4 Content Tricks to Conquer ABM

So you are taking on an Account Based Marketing strategy – awesome! But wait, that means content now has to be “personalized” to your target accounts and buying personas. And what if you’ve got a big matrix of account types and personas you are going after – how are you going to create all the content needed?

The good news is that there are some fairly simple ways to extend your existing content and resources to meet this demand. Read on to get the content tricks and tools you need to make ABM successful.

Content Trick #1 – Website personalization

Your first inclination might be that you need to create a bunch of landing pages specific to each persona so when you are advertising, you can send them directly to the page that speaks to their unique pains. That can work, but it gets unwieldy to manage and a bit of a marketing operations nightmare to supply all the links for your campaigns. Additionally, this only works for paid traffic. What about traffic coming direct to your homepage? Because I guarantee that many people who see your ad will skip the click thru and go direct. So how do they find this personalized content without adding a ton of nav links to your homepage hoping they find them?

The solution: There are some really slick web personalization tools available (my fave here) which use simple macros to replace key elements on a page with personalized elements. For example, if you want to cater your homepage toward the different industries you target, you can have the splash image, the headline and a specific asset switch out on the page depending on the industry of the web visitor; which can be determined via the IP address. In just a few hours, you can have a website that feels like it is made specifically for the persona visiting. So cool!

 

Content Trick #2 – Personalize existing content

A common mistake when approaching ABM is thinking that you need to create all new content. Instead of the 1 white paper that applies to all industries, you now need 6 industry-specific white papers all on the same topic. If you’re lucky you create 6 white papers in a year so getting 6 done in the month you’ve been given to launch ABM campaigns sounds impossible.

The solution: Take a careful look at that existing white paper. If it applied to all industries before, it can still work with ABM, you just need to look for ways you can make it feel personalized for the industry. This can be a very simple title change to be more industry-specific and there are likely a few key terms you can do a find and replace on. Additionally look at sidebars, quotes,charts or graphics and see if there are easy ways to personalize. Industry specific photos are a simple way to quickly make the paper resonate. By changing 10% or less of the paper, you can get a personalized version with a big impact.

 

Content Trick #3 – Create new content using 90/10 rule

When you do need to create new content, the biggest content mistake you could make would be to assign the same topic to different writers for them to each create an asset geared toward a different industry or targeted persona. This is an expensive approach – both from resources it takes and the time to produce the content.

The solution: Always plan out new content with the concept that 90% of it should be the same across the various industries or personas you are targeting and 10% of it should be easy to change out for each target. Just like with website personalization, think of each asset like it has macros that can be changed out. Design in the 10% that is easy, yet highly impactful to change and even highlight those areas so that it is easy to create multiple versions.

 

Content Trick #4 – Borrow personalized content

Landing pages work for campaign traffic, but what about organic? How on earth can a content marketer create enough personalized content that will drive search traffic? It’s hard enough to own the search terms that relate to your solution, how can you also get the long tailed ones that relate to each industry?

The solution: There are some super cool tools now that can take digital books that have “how to” knowledge that your personas would care about and slice them up into short articles that you can host on your site (my fave here). These work extremely well to soak up targeted search traffic like a sponge. It’s a cool concept and cool technology that extends your reach without adding content projects to your plate.

 

Bonus Trick – Extend your team

Changing from traditional digital marketing approaches to ABM is no small task. Even using the tricks above, you may find your team is overwhelmed or in uncomfortable territory. My recommendation is to get help. There are some great resources available to help you make ABM a success for your company.

The solution: There are ABM resources and experts that can help. Here are some of my recommendations for ABM help:

• The #flipmyfunnel community is all about ABM – get free resources and connected to a community of ABM rockstars.
• Some of the vendors put out great content that can help guide your team through this. Checkout these guides/playbooks and sample campaigns.
• If you need some consulting help to get you through the ABM transition or need ABM content, there are expert freelancers who can help.