If you’re just starting out on your ABM journey, you may be wondering how to scale an operation that is specifically designed to produce unique outcomes for each customer.
It may seem counterintuitive, but these unique results can be reproduced with some simple heuristics that can be repeated endlessly.
By mastering these heuristics through time and practice, you’ll easily be able to handle ABM and personalization at any scale required to grow your business.
The easiest way to start is by picking your targets wisely. We’ll discuss how to do that and then reveal what simple steps you can follow to endlessly iterate your ABM and personalization strategy for maximum effectiveness.
3 Ways to Deploy ABM at Scale
The best way to ensure scalability is to have a concrete plan for each new target your company decides to aim for. In general, this should start with a list of ideal companies which is then broken down by other factors relevant to you and your customers.
Here are three steps that could be part of any scalable ABM strategy.
1. Create a List of Target Accounts
We recommend bringing your sales team in on this step and making it a joint effort. Sales will want to have input on which whales they’ll be hunting and which smaller accounts are going to be worth the effort.
Once you have a list of accounts, you should organize them into tiers based on their priority.
At the top of your tier list will be the accounts for which true 1:1 ABM marketing will be necessary. This means the ground-up construction of bespoke campaigns for unique buyers.
Lower on the tier list will be companies you can group by certain other attributes, such as their unique pain points.
2. Group Accounts by Pain Points
Only you know what needs your company can solve, and in what unique way, you can be valuable to your targets. Many companies might fit the definition of an ideal business partner from this point of view.
Though it’s not true 1:1 ABM marketing, 1:few is still a great way to squeeze some extra personalization and targeting into your marketing efforts.
You may also want to group accounts by expected sales cycle or around their specific stage in the pipeline.
3. Group Targets Around Pipeline Stage or Sales Cycle Length
Sales will have input on this part, since they will be best positioned to predict the stage of the sales cycle your targets are in, as well as how long it might take to push them over the line.
If it makes more sense for your operation, try grouping companies based on the time and resources you expect to expend converting them.
4 Ways to Personalize ABM at Scale
Though ABM and personalization go hand in hand, they’re not synonymous.
Personalization is the act of creating and pushing marketing materials that are specifically designed for unique buyers. Deploying ABM at scale will include personalization and the step that comes before: namely, deciding which accounts to target for maximum marketing ROI.
When it comes to personalization, there are some great heuristics you can follow to get the process right every time regardless of what scale you’re operating at.
1. Create an Execution Strategy
Work with leaders from both departments to craft an execution strategy that can be iterated across a wide number of targets. Your ABM at scale strategy should include some of the following elements:
- Synchronization: To achieve harmonious marketing and sales orchestration, every member of your team should be aware of not just their own role, but the role of their teammates and leadership. Trust and communication are key to ensure proper synchronization.
- Repeatability: Your strategy (though not the outcome) should look the same for every target account. This eliminates confusion and speeds up tactics.
- Accountability: Cross-department accountability and communication are key.
- Open to Change: No process is perfect. After a few runs, review your execution strategy and see how well it’s being carried out. This is the only way to perfect your execution strategy.
2. Decide the Level of Personalization by Account
The largest and most valuable accounts will likely call for a deep level of personalization. This means custom marketing materials, delivery, and sales communications.
To speed this process up, determine some objective measurements that will guide this decision. Though that metric may end up being arbitrary and imperfect, you can always change it later on. The key to scalability is streamlining your process by eliminating as many small decisions and crossroads as possible.
3. Start with Low Hanging Fruit
1:1 marketing is not just a revolution in the way sales are pursued, but a big shift in the internal philosophy of your sales and marketing teams. The first time you transition might not go perfectly. The point is to learn from mistakes and improve the next time.
Start with your lowest-hanging fruit: the companies for which you already have some relevant and useful marketing materials.
You could also make a unique grouping of companies that you consider good first-time targets regardless of size, giving your team the freedom to practice 1:1, 1:few, and 1:many tactics all at the same time.
4. Consider Outside Help from a Content Platform like Hushly
There’s no question that ABM and personalization are effective strategies. There’s also no question that they require not just different marketing efforts, but in many ways more challenging marketing efforts, with fewer opportunities for big mistakes.
Small and medium-sized companies may wonder how they can afford the extra time and resources required to actively manage an ABM strategy.
Even if you’re in charge of a larger company with generous marketing budgets, you’ll eventually be looking for ways to streamline your process and reduce costs to increase marketing ROI.
For each of these scenarios, Hushly is positioned to make your life easier.
Your buyers are unique individuals who need unique attention, but you’re still running a company, and you need to prioritize your attention and resources to stay competitive.
Hushly can help you:
- Create dynamic content hubs that change based on who is visiting.
- Create custom landing pages for your targeted accounts that will help you stand out.
- Create and manage custom email campaigns that improve click-throughs and lead to more conversions.
- Keep track of important data you can use to reiterate and optimize your strategy.
Best of all, Hushly doesn’t require any technical expertise to use. You can accomplish all of your ABM personalization goals by just dragging and dropping simple elements on our advanced platform.
Combine Your ABM and Personalization Efforts for Best Results
They’re unique concepts that go hand in hand, so they’re best considered with one another.
Determining which accounts you target will depend on the level of effort you plan to put into personalizing their marketing materials. On the flip side, you’ll want to avoid spending the time and energy needed to create bespoke advertising campaigns for companies whose returns simply won’t justify it.
The best way to ensure both of these valuable goals is to combine your ABM and personalization efforts into a united front that you can endlessly repeat and scale at the right time.
To learn more about how to scale your ABM efforts as you grow, check out our free eBook, “Efficient Growth at Scale.”
