How do you approach account-based marketing?

Honestly, I think you're overthinking it, just focus on getting the basics right like understanding their business goals. It's a waste of time trying to customise every single thing for each account, you need to find a balance that works for you. We've found that a simple tailored email or phone call can go a long way in building relationships with our target accounts.

Typically we customize around 5 key pieces of content for each target account, using tools like Hubspot to track engagement. What's the main goal you're trying to achieve with your ABM programme, is it to increase brand awareness or drive direct sales conversions?

I made a mistake with our first ABM campaign by trying to customise every single piece of content for each account, which ended up being way too resource intensive and didn't actually lead to better results. We've since found that focusing on really understanding the key decision makers at each target account has been way more effective.

Our team's found that having a dedicated ABM budget for experimental content formats, like podcasts or video series, can be a total winner with high-value accounts.

Trying to mirror each target account's existing brand voice didn't work for us, it came across as insincere.

I've found that customising too much can be a waste of resources, we've got 20 target accounts and trying to tailor every piece of content for each one would be a logistical nightmare, so we use Marketo to automate as much as possible. By focusing on the key decision makers at each account and using data from our CRM to inform our approach, we've seen a 30% increase in engagement with our ABM campaigns.

Given that data privacy laws are getting stricter, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the risk of over-personalisation being misinterpreted as invasive, we've had issues with this at my current company and had to revisit our approach after 12 months of using Marketo. Now we're being way more mindful of how we use customer data, and it's added an extra layer of complexity to our ABM strategy, around 30% of our target accounts have opted out of our communications already.