Account-based marketing (ABM) targets specific high-value buyers and prioritizes quality over quantity. Marketing and sales teams use business intelligence to optimize their approach and build meaningful relationships. You can execute a standalone social media ABM strategy or align it with a multichannel plan.
ABM strategies require preparation and collaboration. Selecting the right accounts, tools, and activities increases your return on investment (ROI). Explore 11 ways to ensure ABM supercharges your social marketing and selling results.
Connect sales and marketing teams
Collaboration is an essential component of account-based marketing. Teamwork between sales and marketing staff lowers costs and optimizes resources. The teams should agree on the social media ABM strategy and campaign goals. More importantly, information from sales teams should guide marketers to connect with target accounts that meet your ideal customer profile (ICP).
To improve collaboration, sales and marketing teams should track the same key performance indicators (KPIs) and use shared databases in customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Ideally, your employees meet regularly to assess metrics.
[Read more: Scaling Startups Share Their Playbooks for B2B Growth]
Establish social media KPIs and metrics
Depending on your objectives, your company may want to evaluate ABM strategies monthly or quarterly. Aside from shared KPIs, sales and marketing teams should assign nurturing tasks to individuals. Task and project management solutions can help managers delegate activities and guarantee accountability.
Consider tracking the following metrics:
- Number of qualified account-based leads generated through social media.
- Amount and type of account engagement on social media posts.
- Customer acquisition costs per social channel.
- Conversions attributed to organic and paid social campaigns.
Identify high-value accounts on social media
Depending on your priorities, you may focus your ABM strategies on the top 20% to 30% of accounts. However, you can narrow your list to a handful of organizations or even just one.
CRM software is excellent for understanding target buyers. When used alongside social media and email marketing tools, you can develop insights from current campaigns. Also, some CRMs work better for business-to-business (B2B) sales. For instance, HubSpot’s ABM tools support account-level targeting for company accounts and individual profiles.
Here’s a basic breakdown of how to identify accounts:
- Filter company profiles by industry and highlight those that fit your ICP.
- Use criteria to rate and choose high-yield accounts.
- Find individual decision-makers for each account you want to target.
- Evaluate social media accounts for each person.
- Note personal and professional interests and pain points.
[Read more: Build a Successful B2B Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps]
Align inbound marketing and ABM strategies
Inbound marketing generates new leads by providing relevant content at the right time and place. ABM personalizes the content further to delight specific high-value leads. Ryan Batter, HubSpot’s ABM Product Marketer, said, “Every growth story begins with the same foundational elements of inbound marketing — building great content, crafting a publishing strategy, optimizing search presence to enable discovery of your brand and generate leads."
Many businesses run inbound and ABM campaigns simultaneously. Moreover, you can repurpose social media content to appeal to a specific subset. The effort you put into these strategies depends on your company’s resources and goals. According to Adobe, “Some brands are 80% ABM and 20% lead-based marketing. Some brands have those percentages flipped, while some brands are 50/50.”
Account-based marketing targets specific high-value buyers and prioritizes quality over quantity.
Integrate your CRM with social media channels
Businesses gain valuable insights by integrating CRM software with social networking channels. It records interactions from LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. Sales and marketing teams can view private messages from social channels without leaving the CRM. As a result, your staff has a comprehensive view of communications and engagements for each account. Additionally, integrations let you tailor social advertising campaigns by creating matched audiences from your contact lists.
Practice social listening
Monitoring social media discussions is resource-intensive. Social listening tools capture and analyze data, providing robust insights about target accounts. You can learn what your ideal customers talk about and what others say about their companies.
With real-time brand mention alerts for primary accounts, executives, and relevant contacts, you can immediately craft messaging or offers to address pain points. Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and SEMrush are well-known search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing tools.
Proactively engage with accounts on social media
Marketing and sales teams shouldn’t wait for leads to engage with their messages. Instead, actively communicate and use social tools to identify engagement opportunities. Authentic interactions build trust with key decision-makers at targeted companies.
Ways to proactively engage include:
- Becoming a brand advocate: Mention target accounts in your social media posts and share their good news, like a press release or job promotion.
- Following accounts: Business and employee handles should follow social profiles to show they’re serious about supporting the targeted brand.
- Contributing to discussions: Comment on their posts and share industry-related tips. But avoid sales pitches unless the lead asks for specific solutions.
- Joining relevant groups: Participate in industry forums on social sites to improve brand recognition, connect with individuals, and provide insights.
[Read more: Lead Generation Funnels for B2B Businesses]
Leverage LinkedIn for ABM campaigns
LinkedIn’s features enable campaign-level targeting for bespoke ad experiences. It’s also the go-to platform for professionals, with 722 million using LinkedIn to “achieve their aspirations.” Improve ABM campaigns by combining relevant content with targeted outreach. LinkedIn said, “Audiences exposed to marketing messages on LinkedIn are 25% more likely to respond to a Sales Navigator InMail from the company’s sales reps.”
Account-based marketing tactics include:
- Using Company Targeting to set parameters when creating ABM segments.
- Nurturing relationships with purposeful messages through the InMail feature.
- Determining the efficiency of your outreach by analyzing your Social Selling Index (SSI).
Develop social advertising and remarketing campaigns
Paid remarketing tools let you develop unique ad experiences tailored to high-value segments. You can grab the attention of decision-makers by personalizing ads and landing pages. LinkedIn and Facebook offer ad libraries for inspiration. Review advertisements that mention certain companies, as these are likely ABM campaigns.
Include Facebook in your social media strategy
With a large user base and advanced ad targeting options, Facebook is an effective platform for maximizing ABM campaign impact and reach. You can import your contact list using the Custom Audiences feature. Then, create content that resonates with your ideal clients and use dynamic ads to scale Facebook campaigns.
[Read more: Facebook Stats: How to Measure Success With Metrics]
Cultivate trust through influencer partnerships
Social media influencers can increase pivotal stakeholders’ confidence in your brand. Find influencers related to your target accounts. High-impact profiles may include subject matter experts, industry analysts, and even employees at targeted firms.
Build relationships with large and micro-influencers using ABM tactics, like personalized outreach. Consider collaborative projects such as Facebook livestreaming events, influencer-driven product demos, or content promos.
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