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Are you tired of throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks in your marketing efforts?
If the answer is yes, then it's time to try something new.
Something way more efficient and effective.
And something that can actually help you achieve your marketing and business goals.
The answer?
ABM Lite, or 1:Few ABM.
It is one of the three types of account-based marketing (ABM). The other two are 1:1 ABM and 1:Many ABM.
1:1 ABM involves creating highly personalized campaigns and experiences for each of your target accounts. This is the most strategic ABM approach, but it's not always feasible given the resources necessary to create these highly customized experiences.
1:Many ABM, also known as Programmatic ABM, is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It's a much more cost-efficient and scalable approach, but it lacks the personalization of 1:1 ABM.
This is where ABM Lite comes in.
ABM Lite is the perfect balance between 1:1 and 1:Many ABM, with the key difference being that it's not as personalized and strategic as 1:1 ABM since you can’t afford to dedicate your sales and marketing resources to creating a personalized comic book for the CEO of each of your target companies, but still requires more personalization and cross-department effort than launching dynamic personalized ads on LinkedIn.
Interested in learning more about ABM?
Let’s jump right into the article then!
When You Need ABM Lite
ABM Lite is the perfect approach if you have a list of precious accounts but you don’t have enough resources or manpower to build fully customized strategies for each one of them.
It involves creating and grouping a set of target accounts based on their similarities and then creating personalized campaigns tailored to the needs and interests of each group.
This allows you to create more tailored content, messages, and experiences on a larger scale, while still delivering an experience that feels more personalized and engaging than a one-size-fits-all approach.
ABM Lite is also great for testing out new campaigns and ideas before you invest resources into a more strategic and time-consuming 1:1 ABM approach.
So if you’re looking for a more efficient and effective way to target your most valuable accounts but don’t have the resources to do a full 1:1 approach, then ABM Lite could be just what you need.
Case Studies
Here are a few real-world examples of successful ABM Lite campaigns:
1. Fullfunnel.io for Iridium
Iridium wanted to expand its business, close larger clients, introduce new products, and share its new market positioning. To do so, they teamed up with ABM specialists Fullfunnel.io to host a virtual summit.
And the result was impressive!
The summit generated:
- 2320 sign-ups
- 34 sales-qualified leads
- 5 new customers
Even more impressive is that the campaign was led by just three people with a budget of only $3000.
Given that Iridium's typical sales cycle lasts 9-12 months, the fact that they were able to acquire 5 clients with a lifetime value of over $100k right out of the gate is truly remarkable.
But how did they do it?
The secret lies in the way they implemented their ABM Lite strategy.
Instead of trying to create a personalized experience for each of the 2320 sign-ups, they created a 2-tier ABM Lite approach. They manually picked out Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts and then hosted activation workshops for IPC after the summit to further engage them.
There were 2 product webinars for each tier and both of them were sent manually, with personalized invitations via email and SMS.
Rather than calling everyone immediately after the workshops, the team at Fullfunnel.io decided to send a content hub to attendees. This hub provided additional information about the product, answered potential questions, and helped identify warm accounts.
After that, based on the engagement metrics collected from the content hub, tender personalized follow-ups were sent out.
The result? A successful ABM Lite campaign with incredible ROI.
To read more about how Fullfunnel.io and Iridium put together a successful ABM Lite campaign, check out this case study.
2. Uviaus for Billingtree
BillingTree is a payment processing company that helps companies improve customer experience and increase revenue.
To reach customers, they used direct mail with gift cards as an incentive but struggled to schedule meetings with high-value targets and often ended up meeting with individuals unable to make decisions for the company.
As a result, they started looking for a technological solution to reach decision-makers.
With their ABM Lite approach, Uviaus was able to effectively target BillingTree’s high-value targets, as well as engage them with personalized content and experiences.
Instead of contacting a mailing list with more than a thousand contracts, Uviaus targeted BillingTree's top 100 prospects with a high-value deliverable that would immediately capture their attention and leave a fantastic, long-lasting brand impression.
To promote BillingTree to their top prospects, the Uviaus team created and sent out 100 custom-branded cases equipped with two combination locks.
Each case contained an Amazon gift card worth up to $100, but the combination to unlock the case was not included. These prospects were often high-level executives, so they wanted to make a lasting impression with the BillingTree brand.
As a surprise, we added a video player to the inside of the case that played an animated pitch created by our team when the case was opened. The interior of the case was also fully branded with BillingTree’s logo and colors.
With this innovative approach, Uviaus was able to hit the mark with their ABM Lite campaign and everyone loved it! Over 60 prospects who received the mailing reached out and 15% of them became customers. The BillingTree campaign was so good that it even won the 2019 Next Generation Innovative B2B Campaign Award! That's how marketing should be done!
To read more about how Uviaus and BillingTree used ABM Lite to successfully reach high-value targets, click here.
Implementation Tips
ABM Lite is an awesome strategy, however, it’s important to remember that it takes careful planning and execution to be successful. Here are some tips for implementing a successful ABM Lite campaign:
1. Align sales, marketing, and customer success
The key to successful ABM Lite is having a unified approach from your sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Everyone needs to be on the same page to ensure that you’re targeting the right accounts and providing them with the correct messaging.
You can segment your audience in a variety of ways, for example by vertical - in that case, you need to identify what are the main pain points for your customers in that vertical to address them along the entire buyer journey, from the start all the way to becoming a customer and staying with you for a long time.
Here's one example of how an alignment should look in action:
Let's say you want to promote an advertising platform to marketers in the cybersecurity industry, whose goal is to raise awareness about security threats, create urgency, and stand out among the competition.
In this case, alignment between sales, marketing, and customer success teams should look like this:
- Marketing - should highlight how their solution helps reach the target audience at scale with relevant valuable content about security threats: how-to's, PDF guides, educational videos, etc.
- Sales - should provide detailed competitor comparisons and case studies from similar companies in the CyberSec industry to convince that their solution is the top choice.
- Customer success - should start onboarding with setting up high-reach campaigns and generating engagement as soon as possible to demonstrate the value of the product right away.
By aligning your teams together, you’ll be able to create a powerful ABM Lite campaign that resonates with your target audience. Without this alignment, don't expect any of your marketing efforts to be successful. It's like playing a team sport with only half the players on the field.
2. Be active where your audience is
To effectively reach your target audience, it's important to be active where they are.
This means conducting thorough customer research to identify the specific podcasts, keywords, and influencers that your most valuable customers engage with.
This may require narrowing your focus, but keep in mind that ABM is all about getting more by focusing on less. By understanding exactly what your audience is interested in and where they spend their time, you can tailor your marketing efforts to reach them effectively and drive results.
3. Measure properly
As with any marketing campaign, it’s important to track and measure the success of your ABM Lite campaign. This will help you understand which channels are working better than others and identify areas for improvement or optimization.
Make sure you have all the target accounts in your CRM and that every interaction with any of those accounts is tracked properly. This includes website visits, emails opened and clicked, webinars attended, etc.
This way you can get a better understanding of whether your efforts are resulting in increased engagement, opportunities created, and if deals are closing. You'll also be able to calculate important metrics such as sales velocity to evaluate the impact of your ABM campaign.
By following these tips, you’ll be able to create a successful ABM Lite campaign that resonates with your target audience and drives real results. Just remember, it all starts with the alignment of your teams and understanding exactly who you’re targeting. From there, it’s just a matter of taking the necessary steps to reach your audience and measure the success of your efforts.
Good luck!