When was the last time you drove by a billboard with your name on it? Or received a comic book where you’re the main character? Chances are the answer is “never” – and that’s what makes these account-based marketing advertising tactics so effective.
If you’ve been in the ABM game for any time at all, you know that its foundation is built on curated content that speaks directly to your target account list. Personalized, creative account-based marketing advertising strategies are essential to running a successful campaign. Yet you also want to make sure you’re getting a good ROI. So what are the most effective ways to set yourself apart from the crowd while still delivering a solid ROI?
Direct Mail
If you thought direct mail was dead, think again. Direct mail actually outperforms email on several metrics, including an up to 90% open rate and a 4.9% response rate for prospect lists. Plus, its effectiveness is actually rising, with 82% rating direct mail as effective at reaching targets in 2020, compared to 78% in 2019.
Why the comeback for direct mail? Improvements in technology, data and tracking allow direct mail to be more personalized than ever before – and personalization is key to account-based marketing advertising. Direct mail may also be seen as “different” in today’s oversaturated digital world, cutting through the clutter to gain customers’ attention. You’ll want to get creative with interesting offers, swag, and more. Organizations preferred dimensional mail and oversized postcards as the best ways to uniquely represent their brand, so think outside the letter format.
It’s no surprise that this business-focused social media platform is the favorite of B2B marketers. LinkedIn offers the ability to target users by more than 200 characteristics, including company, job title, seniority and more. You can layer these parameters to drill down to your most coveted audiences, for example, senior product managers at a specific set of companies. All that targeting could be why LinkedIn reports impressive statistics, for example, a 33% increase in purchase intent.
You also have the option to use LinkedIn InMail ads, which are direct messages that pop up when someone signs on. According to LinkedIn, InMail response rates are three times higher than regular email. The ability to reach high-level decision makers and business influencers is a vital part of account-based marketing advertising and is what LinkedIn does best, making it an important piece of any ABM campaign.
Native Ads
It’s official: Banner ads are out. Native ads are in. The popularity of native ads is rising, with nearly 65% of digital display ad spend going toward this channel in 2020. They’re excellent for content promotion, because they are often served within articles when users are already in the “reader” mindset.
Native ads look natural on the page, fitting in with the content around them, and they target audiences based on past browsing data, allowing you to create highly curated campaigns. That could be why consumers looked at native ads 53% more frequently than traditional display ads. The same study found that native ads registered 18% higher lift in purchase intent and 9% lift for brand affinity responses than banner ads.
Out of Home
Billboards aren’t always the first thing that comes to mind when you’re thinking about account-based marketing advertising. It can feel risky to put a big message out there – and to spend thousands on one piece of advertising that is typically targeted for just a 1:1 campaign. But done right, out of home can be ultra effective. Once employees start heading back to the office, you could serve digital out of home in the train station they use for work, the gym the employees visit, and even the elevator screens in some buildings.
One of the most famous examples of billboard advertising for ABM is when the agency Intridea wanted to capture the attention of advertising legends Ogilvy & Mather. They created a simple billboard with a personalized landing page URL and their logo, and placed it right across from the Ogilvy offices. It worked: the CEO called them directly.
Curated Content
Account-based content marketing is a tried-and-true tactic. The more you know about your target audience, the more effective your curated content will be – and we don’t just mean role or job title. The best curated content is actually a 1:1 or 1:few technique that plays on a lesser-known trait of your target, like a specific interest or hobby that you can build truly unique content around.
One agency used this strategy to target the former CEO of T-Mobile, John Legere. Following his social media activity, they uncovered his affinity for Batman. They then created a comic book just for him and sent it to various stakeholders at the company. He shared it on his Twitter account, and the rest is history.
Interactive Experiences
Experiential marketing used to be a common buzzword, with all sorts of interactive activities to be found at trade shows and conferences. Then lockdowns and social distancing hit – but you can still create these types of experiences.
Create video walkthroughs of your product or a “day in the life” at your office. Create a video game or other gamified experience that promotes your product or service. Host a virtual event or conference and include your most valued target accounts or put together a lunch-and-learn for a 1:1 campaign, and don’t forget to offer a gift certificate for lunch. Get creative to get noticed.