First, what is account-based marketing (ABM), relative to foodservice?
ABM is a highly customized, full-throttle sales + marketing growth strategy to identify, prioritize, and win a clearly defined set of large-leverage operators or high-value accounts through hyper-customized marketing and advertising.
This set is probably not in the hundreds, but rather, in the dozens or fewer. Winning even one of these operators should have significant impact against your new business sales goals.
3 Steps to Strong ABM
- Define what large leverage means for YOU. The resulting operator criteria will be different for every brand, but in general, they’re going to include things like volume of sales potential, number of locations, cross-category relevance, and influence among peers.
- Mine your warehouses of owned data to compile accurate contact info for high-value targets. Hopefully you already have a robust CRM system from which to work. If not, this is a good starting point. Once you’ve mined your owned contact data, work with your agency partner to assess and determine whether there is enough data available through ad platforms to layer on for target-ability. They’ll know what to do.
- Gather insight specific to each operator you’re targeting. The deeper the insight, the better, as this is what drives custom messaging and personalized experiences that make up the marketing and advertising mix.
From there, you can develop the highly customized campaign(s) per ABM target.
But … ? Let’s unpack common hurdles.
“I’m already doing this with my advertising.”
You’re likely thinking of broad-sweeping campaigns that address multiple audiences or segments at once. What drives and differentiates ABM is the added layer of hyper-customization.
If ”always-on” advertising is like sustaining 5th gear within an operator segment, then adding ABM is like attaching a nitrous boost to a campaign, veering a portion of your overall investment down a singular road dedicated to one high-value account prospect. Going as far as personalizing ads to the prospect level, so when they engage with one of your ads, they feel like you know them.
“OK, big deal. They feel you know them. Isn’t that what the sales rep is for?”
YES, AND. While the sales force is running ground cover, ABM is running air cover. Together they create a more coherent experience. Aggressively concerted and deployed during an intentional time frame, ABM allows for a more sophisticated lead nurturing effort, which results in more accounts closed.
“Prove it.”
Within two weeks of launching an ABM campaign for one of our clients, we saw the first new high-value account closed. After months of sales visits and nurturing, highly customized ad placements targeted directly at this singular prospect were deployed in concert with sales activity, and together, these efforts got the lead across the finish line and resulted in significant new business.
Instead of delivering broad, generalized messages and waiting for qualified prospects to emerge, brands can identify operators, distributors, or partners they most want to influence and build coordinated experiences around their specific priorities, using ABM as a laser-tight effort to home in on the most strategic accounts.
