There’s a lot of interest in the growing ability of brands to target content marketing on an individual scale. Do a quick search and you’ll find numerous articles highlighting B2C brands that hyper-personalise customer engagement. (Amazon, Spotify and Starbucks are three commonly cited examples).

However, less attention has been paid to the application of hyper-personalisation tactics in B2B content marketing. This is an unfortunate oversight, considering that B2B consumers increasingly expect the same level of personalised service as their B2C counterparts. Indeed, personalisation lies at the heart of account based marketing (ABM) – one of the most successful B2B-centered marketing strategies to emerge in recent years.

B2B brands can no longer afford to trail behind the curve when it comes to creating personalised customer experiences. They are essential to B2B digital marketing strategy and service delivery. So, let’s explore how content hyper-personalisation can be used in an account based marketing context.

ABM Strategy in a Nutshell

If you are unfamiliar with account based marketing, we recommend first reading our introduction to the topic.

To quickly summarise, in traditional inbound marketing approaches, sales and marketing generally operate independently of each other. Broad marketing campaigns are used to appeal to a large audience. From there, the marketing team filter out qualified leads and hand them over to sales. ABM seeks to align sales and marketing. Rather than starting with a blanket campaign, sales and marketing teams jointly identify target company accounts (or industry verticals). These individual accounts are then treated as markets in their own right.

This last point is particularly important. In B2B marketing, especially for high-consideration services, it’s rarely so simple as converting a single individual. Rather, there are usually multiple influencers and decision makers involved in the process. According to Gartner, a typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 people.

ABM recognises this fact and aims to understand and respond to the numerous viewpoints, concerns, and incentives within each client account. It is a highly customer-centric approach focused on solving client problems rather than making a quick sale. The point is to drive increased mindshare and stronger, long term relationships to land (or expand) the identified key accounts.

The Role of Content in ABM

When preparing for a client meeting with high value accounts, you consider who is going to be in the room. You ask yourself: Who is evaluating this proposal, who is deciding on this idea? You want to make sure that anyone around the table from the client side will have their questions addressed in the presentation.

You can take a similar mindset when thinking about content marketing in an account based marketing context. Producing quality content that helps clients achieve their business objectives is critical for successful ABM. Its outside-in approach requires you to have an in-depth understanding of target prospects and their organisations. You then use this knowledge to craft personalised campaigns to drive interest and engagement.

Imagine you really want to work with a particular company. You know that Jane Jones is the person in the role that will champion your brand within a specific account. The first step is to learn about Jane, about what she’s interested in, what she’s reading and sharing online, etc. At the same time, you're paying attention to what Jane's CEO is interested in and thinking about.

You then use this background information to write and share an article that’s specifically created with Jane in mind. It talks directly to the things that are most pressing in her job right now. It gives an idea of how you’re a potential solution to a question the company is facing. The goal is that she can use this article to engage with her CEO. Notice the level of attention. You're writing this content not just with those types of people in mind (i.e. buyer personas). You're writing for those two actual people.

You would repeat this process with the other stakeholders and influencers in the client account. During the decision-making process, each decision maker will show up to meetings armed with this content. Comparing all of this information as a group is a part of building consensus. So, in addition to being tailored for each specific person, your content must also provide a consistent message when viewed collectively. Like a symphony, where each movement is a self-encapsulated piece of music that form an overarching narrative when joined together.

As you can imagine, it takes a large time investment to support this type of deep, coordinated content creation. For this reason, this one-on-one approach (called Strategic ABM) is often limited to a company’s most important clients or prospects. Meanwhile, a less intensive approach, called ABM Lite, is generally used for second-tier accounts.

With ABM Lite, marketing campaigns are typically focused on small groups of accounts that share similar attributes. Rather than writing bespoke content for each specific decision maker, buyer personas are generally used to create pieces that can be repurposed for members of different accounts. As such, these customers don’t receive the same highly personalised experience which makes Strategic ABM so effective. The inability to easily scale the one-on-one experience has historically been a major disadvantage of ABM. 

The Dawn of Hyper-Personalisation

Hyper-personalisation is transforming how brands market themselves to their audience. What differentiates it from “traditional” personalisation is the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to real time data.

These days, marketers have access to customer behavioural data across multiple digital and real-world touchpoints. In-store visits, call centres, social media, online purchase history and the internet of things are all helping brands build a 360-degree view of their audience.

Moreover, they can apply sophisticated analytical modelling and predictive algorithms to this customer data. Doing so means organisations can now deliver one-to-one content marketing at scale and in a more automated fashion. It’s dynamic content on steroids.

Gone are the days when you could just segment your customers into buckets and create generic marketing campaigns. Instead, B2C and B2B customers alike expect personalised communications tailored to their individual preferences.

Hyper-personalisation also moves beyond tailoring the message; it personalises the context in which brands engage with the consumer. When done correctly, content marketing seems fortuitous, appearing exactly when needed to create an optimal customer experience. Like a good waiter, it focuses on the needs of the customer, is there when needed and invisible when not.

Super Charged ABM

Marketers are now applying hyper-personalisation methodologies and technologies to ABM. The results is an approach called Programmatic ABM, which allows them to better create a one-to-one content experience at scale.

Programmatic ABM is much less time-intensive and can provide coverage far beyond Strategic ABM – just one marketer can support multiple accounts. This one-to-many approach is possible due to technological advancements like granular targeting, multi-platform analytics, AI, machine learning and behavioural triggers. Combined with information about market trends, account insights, and customer data, ABM teams can generate a relevant, personalised experience for their clients. While not providing bespoke content like in Strategic ABM, they're still creating experiences based on individual profiles, not buyer personas.

However, it’s important to not become overly reliant on things like predictive algorithms for ABM. While data-driven methodologies are certainly useful, they do not always work on their own. This is especially true in a complex B2B marketing context. You can’t fully understand the motives and relationships of target account members based on a collection of data points alone. Doing so will weaken your ability to form a true connection with your customers.

Instead, use these tools as a way to do the heavy lifting so you can focus on authentic engagement. After all, ABM is ultimately about forming a rapport with clients and uncovering genuine insights so you can better serve them.

Hyper-Personalise Your B2B Content Marketing

Successful ABM requires a blend of people and technology. At the heart of ABM is forging a personal connection with clients by intimately understanding – and anticipating – their wants and needs. Hyper-personalisation tools can help you do this more effectively and at scale.

Our marketing automation platform can help you implement hyper-personalised campaigns. It will enhance your marketing efforts with dynamic content that adjusts based on real time customer insights. You can build on what you know about your customers and how they are interacting with you to deliver an optimal experience.

Contact 1827 Marketing today to book a free demo!