Master Account Based Marketing With The Complete Leadfeeder Guide: Strategies and Best Practices for Success

Instead of focusing on attracting large groups of leads, account based marketing strategies increase visibility with personalized campaigns that target key decision-makers of high-value accounts.

If you find yourself struggling to find enough high-quality leads or identify the most effective tactics for attracting and converting them, read on to discover the benefits of account based marketing as well as the steps and best practices for implementing it in your sales and marketing teams.

Note: Generate new high-value accounts, monitor target accounts, and build account lists based on buyer intent data using Leadfeeder by Dealfront. Sign up for Leadfeeder’s free 14-day free trial.

What is account based marketing?

Let’s start at the very beginning with an account based marketing definition.

Also known as ABM, account based marketing is a strategy that targets specific companies with personalized campaigns, rather than targeting large groups as a whole.

It flips the traditional method of inbound marketing on its head.

Rather than working to attract a large number of prospects, and then developing niche content to move ideal prospects through a funnel, account based marketing strategies start at the other end of the funnel, i.e. the bottom.

This means you start with your target accounts and create content and campaigns that target specific people at those companies.

And it works; according to account based marketing statistics from Momentum ITSMA, 81% of respondents said they saw a higher ROI using ABM campaigns than with other marketing strategies.

While strategies can vary based on company, ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), and target audience, in most cases ABM:

• Is most effective for enterprise-level customers due to the amount of effort and time involved.

• Requires marketing teams (ABM team) and sales teams to work in sync.

• Leverages marketing automation and other account based marketing tools to streamline steps in the process, such as lead generation automation or email follow-ups.

• Builds a personal relationship with decision-makers (which can be particularly crucial for B2B account based marketing).

How is account based marketing different from lead generation?

Account based marketing and lead generation are two different ways of filling your sales funnel, but they can be used to work together. 

Let's say you run an enterprise SaaS company, and your target audience is financial institutions.In traditional inbound marketing, you might develop content for financial companies as a whole and wait for them to come to you for more information.

In this example, lead generation would involve researching financial institutions to identify a broad range of potential customers that you can feed into the top of your sales funnel.

As we said before, ABM strategies start at the other end of the funnel, using personalized campaigns to target specific individuals at companies that fit your ICP.

However, by using lead generation and account based marketing together, you can identify the best leads to target with ABM and ensure you have all the necessary data to create successful campaigns.

So, how would this work with an account based marketing strategy?

Let’s continue with our example. With ABM, instead of targeting people who work at financial institutions as a whole, you start by focusing on companies that are your ideal customer.

For example, you might track who visits your website or research prospects, and then develop content and marketing campaigns specifically targeted to that institution.

This is what makes ABM so different from other marketing strategies.

It might seem a bit backward. I get it. Let's break it down with an example.

In standard marketing, you'd write a blog post about how your SaaS tool helps companies prevent accounts payable fraud.

You would promote the piece by targeting people on Facebook or LinkedIn who work at financial institutions.

That's how the cool kids have been doing it for years.

Does it still work? Sometimes.

But, there's a better way.

With ABM, you decide who you want to target, then research to find out what they are worried about.

If you find out they are really concerned about accounts payable fraud then you develop content that addresses that issue and pain point.

Imagine traditional inbound marketing as throwing a fishing net into the ocean; you catch whatever is in your path, right?

ABM is more like throwing a hook with a specific type of bait you know your ideal fish loves—and there are many advantages to targeting individual fish.

What are the benefits of using an account based marketing framework?

In Foundry’s 2023 survey, 93% of respondents reported that their account based marketing strategy was either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ successful.

Why are so many B2B companies focusing on this strategy?

Let's look at a few of the benefits:

1. Account based marketing delivers a higher ROI for.

2. ABM is more efficient because you target specific accounts rather than broad key terms.

3. The majority of companies that use ABM have shorter sales cycles.

4. ABM builds trust with customers by showing prospects you actually understand what they need.

5. ABM is about the quality of leads over quantity—your sales reps get a higher average contract value and better deal sizes.

6. Investing in ABM builds trust in your brand, increases the retention of existing customers, and helps to boost the sales process.

Is account based marketing only for enterprise customers?

No, ABM isn't just for enterprise customers. In fact, account based marketing tactics can be used to target any B2B customer—it just takes some creative account based marketing ideas.

Enterprise accounts often have a longer lifetime value than small businesses, which means they make great targets for account based marketing services. 

However, there are also ways to use ABM techniques with small businesses. For example, if you sell products that are highly customized or require multiple purchases over time, then you may be able to use ABM successfully with smaller clients as well.

If you're not sure where to start or what ABM tools are available, keep reading.

Types of account based marketing and tactics that work

Account based marketing is about getting a better ROI from your pipeline. Like most business strategies, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to ABM. You can use a basic framework and tailor it to your organization.

A simple place to start is to understand the basic types of account based marketing.

Strategic ABM: one-to-one

With strategic ABM, you take a one-to-one approach with super high-value accounts. Your sales and marketing teams will design unique content to meet account needs.

When implementing this ABM strategy, narrow your prospect list to between one and five accounts. By doing this, you can create highly personalized content. All marketing is based on specific customer pain points and needs. 

Here’s an example: A SaaS company targets a health maintenance organization (HMO). The company creates customer-focused content that features white papers and case studies. ABM content shows the real-world benefits of their product for specific HMO use cases.

A one-to-one strategy demands a high amount of attention and resources. Before you start, put together a team that combines levels and roles including an experienced ABM manager.

ABM lite: one-to-few

A one-to-few approach enables your teams to find that sweet middle ground between inbound marketing and ABM. Also known as ABM lite, high-value prospects are segmented into groups.

Each group shares common traits and meets defined criteria. Similar marketing materials are used for all B2B prospects in the same cluster. 

An ABM lite strategy helps you get more out of custom content and campaigns. For example, a few companies of the same size and vertical can each be engaged with the same workshop or webinar.

Programmatic ABM: one-to-many

A programmatic ABM strategy is also known as a one-to-many account based marketing technique. Programmatic ABM requires a less intense understanding of high-value accounts.

All of your marketing and sales efforts come with some degree of flexibility. One-to-many tactics empower you to use the same marketing funnels for hundreds or even thousands of target accounts.

Your team must be adept at tailoring experiences to each prospect. However, they aren’t expected to do everything on their own.

Sales and marketing automation tools, such as Facebook Ads, can help you to personalize content, while business intelligence applications like your CRM can integrate data to enable greater capabilities.

For instance, a Facebook advertisement campaign could be customized based on company data such as industry, niche, size, needs, or location. 

What account based marketing best practices should you follow?

Account based marketing requires a coordinated effort from cross-functional teams. If you get your tactics right, you stand to benefit from new and significant sources of revenue. 

Follow these ABM best practices to get the most out of your marketing strategy. 

Do your research; leverage data

ABM starts with research to identify high-value opportunities. Invest as many resources as you can into understanding your market and the companies that fit your ideal customer profiles. 

Do your due diligence. Discover the market position, strengths, weaknesses, and goals of your target companies. This is the only way to find the best opportunities for your organization. Use industry reports, news sites, social media, and other online sources for information.

Working on weak leads is a sure way to be disappointed with the results of your ABM campaigns.

Align your teams

Marketing and sales often work as siloed departments with different goals. It should be clear by now traditional approaches simply won’t work with account based marketing. 

Both departments should work together to segment prospects and develop detailed buyer personas. Use collaboration tools to share account information and internal documentation on every touchpoint. Create account-specific channels for team messaging for better teamwork. 

Focus on relationship-building

Relationship-building is the key to success for any account based marketing funnel. How do you build trust and rapport with prospective clients? Offer value every step of the way.

Use targeted messages to demonstrate you know the account and also understand its needs and challenges. Personalize campaigns with useful industry guides and whitepapers highly relevant to prospects. 

Continually engage target accounts. Reach out and make them aware you’re there to help them solve problems. Be transparent about what your products can or can’t do for them.

Use the right tools

Implementing a new ABM strategy requires many resources. Get the most out of your new investment by using the right business tools to streamline ABM.

Here are some of the tools your organization should be using:

CRM: A customer relationship management platform keeps everyone updated with account progress.

Marketing automation tools: Streamline content creation and automate personalization for content.

Account data enrichment apps: Integrate target data with your other tools and use AI to better understand each prospect.

Web personalization platforms: Track website visitors and personalize the user experience.

Analytics: Use a range of apps to gather and analyze data from prospect interactions. Use tools that integrate and centralize data for better account insights.

Monitor your tactics and adjust

No account based marketing framework is perfect right out of the box. No matter how well things are going, there’s always room for improvement. 

How do you sharpen your ABM tactics? By monitoring the buyer’s journey at every stage. Basic tools like Google Analytics are your best friend for monitoring website performance. Combine these insights with your other ABM tools to find blind spots and obstacles in your marketing funnel. 

Start your account based marketing strategy in six steps

Now that you understand what account based marketing is and how it can help your company grow, let's dive into how to actually implement this process.

Step 1: Build data by identifying companies you want to target

Before you begin to develop a strategy, your first step should be to identify who your target companies are. 

Start by using a visitor identifying tool to see who is visiting your website; this indicates a level of interest in your solution.

You can also, look at tools you already use for marketing, such as your email list and CRM for possible prospects, as well as use tools for prospecting, such as Dealfront, to actively search for companies in your target market.

Focus specifically on high-value companies; these are ideal for the ABM approach.

For example, CloudTalk, a company that provides brands with smart call center software, recently began implementing account based marketing. 

By using Leadfeeder, CloudTalk was able to identify and target 1,000 new prospects a month who visited their site but didn't sign up for a trial.

Cloud Talk sent out personalized ABM campaigns to the top 20 most active browsers on their site. As a result, they were able to sign up 20 additional companies per month for their free trial. 

Remember, these are enterprise clients, not one-off purchases from an e-commerce customer. These sign-ups could be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month.

Step 2: Tier the data  

Now that you have a list of prospects, it is time to start tiering them. Use LinkedIn and the company website to locate contact points.

LinkedIn's Sales Navigator can be extremely useful here, but you don't need a fancy tool if you are willing to put in a bit of work.

The CEO might not be a great target, as they are likely busy, but the marketing manager or HR executive assistant might be perfect.

Gather the names, email addresses, and questions they have asked in online communities or on LinkedIn and collate all this information in a spreadsheet.

Step 3: Rank your prospects for different account based marketing campaigns

Once you have a list of prospects, it is time to rank them.

Which prospects have visited your site several times?

Which have asked questions in forums indicating they are looking for a solution similar to what you offer?

Within each company, which contact feels the most attainable?

For example, did a Senior VP share one of your blog posts on social media or ask a question you could answer in a LinkedIn Group?

These are hot leads that should be the focus of your first efforts.

Triuvare, an ICT company, considers customers who download their ICT Tendering Guide to be hot—they know people who download this guide are very close to buying, and it is their job to convince them that Triuvare is the best option.

Step 4: Create content for prospects

Once you know who your prospects are, it is time to woo them.

This is the true heart of ABM—creating personalized content. This content may be in the form of blog posts, emails, ads, white papers, and so forth.

The main purpose is to address struggles that a specific company faces or a specific block that is stopping them from converting.

For example, ROI Amplified found that their detailed content, which they thought would drive interest by showing off their technical expertise, was attracting traffic from universities, likely students learning about marketing, who would not be interested in buying their product.

Step 5: Connect content and message to persona and account

Now that you have created awesome content and ABM content marketing strategy, it is time to get it into the right hands.

Start by creating tier and persona-specific campaigns, then personalize your approach for each marketing channel and tier.

You've created this content for a specific audience, right? So, it makes sense to personalize the outreach too.

Personalization, after all, is the heart of ABM.

The strategy you use to deliver the content might include LinkedIn advertising, email marketing, direct mail, or carefully targeted PPC ads; it just depends on where your audience is.

LMCS, for example, used account based marketing and visitor information from 

Leadfeeder to gather lists of relevant leads.

Then, their salespeople visited the lead's website to determine if the lead was a potential customer.

They gathered contact information from promising leads, then delivered content through targeted email campaigns.

The results?

They contacted a total of 75 companies, booked 14 appointments, and sent out 12 offers. That’s an ABM success.

Step 6: Watch the cash roll in

In all seriousness, ABM is an incredibly effective way to attract and target leads.

In fact, one study found that 87% of B2B marketers reported that their account based marketing strategies were more successful than any other markteing techniques. 

Seven account based marketing metrics you need to track

There’s loads of data to analyze during your ABM implementation. Which metrics help you filter out the noise and keep the pulse on your account based marketing?

1. Account engagement: Track the engagement of each company with your marketing content. This metric reflects the relevance of your account marketing.

2. Account progression rate: Monitors how quickly prospects move through your pipeline towards purchasing. It shines a spotlight on potential bottlenecks or ineffective tactics. 

3. Sales cycle length: How long does it take on average for your team to close an account? Like the progression rate metric, cycle length monitors the efficiency of your current pipeline. It also establishes a baseline for making improvements.

4. Account churn rate: The proportion of target accounts that exit your ABM funnel. Compare this rate against industry benchmarks for a quick view of performance. You can also monitor churn to evaluate changes in strategy.

5. Customer lifetime value (CLV): How much a customer spends during the lifetime of its relationship with your company. It’s a strong indicator of whether your team is targeting the right accounts or not.

6. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Monitors how much you spend to acquire a target account. Weigh this number against customer lifetime value to determine your ROI. 

7. Conversion and win rates: Track the success of your marketing and sales efforts. Audit stages in the buyer’s journey with low conversion rates.

Account based marketing examples to inspire your campaigns

Gartner reports that ABM increases overall account engagement by 28%. Sounds great, but what does that look like in the real world?

Let’s take a look at a few account based marketing examples. 

SaaS

B2B intent data platform, Leadfeeder, used an ABM strategy to grow its business. It started by identifying companies that matched their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). 

Leadfeeder then used its own tool to track website visitors and identify potential high-value accounts. Built-in filters ensured they focused on companies that met specific criteria. Alerts, notifications, and automation kept the team updated with account activity.

Using ABM tactics, Leadfeeder targeted interested companies that were fit for their services. Thanks to a tailored strategy, the company now boasts over 60,000 client accounts.

B2B marketing

The firm xGrowth helps tech companies curate ABM strategies to reach high-value targets. They use Leadfeeder to collect account-specific engagement data for every opportunity. Data gathered helps measure intent signals and overall campaign success. 

As a B2B marketing agency, xGrowth helps tech companies tailor marketing campaigns to their target accounts. 

Implement account based marketing with Leadfeeder by Dealfront

When it comes to account based marketing strategies, one thing often gets lost in the conversation. 

With so many tools and access to so much information, it can be easy to forget that you are still dealing with people.

Whether your target audience is a B2B employee or a consumer in a retail store, we’re all still people selling to other people. 

Account based marketing might be most effective for enterprise clients, but the goal is still to create a personal relationship with key stakeholders and the actual people who make decisions.

Data should give you a better understanding of the people you are selling to, or it’s not doing the right job. With Leadfeeder, you can identify the companies that are visiting your website and enrich your profile or them with data from our truly compliant databases located on EU servers. Connect the dots with over 50 versatile filters, automatic lead scoring, and more than 180 contacts for key decision-makers. 

By building strong and authentic relationships with prospects, you will have the solid foundation necessary to nurture them into loyal, long-term customers.

Note: Generate new key accounts, monitor target accounts, and build lead lists based on buyer intent data using Leadfeeder. Sign up for Leadfeeder’s free 14-day free trial.