Evolve ABM into Account-Based Engagement | Account-based Marketing Audience Engagement Strategy

Now is the time to replace the “M” in ABM with a new letter — “E” for engagement.

Laura Ramos , Vice President and Principal Analyst

Evolve Account Based Marketing into Account Based Engagement

Successful account-based marketing (ABM) takes more than a new set of tactics or technologies. It requires a holistic audience engagement strategy.

That means understanding the people within the account you’re trying to reach and creating personalized content experiences that speak directly to their unique business problems. Sounds great, but where do you begin?

In “Not Yet The New Normal: ABM Must Evolve Into Account-Based Engagement,” Forrester shares the four practices that B2B marketers need to develop a personalized engagement strategy. Read this report and start your ABM evolution today.

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HOW TO PUT ACCOUNT-BASED ENGAGEMENT INTO PRACTICE

HAVE A HIGH-VALUE OFFER

At the core of ABM is empathy — you must truly understand your audience. Because no matter how you reach an account, you still need a high enough value offer that connects with the people inside it.

In practical terms, the output cannot be creating 100 different white papers for target accounts; clearly, that’s not scalable. With a combination of ON24 webinars and personalized content experiences, you can make dynamic content that can be adapted at an industry or use-case level that will address the main pain points of your audience.

Talk the Talk

The slippery slope that results in getting personalization wrong can start with not choosing language carefully. In many cases, marketers may think they are being effective at personalizing content for their target audience, when really all they are doing is regurgitating industry jargon.

Instead, feature internal subject matter experts on live or on-demand webinars that deliver their perspectives directly to a specific audience. This approach makes creating custom content scalable, authentic and more human.

Personalize Interactivity

Another mistake marketers can fall victim to is swapping a target company’s logo out on a piece of content and considering it “personalized.” Rather, taking the logo shortcut to ABM often screams, “I don’t know you at all.”

With ON24 personalized content experiences, you can customize every aspect — from curating relevant content to adding a welcome message to adding persona-specific CTAs.

Beginning a customer’s journey with an earnest attempt to understand who they are and what they need is much better than telling them you have their company IP address in your database. Any marketer can do that with the right amount of technology spend — it’s the companies who start to put engagement on their buyers’ terms through personalized, dynamic interactions that differentiate.

Create Feedback Loops

Once you have a high-value offer and personalized language and interactivity, the next step is to create a feedback loop on the content you send as fuel to further personalize future interactions.

Optimize the feedback loop by peppering content with opportunities for self-identification, such as short surveys, polls, Q&A chats, etc. And, the more interactivity and content you deliver to your audience, the more you allow your audience to self-identify their interests and intent. For example, if a prospect attended a webinar and downloaded a “Quick Start Guide,” that’s a clue to send more bottom-of-the-funnel content.

With ON24 Intelligence, every single interaction is captured and turned into insights about content performance and prospect and account engagement.

Measure for Quality

Many marketers use only quantity-driven metrics in their scoring. But, when you put your audience at the center of your ABM campaigns, you prescribe to quality. So, why would you only measure quantity?

ON24 webinars and personalized content experiences offer a new way to get quality-driven metrics through behavioral intelligence. Key behavioral intelligence metrics include the amount of time spent on content, how much content is consumed, and all interactions. This provides a powerful set of insights to find and prioritize your most qualified leads.