As Kristina Jaramillo and Eric Gruber have mentioned many times on the ABM Done Right Podcast: ABM is about changing the interactions teams are having and the experiences they are delivering across all channels and across the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle. This includes each touchpoint and each interaction.
In this ABM Done Right Podcast. Eric Gruber and Justin Rowe (CEO and CMO of Impactable – one of the largest LinkedIn ad agencies with 180+ active clients) discuss full-funnel ABM using LinkedIn and how you can win, protect and expand accounts using social.
Here’s a Recap of the Learnings You Will Uncover:
1) The fundamental “setup” mistakes that many teams are making when implementing LinkedIn ads as part of their ABM program. There are 2 settings that should not be ignored as they allow LinkedIn ads to go wildly off target, which does not support ABM and does not deliver desired returns.
2) Why GTM teams are challenged with accounts going dark after initial engagement with LinkedIn ads. You will see how many teams do not have the right, relevant follow-up processes and how teams are treating all LinkedIn leads the same vs. having a selection, segmentation, and prioritization process. Along with listening to this podcast, you can also click here to watch our webinar with Tyler Pleiss on account selections, segmentation and prioritization.
3) How LinkedIn ads are not being used to build trust with the human buyers in target accounts. In B2B, there are long sales cycles and it takes time to build trust from first impression to the time that buyers are comfortable to have a conversation and enter a sales cycle. Instead of intentionally building trust, teams keep hammering and retargeting accounts with a 1 and 2 dimensional ad approach that look and feel like ads.
4) How teams are not using LinkedIn ads to drive demand across buying organizations and limiting deal sizes. In many cases, ads are narrowly focused on departmental pain points, which can be easily put onto a back burner. It also limits your deal sizes as you’re a nice-to-have vs. a must-have unless you align with your target accounts strategic priorities and embed yourself across the organization. And, it lengthens sales cycle time as teams are not building a consensus — and they’re only using LinkedIn ads to build a pipeline of potential leads.
5) What it means to be intentional with your ad campaigns. You need to go beyond just air cover with your LinkedIn ads. We have to think about:
- What do we want to change the prospects’ thoughts on?
- How do we want to change their perspective?
- How can we tell the prospects’ stories vs. a generic, industry story so we build trust by showing prospects that we understand their situation?
6) How account intelligence should guide your full-funnel LinkedIn ads, content and outreach. In the podcast, you’ll hear how a conversational AI company targeting tier 1 banks would get interest from Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, TD Bank and others but after initial engagement, the accounts would go dark as there was no alignment with the target accounts. Click here to learn more about our account intelligence services.
7) How too many teams focus follow-up outreach based on intent or what prospects engaged on within the ads vs. why there was intent. We’re just drowning prospects with content based on “engagement,” and it’s leading to inaction as we’re not helping them create a buying vision that aligns with business objectives.
8) How many teams are too short-term focused instead of staying on the human buyers’ minds longer with a purpose including:
- Create demand with status quo accounts – show prospects a reason to change and the impact of inaction.
- Capture demand and progress it forward in your direction vs. a competitor.
- Expand demand so you have a buying consensus across the organization and influence internal conversations that happen behind closed doors.
- Close demand without discounting as ABM should lead to higher win rates and higher deal sizes no matter the channels you use.
- Retain demand to protect revenue with at-risk strategic accounts.
- Accelerate demand across business units, regions and for your complete portfolio of services to impact NRR.
9) How you can build a greater human connection by using videos with your LinkedIn ads and how video analytics can help you further segment and prioritize key accounts for ABM nurturing.
In addition to the information Justin shares, you may also want to check out our podcast with BombBomb’s Ethan Beute, where we discuss how to rehumanize sales and marketing.
For More Information on Impactable:
