How to Get Started with ABM at Your Agency
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In this episode of Agency Journey, Gray interviews Dan Murphy from Drift about Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and how agencies can start using it.
Dan’s background includes working at HubSpot and then OnShape before heading to Drift.
At Drift, he serves as product marketing manager and has been focusing on their new ABM product.
Here are the main takeaways from the interview:
Who Can Use ABM
ABM is a new buzzword in the marketing space. Everyone hears about it, and there’s lots of information swirling about it, but there hasn’t been a lot of diving in by some agencies.
One of the main reasons is perception. It’s perceived as a tool for highly specialized businesses, for example, to only sell products or services to a market of just 100 customers on the planet or sell large enterprise accounts. The understanding is it’s not for the everyday business, but Dan believes differently.
The ABM concept of highly targeted, conversational, and engaging ideal customers is a mindset that every agency should adopt and make their own to get the results they are looking for.
Extremely targeted marketing messages can provide significant results no matter the business.
What is ABM
ABM is often thought of as something similar to just one targeting channel but like every marketing method. It’s focusing marketing on ideal businesses or people with your marketing to buy your product or service.
With these targeted campaigns to accounts, you want to get a conversation going and nurturing them to a sale. It’s more than just getting a lead form completed. But about getting a conversation going and specific content based on what you know about their needs and pain points.
ABM is about being more human and building relationships. It’s more than just a personalized email, but a one-to-one approach to marketing and sales.
ABM Tips And Mistakes
One of Daniel’s big mistakes is occurring in ABM is that some marketers are still treating with a typical online marketing approach.
After targeting the ideal prospect to the website to learn more about you, rather than continuing the conversation, knowing they’re fully qualified, you send them to a landing page to capture their information even further. All that does is add a hurdle to the process.
With ABM, you are targeting from the start your ideal client, not qualifying a prospect to see if they are. It would be best if you changed how you do things as an agency to get the full power of ABM. You’re targeting VIPs, your ideal clients, so you should treat them that way with a personalized, engaging, and enjoyable experience with your business.
Skip the forms and get to the conversation.
ABM with Drift
Drift has just launched an ABM tool that includes a back-end that will recognize when a targeted account or individual is on your website, and you can customize a message to communicate with them. ABM gets the discussion moving towards you, and the Drift tool will help you get the conversation started and moving ahead once they visit your site.
Drift’s approach to conversational marketing combined with ABM can be a game-changer for businesses and agencies.
ABM is a new marketing method that could be a goldmine for agencies and businesses that start using it sooner rather than later.
Smart agency owners need to stay on top of what’s coming over the horizon, and agencies need to educate themselves about ABM.
If you want to contact Dan, you can reach him on Dan's website or Twitter.
