The biggest B2B ABM mistake you can possibly make…
Think of the most creative, stand-out, I-need-to-steal-this-idea piece of marketing you’ve seen lately. It’s a B2C ad, isn’t it?
Of the two Bs in B2B, neither one of them stands for Boring. And yet so much of B2B marketing is muted and forgettable. Maybe that’s why System1 research shows that 75% of B2B ads are ineffective!
But a creative revolution is stirring. B2B marketers are realising that to get noticed, you need to stand out.
LinkedIn found that 89% of B2B marketing leaders say brand building is just as critical for driving long-term revenue growth in B2B as it is in B2C.
And it’s true! An Inspire study shows that ‘inspiring’ brands are five times more likely to be a B2B buyer’s first choice, and more than twice as likely to be remembered when buyers are in market.
And with a B2B Institute report finding that 95% of B2B buyers are not ready to buy today, it’s essential that your marketing is memorable and impactful.
Injecting creativity into ABM
While people associate creativity with B2C, B2B can be just as creative. Regulated industries in particular can breed more creativity than you’d think, because necessity is the mother of invention. You either go big, or go home empty-handed.
Nowhere is this more important than in Account Based Marketing (ABM). Many B2B companies often follow their competitors’ strategies, so they don’t stand out or get better results. But when you’re spending cash to target one or just a few prospects, it’s essential that your marketing is disruptive enough to cut through. Bold enough. Creative enough.
Some marketers may think that creativity = personalisation. But there is a distinct difference between personalisation and creative customisation.
Customisation is shaping a piece of ABM to be truly relevant to the recipient. To reflect their needs, their goals, their strategy and their role within the organisation. It doesn’t ominously say “I know who you are” and unsettle them. It says “I know what you value”.
Instead of just a logo-on-a-pdf, why not send a standardised report that appears totally customised through the use of a personalised exec summary. Ask the lead salesperson or account manager for relevant and interesting insights that they know the target will appreciate, which can be included within the summary. And the whole thing comes at a fraction of the cost of creating a truly bespoke whitepaper.
If you work in supply chain management for example, instead of a panel discussion, why not invite your key contacts to a sustainable wine tasting evening? Each sustainably sourced wine could come from the same location as their products are sourced from, opening a conversation about the environmental benefits of near-sourcing.
Creativity can be found in choice of channel as well as execution. It’s almost impossible for an email – which are increasingly seen as spam – to cut through the noise of a busy inbox. So if you’re prospecting, instead of sending yet another email to a target, why not do what we’ve done. We turned our proposition into an illustrated fairytale, each customised with personified characters from our target brands, and sent them a physical copy. Our first wave of this activity had a 100% response rate!
Just remember, creativity is only as good as the insight it’s based on. Continuously refer back to that research – a combination of insights from your salespeople and your independent desk research – on their needs, strategies, goals and values to keep your ABM grounded in efficacy.
But how do I measure creativity?
Creativity by its very definition is hard to measure. But it isn’t impossible. Though organisations like WARC make a science of it with their Creative 100 list, your measurement can be much simpler: effectiveness.
If you don’t yet have concrete results, you can use qualitative feedback, like stakeholder comments, to quantify your creativity. On an ABM project we crafted for Royal Mail, we gathered comments from the targets themselves when they received a hand-delivered direct mail piece.
This project generated an estimated sales pipeline of around 420 times the cost of the campaign. Proving that creativity and a personal approach really matters.
No one sums it up better than another of our clients, the shipping and logistics giant Maersk. Kim Pedersen, Global Head of Sales and Marketing, says: “Today [creativity] is seen as an absolute game-changer and we have strong and measurable indicators, not only on top-level growth, but also on reputation score and brand impact, that this strategy is working. And it is all rooted in the belief that we are not working with B2C, nor B2B, but rather B2P… business-to-people.”
As an agency, business-to-people is our ethos: we do human. If you’re looking for B2B ABM with a proven track-record of creativity and effectiveness in spades, get in touch for a chat about how we could help.