Account based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach that focuses marketing efforts on a clearly defined list of target accounts. The goal is to penetrate these accounts and turn them into customers. LinkedIn can be a very effective tool for ABM, as it allows you to identify, research, engage, and nurture relationships with key decision makers at your target accounts. Here are some of the key ways LinkedIn can help with account based marketing:
Identifying target accounts
LinkedIn gives you access to very detailed firmographic data on over 30 million companies. This allows you to easily research accounts and build targeted account lists based on attributes like industry, company size, location, technologies used, and more. You can save these target account lists within LinkedIn and easily export them for use in your other marketing platforms.
Researching your accounts
Once you have identified your target accounts, LinkedIn provides several ways to research and analyze them in more depth.
The Company Pages feature gives an overview of each company, including current employees, recent news, job postings, and more. This helps you understand what is happening at the company and identify ways to potentially engage them.
You can also analyze current employees at your accounts to uncover org charts, identify decision makers and influencers, and see which employees are most actively engaged on LinkedIn. This informs who you should try to connect with and the best ways to reach them.
Engaging your accounts
With all the employee information and news updates available, LinkedIn makes it much easier to engage your target accounts in meaningful ways.
You can share relevant news and articles directly with connections at your accounts to spark discussions. Use employee updates and job changes to congratulate them or wish them well. And participate in the same LinkedIn groups and discussions as your accounts to establish common interests and build relationships.
Sponsored content is another excellent way to get on the radar of your target accounts. You can display relevant content directly in the LinkedIn feeds of the employees you want to reach. This drives awareness in a non-intrusive way.
Running targeted ads
LinkedIn Campaign Manager allows you to run customized ads targeted to specific companies or titles. This enables you to get your brand and messaging directly in front of the accounts you want to influence, at scale.
You can tailor ad copy, offers, and CTAs to different accounts to improve relevance. And LinkedIn’s detailed targeting options let you further refine the employees or titles you want to reach within the accounts.
Leveraging sales navigator for outreach
LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides a powerful set of tools to identify, connect with, and nurture relationships with your target accounts. Here are some key features:
– Lead recommendations automatically suggests leads from your ideal accounts that are most likely to convert.
– Conversation intelligence helps craft personalized messages and conversation starters for account contacts.
– TeamLink enables everyone on your sales team collaborate on accounts in one shared workspace.
– Relationship metrics provide insight into your existing relationships at an account to optimize engagement.
Coordinating with marketing automation
You can also connect LinkedIn data with your marketing automation platform or CRM system to enable better account based experiences. Important LinkedIn account data like firmographics, contact details, and engagement can be fed directly into these systems.
This allows you to track target account engagement over time, coordinate multi-channel nurture campaigns, and personalize account-level experiences across channels. Having a unified view of all account activity and interactions improves targeting and engagement.
Key LinkedIn Features and Tools for Account Based Marketing
Let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the specific features and tools LinkedIn offers to assist with different stages of your account-based marketing.
Identifying Target Accounts
– Company search – Search by relevant criteria to build targeted account lists.
– Sales navigator lead recommendations – Get recommendations for the most relevant and promising accounts.
– Contact targeting in ads – Target ads by company to reach your account list.
– Audience templates – Save and reuse your ideal account criteria for targeting.
Account Research
– Company pages – Get an overview and news on target accounts.
– Employee search – Identify and research key employees at an account.
– Audience insights – See aggregate insights into your target accounts.
– TeamLink – View relationship map and activity feed for an account.
Engaging Accounts
– Share articles – Share relevant content to accounts with personalized messages.
– Send InMails – Directly contact employees at your accounts.
– Join common groups – Engage accounts in industry groups and discussions.
– Comment on updates – Comment on news and employee changes at an account.
– Sponsored content – Display relevant content directly in account feeds.
Advertising to Accounts
– Target by company – Display ads specifically to your list of target accounts.
– Matched audiences – Engage accounts that have already visited your website or pages.
– Contact targeting – Further target ads to specific titles or seniority levels within accounts.
– Audience expansion – Continuously find new relevant accounts to target based on your list.
Leveraging Sales Navigator
– Lead recommendations – Get recommendations for the best contacts at your accounts.
– Conversation intelligence – Craft relevant messaging and talking points for contacts.
– TeamLink – Collaborate on accounts and coordinate engagement across your team.
– Relationship metrics – View relationship strength at an account to optimize engagement.
Integrating with Marketing Automation
– Act-on – Sync LinkedIn data into Act-On for account-based campaigns and workflows.
– Marketo – Bring LinkedIn advertising data into Marketo to track account engagement.
– HubSpot – Leverage LinkedIn contact and company data within HubSpot.
– Oracle Eloqua – Incorporate LinkedIn account insights and audiences into Eloqua.
Tips for Success with Account Based Marketing on LinkedIn
Here are some best practices to ensure your account based marketing efforts are successful on LinkedIn:
Define a clear ICP and target list
Make sure you have a well-defined ideal customer profile and list of priority target accounts that aligns with your goals and sales processes.
Personalize content and messaging
Leverage LinkedIn’s data and tools to craft tailored content and outreach for each account and contact. Generic messaging won’t cut it.
Take a cross-channel approach
Coordinate your LinkedIn efforts with emails, ads, and website personalization for each account. A unified multi-touch approach is best.
Leverage your team and partners
Get colleagues and partners to engage accounts from their own LinkedIn profiles where appropriate. More relevant voices help.
Make engagement meaningful
It’s not just about sending connections requests and messages. Share valuable insights, acknowledge milestones, and build relationships.
Use software integrations
Connect LinkedIn data with your marketing automation and CRM systems for greater visibility and coordination.
Set up reporting dashboards
Establish dashboards to track account engagement across tactics and optimize your programs over time.
Shift focus as needed
As you penetrate accounts, continuously add and remove companies from your target list based on response and engagement.
Examples of LinkedIn ABM Campaigns
Here are a few examples of how brands have successfully leveraged LinkedIn for their account-based marketing initiatives:
Adobe
– Uploaded their target account list into LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
– Ran targeted Sponsored Content to engage accounts with relevant Adobe news and articles.
– Used Matched Audiences to reach accounts that previously visited Adobe.com.
– Added contact targeting, personalized ad copy and reporting to optimize over time.
Poly
– Analyzed their accounts to identify ideal buyer personas on LinkedIn.
– Targeted relevant content to accounts via Sponsored Content.
– Used LinkedIn conversion tracking to optimize ads and messaging over time.
– Personalized ads at the account and contact level drove 2x the conversion rates.
Dell Technologies
– Promoted relevant tech events to target accounts through LinkedIn ads.
– Created customized LinkedIn Groups for different industries and buyers.
– Encouraged accounts to join via personalized InMail outreach from reps.
– Facilitated discussions in Groups to engage accounts and demonstrate thought leadership.
Oracle
– Trained sales reps to send more InMails to accounts that are a good product fit.
– Provided reps LinkedIn messaging best practices to boost response rates.
– Integrated LinkedIn data into marketing automation to track InMail performance by account.
– Used those insights to refine target accounts and messaging over time.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn can be a game changer for executing more effective and efficient account-based marketing. With its wealth of company and contact data, LinkedIn gives you the ability to identify and research your most valuable target accounts, engage them in meaningful ways across channels, and track account engagement over time to optimize your approach.
By leveraging the many tools and capabilities LinkedIn offers purpose-built for B2B marketers, you can increase your relevance, visibility, and conversion rates with accounts that matter most. Ultimately driving more predictable pipeline and revenue growth.