Content Creation for ABM

Whether you are just starting out or you are a seasoned marketer, you have probably heard “content is king” and there is a good reason. In today's digital world, it's how you reach your audience and potential customers. It's how you communicate your brand and company values, and it's how you represent your business and products online.

Creating content continues to be one of the most challenging pieces of the puzzle to implement, but don't fret. We have you covered with a few foundational pillars we think will help you in the right direction.

Let's get started with how you identify the content creation strategy that will help you narrow in on what content may be best for you and your target audience.

The Three ABM Approaches

ONE TO ONE

• For one target account 
• ABM approach

ONE TO FEW  

• For up to 20 accounts
• mindset

ONE TO MANY

• For 100's - 1,000's accounts
• Programmatic

Whatever approach you find yourself primarily using, it's essential to tailor not just to the approach you choose but to your buyer's journey as well. If you have content designed for each of the buyer stages (awareness, consideration, decision), you not only set your sales team up for higher success, you'll likely find the content that resonates with your brand and audience as well.

That said, let's dive into some of the content types you can create that will align with each of the approaches.

Content Tactics

In this section, we cover a few different types of content that work well for our 3 ABM approaches.

Deciding which content to create is essential, but don't let that box you in. Sometimes the best way to find the right content for your business is to experiment with the different types and platforms.

Each one of these tactics has its applications and benefits, but it's always at your advantage to have a “repurpose” mentality where one piece could essentially fall under a few different tactics.

TARGETED ADS

(1:FEW OR 1:MANY)

• Content Tactic Most Associated with ABM 
• Consider ABM Ads Guaranteed Delivery to Target Accounts 
• Communicate Your Message in the Ads 
  • What Do You Want Your Target Accounts to Know? 
  • How Can you Communicate that Message Succinctly? 
  • Do You Have Enough Ad Content To Display 8 Separate Ads to the Same Audience?
• The Click Then Becomes an Engagement Data-Point

Targeted ads have a unique dynamic in these tactics. If created and appropriately run, ads can be wildly successful. It's important to keep in mind that one ad does not fit all, and you might have a little experimenting and data collection to do before you hit your stride.

PODCASTS 

(1:1 OR 1:MANY)

• Build a Podcast Around Interviewing Your Target Accounts 
• Develop a 1:1 Relationship with Your Target Accounts 
• Create Content Appealing to the Rest of Your Target Account List 
• Positions Your Brand as a Peer to Your Target Accounts 
• Becomes Foundational Content Piece that Fuels the Rest of Your Content Strategy 
  • You Spend Time Speaking Directly With Your Ideal Customers

Podcasts are one of those great content tactics that can be repurposed into different tactics as well. This allows you to cover multiple content streams and lessens the workload when creating it all.

VIDEO CONTENT 

(1:1, 1:FEW, OR 1:MANY)

• Video has been the most rapidly growing marketing medium 
• The Application of Video to ABM are endless 
  • Video invite to a private event 
  • Video walkthrough of product specifically for a unique use only applicable to 100 accounts 
  • One-to-one video around how product can specifically solve problems for a single account

You’ve probably heard it more than once lately “video content is what the market wants” and that statement isn't wrong. Think about TikTok, Instagram Reels, Youtube shorts, and even Facebook reels now. It's not just your market. It's the industry and video is in.

BLOG CONTENT

(1:MANY)

• Blog content is typically associated with Inbound but has application in ABM 
  • Create something engaging for your sales reps to send 
  • Provides a logical reason for people to opt-in 
  • Create content-binging opportunities once target accounts are on the website 
• The main marketing metric for ABM is engagement 
• Creating highly engaging blog content that directly addresses your target accounts problems creates more opportunities for continued engagement 
  • Potentially Full-Funnel Content 

In all honesty, this is an underrated one. Many people write and publish a blog, and it ends there but have you thought about repurposing for this tactic as well? Blogs, when pieced out and placed accordingly, can be an incredible library of bits and pieces to share through social media or even newsletters.

LIVE-STREAMED WORKSHOPS

(1:MANY or 1:FEW)

• These are events specifically designed around a topic of interest to your target accounts
• They are publicly accessible, accounts don't feel targeted
• Creates an opportunity to specifically target known accounts, and engage currently unknown accounts
• Based on engagement, create opportunity for more 1:1 engagement afterward
  • Potentially Full-Funnel Activity

This is a newer concept, but its applications are endless. If you record these workshops, you have video content ready to go. If you wanted to, you could even translate these workshops into blogs, making them not only powerful but dynamic as well.

SOCIAL MEDIA/LINKEDIN

(1:MANY, or 1:1)

• Intentionally create content on social that appeals to your target accounts
• Start building your connections with the individuals in your target accounts
• They will become a follower and start seeing your content
• Power of personal brands
• Your network starts to become filled with your target accounts
  • Full-Funnel

Social media is the wild west in almost all marketing approaches. It's constantly changing, there's always a new sheriff (platform) in town, and sometimes it can feel like you are the only one on the homestead. This is one where we will mention dedication. It takes time and energy to build a fruitful social media presence, but once you do... Almost all your content tactics can be utilized here.

If you would like to learn about a few more tactics we didn't cover today, our ABM-A-Thon live session covers it all and even have downloadable slides from our presentation so you can consume at your leisure.

Content Strategy

Here is where the rubber hits the road. We will cover each phase of a successful ABM Content Strategy and some of the pieces you need to implement.

PHASE ONE

• Start connecting with the individuals on your target account list
• Start posting content relevant to your target accounts
• Start inviting your target accounts onto a podcast
• Start sharing your podcast on LinkedIn
• Build the continual flywheel of connecting with your target accounts, inviting them on to your podcast, and sharing the content from your episodes

PHASE TWO

• Identify or create a case study that's highly relevant to your target accounts
• Run ads against your target account list in LinkedIn to this case study
• Create enough ad variations that they can be served 3 different creatives and 3 variations on the content (total of 9 ads)
• Ensure the case study directly addresses the problems identified in your customer research

PHASE THREE

• Turn the Case Study into a Livestream Workshop to Dive Into Further Details
• Take the Example of the Case Study, and walk through the ways that the customer executed and found success
• Offer an audit or report to those that request an audit
• Run your target accounts through your discovery process and present your findings

PHASE FOUR

• Run your target accounts through your discovery process and organize your findings
• Present it in a formal audit or in a video walkthrough on a landing page specifically designed for them
• Provide them the various solutions you offer and make it easy for them to get the processes started.
• Then expedite the process

PHASE FIVE

• Repurpose all video content into on-demand content, and short clips for social
• Identify what content worked and what needs improvement
• After data analysis, adjust and run a new campaign

When building and executing a strategy, what you develop long term is a content engine that is constantly providing you with insight so you can better tailor to that target account list, it may seem like a lot, but when you boil it down, each phase works so cohesively with the next that before you know, it's been a year with two full cycles through your process and a world of insight directly from your target audience.

One thing to keep in perspective is time. Many of us want fast results and instant turnaround, but in reality, that is not how it shakes out, and that is not a bad thing. Good things take a good amount of time to build!

Here is an example of the strategy we covered and what its timeline would look like.
No matter what stage you are at in your ABM content creation, you can use this blog as a roadmap to help you get to where you want to be. Content creation can feel like a scary task but the truth is the possibilities are endless.

If you want to take a deeper dive into the topic, check out the on-demand session from ABM-A-THON and download the framework.