"ABM? More effective than all other marketing techniques!"

That's what almost all (97%) of the marketers who responded to this Alterra Group study. Impressionnant !

L’ Account-Based Marketing or" ABM "would it be the new martingale of commercial prospecting?

How do you implement this type of approach?

Some agencies consider Account-Based Marketing or " Strategic Account Marketing" in French, as the replacement for Inbound Marketing, in that we no longer address personas, but accounts.

Engagement is done through personalized campaigns which results in a sort of version of the traditional conversion funnel as shown in this diagram.

In Account-Based Marketing, identifying the target account is the first step that needs to be done.

At Super Agency, we see ABM more as a strategy that is complementary and works on similar principles to Inbound Marketing.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Why does this strategy effectively touch your target ?

How to set it up?

Is ABM a simple adaptation of your Inbound strategy?

Inbound marketing is a strategy that works through the definition of personas.

Schematically, a persona is a typical profile, a composite of all the characteristics of your target customers. Getting a better understanding of their issues makes it possible to create targeted content therefore, it is adapted to their needs.

Account-Based Marketing, on the other hand, is based on the definition of a Target Account.

It consists of creating an individualized Content Marketing campaign for each of these high-stakes business accounts, capable of generating significant ROI.

A Target Account is not necessarily a large corporation, it can just as easily be a SME or a ITeS whose needs coincide perfectly with your offering.

Inversely, even when you're a small business, you shouldn't hesitate to "take on" a large company by cleverly using channels like your blog or your social networks.

Don't be afraid to target large groups for your Account-Based Marketing campaigns, your efforts will pay off

Etape 1 : Identifier son compte cible

At The Super Agency, we specialize in the implementation and development of Inbound Recruiting strategies.

To best illustrate what Account-Based Marketing is, we will take the example of a highly visible company, Michelin Group, and define an ABM strategy to raise their awareness of Inbound Recruiting.

Please note that to date, Michelin is not (yet) one of our clients, and this example will be worth studying! (I promise you a RetEx article on this)

Reporting nearly €21 billion in sales in 2016 and employing more than 120,000 people, the Michelin Group is a company that devotes a great deal of effort to the development of its employer brand.

So much effort, in fact, that it far outshines other CAC 40 companies in the ranking of companies where it's good to be.

However, the tire giant is, like all companies at the moment, facing certain recruitment difficulties in sectors in tension such as IT or certain commercial profiles. 

I have further observed that their career site has some very good employer branding content (such as the "Your First Day" page) but none aimed at attracting passive-candidates.

Michelin's career site includes employer brand content

Finally, for a company like La Super Agence that already works with CAC 40 companies (BPCE, Axa), it is important to position itself as a high-value-added service company with large accounts.

These reasons (and there are others), therefore, make Michelin an excellent Target Account for implementing an Inbound Recruiting strategy and a good example for ABM.

Step 2: Monitoring 

The second step in ABM is to inform yourself regularly about the Target Account.

Following the activity of the company in question allows you to better understand its issues and its needs that relate to your products and services.

In the case of Inbound Recruiting and Michelin Group, it is essential to learn about the recruitment means implemented and the communication carried out by them.

In addition to the website, social media and Monitoring activities are excellent ways to identify strategies implemented by the Target Account.

Whether it's Twitter or Linkedin, social networks are very useful in Inbound strategies .

For example, subscribe to the Twitter account @michelinrecrute and create, thanks to the Monitoring tool on the Hubspot, platform, a personalized feed to follow all the news necessary to understand the Target Account.

Here is a Customized Stream to track Michelin Group recruitment actions:

The Hubspot monitoring tool is very useful for Account-based Marketing

Here we see that this Stream automatically generates email alerts for all news from the @michelinrecrute, account, from the Hastag #MichelinCampus but also from the twitter account of Sophie de Villepin (@Sdevillepin), Recruiter and Head of Talent Search for Michelin France.

Following the decision makers within the target company also helps to better understand and more quickly create a relationship with the Target Account.

And this is where Inbound Marketing and Account-Based Marketing strategies are complementary.

Good knowledge of one's target, in its entirety, allows one to reach it more effectively.

Step 3: Create and deliver custom content

Once the needs and habits of your Target Account are identified, it is then time to create content that will grab their attention.

In your content creation process it is essential to position yourself as a solution provider.

To create relevant content as part of an Account-Based Marketing strategy, you must individualize your content strategy.

For our example, it may be relevant to do a case study on Michelin Group's recruitment strategy or a Benchmark that will contrast Michelin Group's recruitment strategy with that of Accor Group for example.

If you are setting up different ABM campaigns, performing a Comparative Benchmark of two of your Target Accounts is quite feasible.

Once the content has been created, it's now time to distribute it and get the Target Account to take notice (if they haven't already).

Targeting the social networks that your target frequently visits is essential to the successful dissemination of your message.

Step 4: build a business relationship

After the content is distributed, it is necessary to get the Target Account to leave you their contact information via a contact form or uploading content to your site.

This will show that you were able to get their attention by offering quality content, totally calibrated for it.

Once obtained and thanks to Hubspot, sales and marketing teams will be able to work in cohesion on the same lead. This is the famous Marketing-Sales.

Once the content is created and distributed, the relationship initiated and the information obtained, you have all the cards in hand to capture the attention of your Target Account.

Don't forget to track your target's activities and evolving strategies on social networks.

Continuing this informational watch will surely give you new ideas for creating ABM-type content or developing the relationship with this new prospect.

For example, following events that the Target Account attends can be a lever to create a special relationship and maintain it.

Example with this email to Sophie de Villepin at the RMSConf (Mobile and Social Recruitment Conferences).

Email Sophie de Villepin to inform of our presence at the rmsconf.

Any means is good to get the Target Account's attention and position yourself as a credible proposition (service) force.

Don't hesitate to pamper it and use every means of communication at your disposal.

Greeting card The 2018 Super Agency, personalized for Sophie de Villepin

Account-Based Marketing is therefore a strategy that involves targeting specific accounts that are critical to your business growth, identifying their needs, and creating content to address their issues.

This "One-to-One" version of Inbound Marketing is effective and ensures positive ROI through the relevance of content, tool performance and team alignment.

Analyze, understand, create and bounce are the key words for implementing an Account-Based Marketing strategy.

It doesn't happen overnight. 

But it always works out in the end, if only to be known by a major player in your market.

Would you like to be coached in this type of approach? Contact us!