Using LinkedIn for Account Based Marketing (ABM) for higher reach, higher ROI and lower ROT

Account Based Marketing (ABM) has been the most or at lease one of the most popular marketing terms searched for over the last five years and is sometimes misunderstood as a solution only available via specific CRM platforms and technology solutions that specialise. Content is tailored to specific key accounts and segments in order to build relationships and convert to high value sales. ABM is one of the most effective strategies with 84% of B2B businesses claiming it has the highest ROI of all strategies.

Typically, sales reach out to the key account decision makers on a regular basis and become a key account manager ready to take orders. The CRM becomes a highly segmented tool to send customised content for all the varying decision making steps for a very tight (small) list of possible clients. The CRM was always seen as the main home for this activity,

Often this list is deemed a 'wish list' by the sales department and are actually not pre-qualified as a possible prospect however, and the reach is minimal. With no major marketing cost, no wonder it has a high ROI. Marketing becomes a content creation channel only, and often feel the potential market is not fully considered.

On the other hand traditional marketing has a big reach, and at a big expense, and drives a range of leads to the CRM for ongoing marketing activity and assigned to various segments (often demographic profiling) and served customised content via CRM. The volume is bigger and the leads are for all stages of the buying cycle, but sales often complain that the leads are not 'hot' enough and take too much time to convert and to reach all captured leads manually.

After my own need to build business fast and bringing marketing thinking to the sales process on LinkedIn I came up with a particular strategy called ReputationMarketing? which is a lovely mid-ground of highly targeted decision making and influential prospects via LinkedIn, and using ABM strategies to deliver customised content either via downloadable PDF, via LinkedIn documents or articles as well as follow up at scale via LinkedIn message/chat. LinkedIn then becomes be a highly powerful alternative to the traditional ABM and with the ability to help reduce sales ROT (Return on time).

Both marketing and sales are happy in the ReputationMarketing? model as the reach is bigger but the effort involved and cost to reach this audience is much less. The same account lists and lead lists can be used for further marketing tactics including moving successful connections into the CRM, targeted ad campaigns including lead generation forms for tailored downloads or event registration, and also have the ability to do re-targeting from the website landing pages (ideally customised by audience segment) and to run Matched User campaigns to reach like-minded audiences (pending Cookies regulations) if you choose.

The most important consideration of all is the ability to remain authentic and human and to add value to your prospects through very valuable content that improves their day. Given the segmentation is super tight this content can be very specific to all the key decision makers.

For those nervous of automated outreach technology that links in with LinkedIn's back end this is not a strategy that relies on this technology at all and can allow you to remain safely within LinkedIn's user policy (despite the fact that the policy is proving to have no grounds in the courts for breach at present and LinkedIn's own consultants make recommendations on some brands of outreach automation tech too). Moving your connections (your prospects) to your CRM and synching your correspondence with Zapier can be done according to current SPAM laws and current legal cases (more here on that).

The other fantastic thing about the ReputationMarketing? model is that you can minimise the content you need to put in the feed of your company page and sales team profiles to keep your content creation costs down. You no longer need to rely on getting those irrelevant vanity metrics of likes, shares and comments (more on that here ) that become a waste of time, except if you want to engage your employees and existing network to become a referral source.

ReputationMarketing? involves 6 main factors including strategically getting your profile to perform like a website and do your brand job, work with your Social Selling Index (SSI) but never when it conflicts with your brand and sales goals, standing for something including very clear value proposition and limited content themes, connecting very strategically and safely within LinkedIn's new rules, sharing content strategically including customised content by segment, and to automate some tasks and even appointment setting to help handle the extra volume.

This strategy seems to solve the needs of both the marketing and the sales teams as a perfect way to bridge the gap between departments. With the ABM ROI mixed with wider reach and still fairly low costs to run these campaigns this ReputationMarketing? strategy is sure to become an all time favourite - if the word gets out!

Training via Basic Bananas with Anne Miles from Suits&Sneakers as a guest trainer is coming up fast if you want to know more. Book in here:

https://www.basicbananas.com/teach-me-linkedin/

#linkedintraining #accountbasedmarketing #businessdevelopment #reputationmarketing

Source: https://www.abmleadershipalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/ABMLA-ebook-Building-an-ABM-Tech-Stack.pdf