will regularly use 6 different channels throughout the decision journey. 
  
  
• Personalized content is king — The #1 ranked challenge with ABM is delivering personalized content experiences.

A true ABM program is powered by being able to understand what’s needed, then creating and distributing a wide range of pre- and post-sale content experiences that each have a unique purpose based on where the customer is in their buying journey. 

Therefore, it makes sense to conduct a deep dive into understanding your customers through things like customer journey mapping and persona development. This requires dedicating resources to research and data. 

Some of the sources you can utilize to help paint the customer journey picture include:

• First-party data from your website and CRM
• Surveys or interviews with current customers or lookalike audiences
• Reaching out to internal brand teams such as sales and customer service reps
• Anecdotal research through online reviews, social media comments, and ratings
• Touching base with your e-tail or channel partners that sell your products or services

All of this will help you determine WHO you want to reach, HOW they behave, and WHAT motivates them to buy. This will help guide your content, media, and targeting strategies within an account-based marketing effort.

Taking this type of ABM approach does require some additional phases outside of the typical model, mainly in the areas of research, discovery, and content strategy. 

Here’s a snapshot of Overskies' approach for your reference:

As you can see, this approach requires some serious research and content creation chops, along with access to some of the marketing technology highlighted earlier. We find that each brand is unique when it comes to an ABM campaign, with factors such as data, tech stack, and content all playing a role in where they need to evolve or improve. 

ABM platforms and automation technology can get you up and running. However, understanding what your customers are looking for and delivering a solution matching their needs in the form of content is going to truly set you apart from your competition.

There is a wide range of content and messaging you can create and deploy to move customers toward conversion, including (but not limited to):

• LinkedIn sponsored content, InMail messaging, and text ads
• Programmatic display, video, and native advertising
• Mobile advertising directly to targeted devices
• Digital ads and native content placed directly with specific publishers and trade websites
• Personalized emails deployed through your CRM housing content and promotional offers
• Custom landing page and brand website content experiences including:   
  • Pillar content
  • Videos
  • E-books 
  • Blogs
  • Infographics 
  • Whitepapers
  • Case studies 
  • How-to guides and tip sheets
  • Checklists
• Retargeting visitors of your landing page or website

Another thing to consider is that the notion of ABM goes beyond just digital media. From direct mail to phone calls to face-to-face meetings, there are other ways to get your brand squarely in front of your most important customers. This may be another topic for another time.

Therefore, having the flexibility to be able to champion and fulfill all aspects of an end-to-end ABM strategy (or having a partner who can) is invaluable when creating your strategy.