Stop me if this sounds familiar: You've got a lead that checks off every box on your "ideal customer" list, but because you're so busy playing whack-a-mole with every lead that comes in the door... your ideal customer slips right through your fingers.
You're probably casting a wide B2B marketing net with the intention of flipping any lead who demonstrates an interest in your content. You're pumping out ads, promos, offers, blog posts, and landing pages to scoop up those views and clicks. But that makes it harder to identify, nurture, and convert the higher-quality leads you really want.
So what's a surefire way to target those top leads in a way that lets you measure engagement results?
By supercharging your account-based marketing approach with video.
What Account-Based Marketing Is
An account-based marketing (ABM) approach is when you create focused programs for target companies (accounts) that match your ideal customer profile (ICP).
The foundation of the ABM strategy lies in four key actions: Identifying, expanding, engaging, and converting accounts that demonstrate both fit and interest in your product or intent as a qualified lead.
In keeping with the fishing analogy: instead of casting the wide B2B marketing net for whatever may come your way, ABM has you spearfishing for a specific type of fish.
By focusing on target accounts that specifically match your ICP, you increase the chances of winning key accounts. It's the age-old "quality over quantity." ABM uses a variety of "outbound" tactics to stimulate interest from potential buyers and decision-makers in key accounts—tactics such as targeted advertising, direct mail, social selling, and (last but surely not least) video prospecting.
How to Use Video in Your Account-Based Marketing Funnel
Video can play a unique role in targeting accounts through ABM in a variety of ways. There aren't many other tactics that make you stand out from the crowd, drive engagement, and track analytics all at once. By creating video and hosting it through an enterprise video platform, you can do just that.
A big part of ABM outreach is about creating personal connections. When targeting accounts, you have to make the prospect feel seen. What better way to do that than a personalized video message in a prospecting email?
Research shows that prospects are five times more likely to engage with a personalized video message than they are with traditional text-based email, making it much more likely that they'll engage and convert.
Video prospecting is relatively easy and accessible. All you need is a free video tool, a webcam, and a little bit of practice talking to the camera.
Take all the energy from your in-person sales calls and put it to use in a video. Let your personality shine through to capture a prospective customer's attention and connect with them.
Three Types of Prospecting Videos to Use in ABM
There are three main types of prospecting videos to create and use in your ABM efforts:
- Webcam video: Introduce yourself and start building a relationship with the prospect with your face front and center.
- Screen-share video: Show rather than tell. Ideal for presentations, website overviews, or product lists. Or, walk through the prospect's website and reference known pain points you can help solve.
- Marketing-personalized video: You can use automation to personalize videos rather than creating them individually for each prospect, saving time and making it easier to scale your outreach.
Think about what type of video will speak to your intended viewer and create the best first impression. The type of video you choose should always be tailored to your prospect.
How to Use Video Analytics in your ABM Funnel
The beauty of working with video is the back-end analytics that you can view and use for ABM.
Other forms of content, such as blog or social media posts, allow you to see how many people viewed the content, but not who viewed it or for how long. Video analytics enable companies to track what their prospects watched, skipped, or repeated.
All of that data can then feed into marketing and CRM systems for segmentation, scoring, and cross-functional coordination.
Let View Data Drive Automated Channels
Try to create account-specific "personalized videos" that can easily address an account's unique pain point. Then, include the video within marketing emails and launch retargeting ads at leads who watch 50% of the video or more.
Let video analytics drive your automated channels and increase funnel velocity by delivering ads that are relevant to your target account. The video content that they engaged with can tell you exactly what to offer them next, based on what journey stage they're in.
That ensures you're showing the right type of content to the right audience at the right time and not burning ad dollars on leads who are too cold to convert.
Personalize Direct Mail Gifts at Scale
Direct mail gifts are easily one of the most personal marketing tactics, but how do you scale?
First, enable your sales reps to each create a personalized video to help put a face to their name when sending out gifts to target accounts.
Then, for a follow-up message, have sales reps make a unique unboxing video of the direct mail gift. That makes the follow-up even more personalized, and recognition of the gift in the video thumbnail (of the sales rep showing it to the camera) will drive views for sure!
Next, track each view of the video message and deliver a personalized asset to those that view and accept. That will keep them moving forward through the funnel.
Get Started With Video
By supercharging your ABM with video, you can break into cold accounts with warm introductions and achieve personalized connections at scale. You'll increase your response rates, shorten deal cycles, and drive up average contract values.
All it takes is a great video platform to enable it. Want to learn more about video for ABM? Visit our website or request a demo of Vidyard to see what it's all about.
