The challenge to reach the companies you like to see as customers is two-folded:
A: Your potential customer probably already has a number of suppliers. Why should he take the risk to change supplier and start working with your company?
B: You probably meet a handful of persons at the customer, while the decision group not seldom is 20-30 people of whom you will never get access to some since you can’t go around your formal contact and reach out to his bosses.
Account Based Marketing is a smart and cost-efficient way to build a relation with multiples stakeholders at your key prospects. Focusing on specific potential customers is not new as such. During many years Ericsson bought the billboards from Arlanda to Kista. Potential customers thought they had bought all media space in Sweden. And rumours tell that a big American IT firm tried to get aboard the same flights as its potential customers, all in order to start a dialogue.
What’s new is that we today have digital channels, making it easy and cost-efficient to set up and run dedicated campaigns towards groups of prospects or individual companies. You can do this by targeting the potential customers IP number, which is effective but quite costly since you need to buy the data. Instead we often use two channels that works great for ABM and the data is available without extra cost:
- Google’s channels (Search, Display and Youtube) can be set up within a radius around the potential customer’s HQ
- LinkedIn has a function where you can upload a company list of prospects, and then target the interesting functions in these companies
The techniques can be used in combination and normally gives a great result. You will see exactly how many persons in the company that has seen the ad and has interacted with it. A great reason to call your prospect and set-up a meeting.
Do you want to know more about how to convince potential customers, reach out to ulf@sfinxconsulting.se
