Did you know that a whopping 86% of B2B companies use account-based marketing (ABM)? In fact, 41% of them give it top preference. That's because ABM is a more focused approach. Rather than casting a wide net, it targets those individuals who want to become customers.
Now, if you aim to generate high-quality leads for your sales development team, using LinkedIn Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is an effective tactic.
And we’ll explain why in the following sections. So, get ready to transform your LinkedIn marketing game! In this tutorial, you'll discover how to build a powerful system – ensuring your Sales team never complains about lead quality again.
Account targeting on LinkedIn is a sales-oriented approach that focuses on lead quality rather than quantity. Your marketing team collaborates with SDRs and the sales team to convert targeted lists of accounts into customers.
ABM is different from traditional marketing strategy because the traditional marketing funnel often floods sales with unqualified leads. On the contrary, an ABM strategy flips the funnel to upside down.
With LinkedIn account-based marketing, your sales, SDRs and marketing teams work together to:
As such, it results in a system that guarantees that Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) equals Sales Qualified Leads (SQL).
ABM is all about Cross-Functional Team Alignment. ABM is more than just a list of accounts, it's a unified team experience that brings teams together in an incredibly engaging way.
Yes, LinkedIn ABM is a game-changer for your business! It helps boost your sales conversion rates and reduce wasted time on unqualified leads. And the good news is, it's not too good to be true! So, keep reading and get ready to take your LinkedIn marketing efforts to the next level!
If you want to maximize the benefits of your approach to account-based marketing strategy for LinkedIn, it's crucial to have a solid strategy in place. To create and implement effective account targeting on LinkedIn, we strongly recommend you consider the following tips:
To achieve success in LinkedIn account-based marketing, commence by aligning your sales and marketing teams. When these two teams work together, it leads to a seamless experience for your target accounts.
NOTE: Without alignment, marketing and sales can trip over each other, causing confusion in identifying key decision-makers.
To ensure success, clear communication is key. As such, your SDRs and marketers should work together from the beginning to agree on the ultimate goal of your ABM program.
Defining smaller goals that align with the bigger ones can help break down the process into achievable steps. These goals may include the following:
If you aim to achieve the maximum potential of your LinkedIn outreach and ads techniques, it's essential to have a LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription. This tool is indispensable for conducting account-based marketing.
It allows you to:
With Sales Navigator, you'll have access to the full power of LinkedIn's database. And it can be incredibly beneficial for your marketing efforts. Furthermore, LinkedIn has made significant efforts to adapt Sales Navigator to cater to account-based marketing in recent years.
To target accounts effectively, you must first define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). It refers to the type of company/decision-maker that would make a perfect client for your product or service. Look at your existing clients for inspiration and take various signals into account, such as:
The above approach will result in a wide variety of accounts. Some of those accounts will be more important than others and require a different approach. To manage this challenge, use the ABM Tiers System, which we’ll cover in the next section.
When using LinkedIn account-based marketing, accounts are typically categorized into three tiers. The tiers determine the accounts’ importance to your business. As such, your Account Executives (AEs) can design a corresponding strategy to close them. These tiers are as follows:
These are the top accounts that your business must close for success. They usually comprise large enterprises or big logos that would be impressive on your website.
For these accounts, your best SDRs and top executives should take charge of manual outreach to build relationships with decision-makers.
These are your core clients, easy to close, and the foundation of your revenue. You can use personalized outreach by your SDRs and marketing efforts to get meetings.
These are the low-hanging fruits that bring additional revenue that you should not refuse. However, they will not make you a billion-dollar company. They are easy to close. Hence, you can adopt a mass prospecting strategy – i.e reaching out to them in bulk.
To initiate account list building for ABM on LinkedIn, the first step is to utilize the Account Search feature on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
As you can see, it allows you to explore the LinkedIn database with various filters like:
– and more
Within a short time frame, you can use the Sales Navigator search filters to build a qualified account list. Once you've found the relevant search results, you can add them to an Account List:
After giving a name to your list, it can be found in the Account List tab. Here, you can view:
You can also add notes to your accounts. Next, repeat this process for Tiers 2 and Tiers 3 to ultimately get three account lists.
To find decision-makers, influencers, and champions within your target accounts using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, follow these steps:
It's important to note that the job title and buyer persona for Tiers 2 and 3 may differ from those in Tier 1.
For instance, startups may not have a managerial position until they reach a certain size. However, in an established software firm, there may be a defined role system – as per responsibilities.
Therefore, you may need to search for alternative job titles to find the appropriate decision-makers.
Now that you have identified your influencers, champions, and decision-makers, the next step is to obtain their contact details. This process is straightforward, and we will cover it in the next part.
Once you have identified your decision makers, you have two options to manage them. You can:
Even if you choose to save them into a list for future reference, you can still export the lead list as a CSV using certain tools. Exporting your leads offers two advantages.
This process detects and removes these unqualified leads, saving you time and effort.
After the extraction process is complete, you will have a clean CSV file with all the relevant data, including email addresses. To add emails to your file, click on the relevant button.
Well, that’s it! You’ve come up with your desired account lists via LinkedIn targeting. Next, let’s check out some other tips to make the most of your ABM approach on the platform.
To implement successful account-based marketing, it's essential to prioritize thought leadership. Instead of launching a campaign right away, focus on creating a content marketing library tailored to your target audience.
Great thought leadership is buyer-centric and should address important elements such as:
Some companies begin with thought leadership at the executive level, translating their ideas into well-crafted content through their marketing teams. This content can take various forms, such as:
– and more
If certain leads are particularly valuable, consider developing specialized content just for them.
The real value of LinkedIn lies in seeing insights that help you optimize over time. For that reason, never launch with just one ad or one campaign with all your budget behind it. Testing is crucial.
If you only have a single content offer, that's OK. There are various elements of the ABM strategy that you can test.
Create multiple variations of the following.
While there are many areas to test, try to make your tests A/B to avoid confusing your findings. You will likely identify some standout ads right out of the gate. These ads will become your playbook of best practices that you can use for more ads.
ABM is an approach where marketing and sales teams use personalized strategies for each account, including email, direct mail, special events, ads, and more.
The strategy's success depends on developing relationships, so it's essential to use this to direct outreach efforts.
For instance, a particular team member can initiate outreach to a contact because they attended the same college or have a shared professional network with the same contact. Then the team member can then introduce the account owner to establish a solid relationship.
Measuring and optimizing your ABM strategy is crucial. ABM involves collaboration among SDRs, marketing, and sales teams to drive pipeline and revenue by moving accounts through the purchase process, not just individual leads.
Track account engagement, sales opportunities, closed-won deals, and their value to measure ABM results. Allow enough time for results before adjusting your strategy or tactics.