8 Creative ABM Campaign Ideas with Examples

To cut through the noise, you need creative ABM campaign ideas that enable you to target high-value accounts and engage them with personalized content and messaging no matter where they are in the sales pipeline.

Creating these personalized buying experiences in account-based marketing allow you and your team to: 

• Shorten the sales cycle
• Reduce customer churn
• Reduce wastage of resources
• Increase conversion rates
• Close bigger deals and boost revenue

So, here are some ABM campaign ideas you can add to your ABM strategy to help you stand out and win.

ABM Campaign Idea #1: Targeted ABM Social Media Campaigns

A targeted ABM social media campaign involves targeting specific organizations or decision-makers within an organization that match your ideal customer profile on social media.

This campaign strategy is quite effective since it allows you to directly target key stakeholders at your target account with ads and targeted content.

Take LinkedIn, for example. The platform allows you to create ads based on specific characteristics instead of running an open ad campaign and hoping your ideal customer profile (ICP) finds it. With LinkedIn’s advanced filters, you can filter out targets by company, industry, size, role, interests, location, etc. 

So, how to execute a targeted ABM social media campaign?

Here’s a simple framework:

1. Identify and Create a Target Account List: Data from your website, CRM, and other third-party tools can help you determine key accounts to include in your target account list. Prioritize these accounts based on how well each account’s needs align with your company’s competency. 
2. Connect Key Decision-makers and Influencers Within Target Companies: Connect with decision-makers from each of your target companies. Learn about their role, preferences, pain points, and interests. Beyond their social media feed and interactions, you can learn a lot by listening to their interviews on podcasts. 
3. Address Their Specific Needs: Your understanding of your target accounts and the decision-makers associated with them play a critical role in helping your social media content resonate. So, create your campaign messaging, social advertising, and thought-leadership posts based on their pain points, behaviors, and preferences. 
4. Decide on a Tactic for Direct Engagement: Social media isn’t purely for content distribution. You can engage and interact with target accounts and decision-makers directly. Some ways to do this include:

• Sending message ads
•  One-to-one personalized campaigns
• Acknowledging their achievements
•  Contributing to their conversations
• Answering their questions

Choosing a tactic will depend on your context, what you’re trying to achieve, and who you’re targeting.

Targeted Social Media ABM Campaign Example

As an agency that helps B2B companies drive brand awareness and generate quality leads, Intelus Agency wanted to win more clients.  So, they took to social media and ran a LinkedIn outreach campaign. 

First, they created a list of US SaaS companies with fifty or less followers. Then, they identified high-level stakeholders like CEOs and operation managers from the companies on the list and sent semi-automated connection requests. Whenever a prospect accepted the connection request, the agency received a notification on Slack. 

What followed was a personalized message pointing out to the prospect that they haven’t been posting enough to meet LinkedIn’s recommendation of posting 20 times per month to reach 60% of their target audience. Then, they offered their LinkedIn content creation and posting service as a free trial. Over thirty days, the agency continued to follow up with leads and retargeted them with LinkedIn newsfeed ads. 

According to Chris Mitchell, Founder & CEO at Intelius Agency, “The results have been amazing, and we've added around $2k in MRR within just a couple of weeks of runtime.”

ABM Campaign Idea #2: Personalized ABM Direct Mail Campaigns

ABM direct mail outreach campaigns involve using relevant data to:  

• Customize messages or offers for a specific group of target customers 
• And send these messages via direct mail. 

This creative ABM campaign idea is effective because:

• It targets specific customer segments.
• Messages are tailored to resonate.
• It feels more personal.
• It doesn’t need prior permission, unlike emails.
• It Increases the likelihood of engagement because it excites people.

Here’s a framework to help guide your ABM direct mail campaigns: 

1. Define Your Target Accounts: For your mailing campaign to succeed, you must know who you’re targeting intimately. Dig into your data. Talk to your marketing, sales, and customer success teams. 
2. Update Your Mailing List: Once you’ve defined your target accounts, it’s time to update your mailing list to ensure they live at the same address. If you don’t have a mailing list, you may have to build one or buy addresses. Or you can email and ask your customers directly. 
3. Create Your Direct Mail: With an updated mailing list, the next part is to design your direct mail. This can be broken into three parts:

• The copy of your messaging.
• What you’re offering.
• How the mail looks.  

The copy should focus on the benefits of using your product or service. The mail is hardly the place to go in-depth on features. It should also be crystal clear what you’re offering the recipient and include a CTA. 

For your design, make your brand colors look alive with bold headlines and stunning images. Ensure to include your logo.

Direct Mail ABM Campaign Example 

Narrowing in on the Tier-II and Tier-III clients in their conversion funnel, RollWorks noticed they had accounts that had not progressed for thirty-five days. 

To solve this, RollWorks mailed these clients a ‘Door Opener Kit’ containing a notebook with a checklist of steps that needed completing.

The notebook also included some social proof in the form of testimonials from existing clients every few pages. These use cases showcased how others have used “AdRoll to ‘build better marketing campaigns’ with a full-funnel marketing approach.” 

The result? A 41% closing rate and appointment rates rose to 10.2% from 2.6%.

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ABM Campaign Idea #3: Customized ABM Email Outreach Campaigns

A customized ABM email campaign involves sending personalized emails to specific prospects and customers based on their needs and the company’s business goals. 

ABM email outreach is valuable because:

• Emails are popular. Almost everyone has one. 
• It gives you a direct line to decision-makers. 
• It makes tracking easy.
• It can prompt action. 

Here’s a framework to help your ABM email campaign. 

1. List Your Target Accounts: List accounts you want to target based on their needs and other relevant information. Collect as much data as possible to help you narrow down to the most valuable accounts for your business.
2. Create Customized Content: Your information about your target accounts should inform content customization. Ensure that content sufficiently addresses the pain points of your target audience. 
3. Test Emails: A/B testing helps you determine which variation of your email is the most effective at converting. This simple test helps you make better decisions in your subsequent ABM email campaigns. That means more demand generation, leads, engagement, and sales. 
4. Track and Measure Results: Leverage email marketing tools to track metrics such as conversion rate, open rate, bounce rate, clickthrough rate, and unsubscribe rate.

Email Outreach ABM Campaign Example

Datanyze set out to raise awareness around their Hubspot and Marketo integrations and create opportunities for the company. 

To achieve this, Datanyze targeted marketers who use either Hubspot or Marketo. They then segmented these marketers based on the platform they used. 

This enabled Datanyze to send emails customized for each segment. Users in each segment received tailored content on how data integration can help them optimize specific marketing metrics and case studies outlining what Datanyze can do to help them improve results. 

This segmentation and email outreach increased their engagement rates by 37%. 

ABM Campaign Idea #4: Webinars And Breakfast Workshops  

This ABM campaign idea happens via a live or prerecorded webinar. It’s typically designed to engage the company’s target audience through initiatives such as on-demand demos, product tutorials, deep dive panel events, and thought leadership programs. 

Webinars and workshops are great for outreach campaigns because they:

• Allow a significant level of interactivity.
• Enable personalized communication.
• Connect you with your audience intimately. 

Here’s a framework to help you organize a killer webinar campaign:

1. Determine Your Goals and Objectives: Understanding why you want to host a webinar or workshop is critical. Define what you want to achieve in clear terms. As this provides a marker that helps you determine whether you succeeded by the end of the event. 
2. Define Your Target Audience: Understanding and clearly defining your target audience based on their needs and interests helps you create an engaging presentation that will resonate with them.  
3. Pick an Engaging Topic: Your audience determines your chosen topic. It must be relevant, engaging, solve a key challenge, and be interactive enough to enable an in-depth discussion. 
4. Conduct a Multichannel Promotion: Promote your event using all channels, including social media, website, emails, and ads. Start promotion at least five to six weeks before the event day. Use highlights from previous webinars in your promotional materials. 
5. Do a Technical Check Beforehand: A technical check beforehand helps you determine whether the technical aspects are working as they should. You don’t want glitches during the event. To be safe, have a backup plan in case of unforeseen circumstances. Also, follow up with attendees before the day of the event.  
6. Track and Measure: Measure and track key ABM metrics such as attendance rate, landing page conversions, email open and click rates, engagement rate, drop-off rate, etc. 
7. Repurpose and Run Post-Event Promotions: Send emails appreciating your attendees and use the avenue to include a feedback survey. Then, create an email campaign with the webinar materials targeted at people who registered for the event but didn’t make it. Also, repurpose and share the recorded sessions across your social media channels and website.

Webinar and Workshops ABM Campaign Example 

Who better to leverage virtual events than Calendly, a scheduling software company? Calendly invited key contacts who matched their ICP to virtual events and offered them free access to the software. 

This allowed Calendly to showcase how customers can use their platform and its scheduling features in their own businesses. The one-on-one interaction also made it easier to convert customers using free accounts to upgrade their accounts to access the premium features. 

ABM Campaign Idea #5: VIP Events And Dinners

VIP events are a great way to connect with existing and potential customers. Since they are often strictly by invitation, the limited number of attendees makes building or maintaining a long-term business relationship easy.

Plus, they are strictly invitation-based, allowing you to connect with potential and kickstart or maintain long-term business relationships. 

VIP events bring results because they:

• Put buyers and B2B sellers in close proximity. 
• Provide a better chance of quality interactions.
• Create strong emotional connections between brands and buyers.

Here’s a framework to help you host ABM-focused VIP events and dinners: 

1. Outline Your Objectives: Your objectives will determine the kind of event you want to host, the people you need to invite, and the program of the event 
2. Identify Target Audience: Create a detailed persona of your target audience based on pain points, preferences, interests, and motivations. 
3. Determine Your Budget: VIP events can be expensive. Without proper budgeting, you may lose sight of costs. But remember, this is an investment. Whatever your budget, ensure that your expected returns justify it.  
4. Decide Event Format and Theme: Let your objectives, target audience, and budget help determine the event format and theme. Also, consider the experience you want attendees to have during the event and your brand story.  
5. Align with Your Event Partners: Make plans with your event partners five to six weeks before the event. Keep track of all your partners, including speakers, sponsors, and representatives. As the event draws close, reach out to ensure you’re on the same page with everyone.   
6. Create an Agenda: An agenda outlines activities that should take place during the event. It also stipulates who does what and when they do it. This imposes order on the event and helps with time management. 
7. Promote the Event: Announce and promote the event on your website, social media channels, and emails. You can also leverage your sponsors, speakers, and paid search for promotion.
8. Analyze the Event: Analyzing event data can show you your ROI and where and how to improve future events.

VIP Events And Dinner ABM Campaign Example 

Engagio (acquired by Demandbase) leveraged Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual event, to reach marketing directors at their target companies. 

How did they do it? They created a list of attending companies for the event and identified their marketing directors. Then, they created bobbleheads of each director. 

Engagio took pictures of the bobbleheads and informed each marketing director to pick up theirs at Engagio’s booth during the event. The company also offered to ship the bobblehead for any of the directors who took a meeting with a rep. The result of this creative ABM campaign idea? 31% took the sales meetings.

ABM Campaign Idea #6: Account-Based Content Syndication

Content syndication means repurposing existing content and republishing it on other platforms to reach more of your target personas. It becomes account-based when you have a list of specific accounts you want to target with existing content. Plus, the data you get from the campaign can be useful for your retargeting and remarketing campaigns.

Account-based content syndication works because it helps you:  

• Use content marketing resources more efficiently. 
• Target the most valuable prospects with the most relevant content.
• Expand the reach of thought leadership content.
• Nurture leads as a part of a multichannel strategy.
• Raise the ROI of a piece of content

But how do you run an account-based content syndication ABM campaign? 

Here’s a practical framework that can help:

1. Know Your Target Accounts: You need to identify high-value accounts most likely to require your product or service. Then seek to understand these accounts and key decision-makers extensively. Segment them based on company-specific data and tech stack. Then, prioritize based on behavioral signals and intent. 
2. Develop a Content Strategy: With your target accounts locked in, it’s time to build a content strategy based on: 

• The topics that will resonate with your target audience.
• The content that has the most potential to convert your target accounts.
• The type of content that works for your target audience. 
• Answers that move decision-makers to make a buying decision.  

If you’re wondering what type of content works, Most B2B Marketers prioritize blog, ebook, and white-paper content formats. 65% of marketers say case studies and success stories are the biggest value drivers, while 85% of B2B marketers find video an effective medium and marketing tool for online engagement

3. Find the Right ABM Content Syndication Partners: This is crucial to ABM content syndication. Consider these three factors before choosing a content syndication partner: 

• Reach: Ensure that your syndication partner has sufficient reach of folks who’ll engage with your content.  
• Reputation: Choose a partner with a good reputation in their market. Avoid partners who can water down your brand.
• Target audience alignment: Find out who your potential syndication partner’s core audience is and determine if they share similarities with your target audience. 

Paid partners are likelier to have a broad network of verified contacts who fall within your target audience. 

4. Optimize Content: Determine the right keywords and optimize your content for each platform. Some publishers require you to indicate if the content has been originally published elsewhere and provide a link. Ensure you follow each publisher’s guidelines. 
5. Nurture Leads: Generating quality leads alone is not enough. You need a nurturing plan to move those leads along the sales funnel. Depending on your context, leverage email marketing and landing pages to nurture leads. 
6. Measure and Track Performance: Tracking and measuring will help you determine:

• Content that’s helping you generate the most qualified leads. 
• Content that isn’t doing great.
• Platforms where more of your target audience found your content.

With this information, you can make adjustments in subsequent ABM marketing campaigns. 

Account-Based Content Syndication ABM Campaign Example

Buffer leveraged content syndication to increase website traffic spread awareness, and build influencer relationships. Over nine months, Leo Widrich, Co-founder of Buffer, wrote around 150 guest posts, building a portfolio of quality writing. Their republishing partners include Huffington Post, Fast Company, Inc, Lifehacker, The Next Web, etc.

Kevan Lee, former VP of Marketing at Buffer, explains, “Writing such a high volume of content helped us refine and improve the content that appeared on our own site, too.” They also had a couple of huge hits. Two of their posts received nearly 125,000 likes on Facebook and over 14,000 shares on Twitter.

ABM Campaign Idea #7: Interactive Experiential Events

Interactive, experiential marketing campaigns utilize thoughtfully curated virtual or in-person experiences to deliver an immersive interaction to a company’s target audience. 

Some examples of interactive experiential events include business retreats or conferences, cooking classes, 5k runs or walks, wine-tasting sessions, etc. Experiential events are powerful because:

• They make consumers part of your brand story. 
• They tend to stay with people longer
• They create a feeling of social connection.
• They allow companies to push boundaries in line with their brand. 

Here’s a framework to aid your execution: 

1. Define Your Objectives: You need to know what you’re looking to get out of the event. Do you want more brand awareness? Or are you looking to generate leads? This will inform your marketing efforts and the kind of experience you curate.  
2. Know Your Target Audience: It’s challenging to deliver a great experience without knowing your target audience. Do some social listening to see who’s talking about your product. Leverage your website traffic data and previous event attendees. 
3. Create an Exciting Experience:  In line with your brand and target audience, create an engaging and interactive experience for attendees. Don’t be afraid to be bold. Think outside the box. You want it to be memorable. 
4. Promote on Social Media and Partner with Influencers: Use your social media channels to generate a buzz around the event. Increase your reach by getting attendees to talk about their experience online using a hashtag. Influencers can also help your brand and event with visibility. But before engaging an influencer, ensure that their audience aligns with yours. 
5. Measure Results: Analyze key performance indicators such as attendance and conversion. This type of campaign can be difficult to measure, but having clear goals and objectives from the beginning helps. The insights you gain from each event can help you shape others in the future. 
6. Follow-up: Reach out to attendees after the event and thank them for taking the time. You can use this avenue to offer them discounts or even ask for feedback. Following up can be the start of a long-term business relationship.

Interactive Experiential Events ABM Campaign Example 

The Facebook IQ live experience was a creative ABM campaign where the Facebook team used data to create live scenes representing their target audience. One of the scenes was an IQ Mart, a retail setting showing the online shopper's path to conversion using social media. Another was a millennial-themed Instagram cafe showing how customers are sharing on the platform.

FacebookIQ

The result? 

93% of attendees said the experience provided valuable insights on using Facebook for business.

ABM Campaign Idea #8: Account-Specific Paid Media Campaigns

Account-specific paid media campaigns target specific accounts through paid media such as display ads, video ads, Google ads, and other traditional mediums like billboards and TV. Account-specific paid media campaign works due to:

• Precise targeting
• Creative testing
• Performance tracking
• Affordability and returns on ad spend 

Here’s a framework for account-specific paid media campaigns:

1. Specify Your Goals: One of the first questions LinkedIn or Facebook Ad Manager asks are your goals. You need to know what you want to achieve to know what kind of ads to run and where. 
2. Understand Your Target Audience: Whether you’re targeting a single account or a number of accounts, you need to understand your prospects to create ads that resonate with them. If you don’t have enough data to draw insights from, you can create surveys or talk to users directly.  
3. Choose Where You Want Your Ads: If you know your target audience enough, you have a pretty good idea of where to display your ads. Each social media has specific demographics that use the platform. A B2B company, for example, is likelier to find decision-makers and account pages on LinkedIn. 
4. Select Ad Format: There are many ad formats to choose from. You don’t have to restrict yourself to just one. However, you need to figure out which ad formats serve your purpose.  
5. Determine Ad Budget: Decide what you want to spend on your ad campaign. This will enable you to allocate funds appropriately. 
6. Create Compelling Ads: Put a lot of thought into the copy of your ads and how the ads look. Make your designs eye-catching and your videos immersive and engaging. 

Use appropriate fonts and clear pictures where needed, and vary your ads so they resonate with different demographic segments. For example, a millennial decision-maker may be impressed by a stylish ad, but the same may not apply to an older decision-maker. 

7. Track Your Campaign: Be sure to track metrics such as cost per click, click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per acquisition, etc. You can also use qualitative methods by asking your prospects where or how they heard about you. 

Account-Specific Paid Media ABM Campaign Example

Marketing technology advancements allow you to target people who match your ICP with paid ads. But with ABM, you can go even further to target key contacts in a target account. 

For example, UserGems runs personalized ads on LinkedIn for RevOps team members and C-Suite executives in their target accounts who are already in conversation with their sales development reps (SDR). 

Here’s an example of their LinkedIn ads:

This allows them to build relationships with multiple stakeholders in a single account, which increases their chances of winning that account. 

How to Measure the Performance of Your ABM Campaign Ideas

Tracking key performance indicators and metrics can help you measure the performance of your ABM campaign. This will help you refine your marketing efforts and better align your ABM strategies with business goals in subsequent campaigns. 

Here are five core metrics you should track: 

1. Number of Target Account Decision-makers Engaged

ABM campaigns target accounts and relevant stakeholders within those accounts. This metric helps you track the number of key decision-makers you engaged during your campaign and the number of stakeholders who engaged with your brand after the campaign. 

2. Number of Calls and Meetings Booked

This is a leading indicator of a successful ABM campaign. Calls and meetings give your sales and marketing team a solid chance at converting these stakeholders. It could be the start of a long-term business relationship and revenue growth. 

3. Overall Account-Based ROI

ABM campaigns cost money- even though ABM tactics are known to help keep costs to a minimum. Still, after a campaign, you want to know if the returns justify the investment in your initiatives. 

Track inbound and outbound ROI. Other metrics to factor in when tracking your overall ROI include:

• Deal size
• Win rate
• Sales velocity

4. Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQA)

MQAs are accounts that showed some interest in your products and services during the campaign but didn’t take any significant steps. Tracking this indicator helps you identify potential target accounts at the onset of their buying journey. B2B companies have different criteria for qualifying an account as an MQA. So be sure to define your criteria. 

5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

ABM campaigns aren’t always focused on targeting and acquiring new accounts. If your campaign is about nurturing and retaining leads, you want to determine the long-term value of the accounts you’re nurturing. 

This is not to say this can’t be done for new accounts. You can calculate the CLV of new accounts by multiplying their current value by their expected lifespan.   

Overall, the goals and objectives of your ABM marketing campaign will play a part in dictating what you decide to track and measure. Whatever you decide, there is no shortage of tools. Here are some tools to help you track and measure relevant metrics:

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator - Best for relationship building at scale 
• Demandbase - Best for ABM advertising
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud - Best ABM and CRM combination

For a comprehensive list of tools to track your ABM metrics, check out our guide 20 Best Account-Based Marketing Software: Reviewed for 2024.

Bring More Creativity to Your Next ABM Campaign

If you’re looking to bring outside-the-box thinking into your next campaign, the ABM examples I highlighted should inspire some ideas of your own. Don’t be afraid to do something that has never been done before. Fortune favors the bold, after all. 

Ensure that your ABM tactics align with your brand and business goals.

Check out these 11 ABM ideas and examples if you need more ideas. And don’t forget to subscribe to The CMO newsletter so you can receive more of the good stuff right in your inbox.