As B2B marketers continue to embrace account-based marketing (ABM) strategies, some are still struggling to put all the pieces together. There are plenty of moving parts to consider, and a variety of approaches to take. This Assurant success story shows how those parts can come together for outstanding results.
Despite never having executed an ABM strategy, our client Assurant dove in to target a single prospect with huge potential—and they succeeded. Their story serves as a useful example of how you might consider piloting a manageable project, then monitor and adjust the details, and scale up to more ambitious campaigns once you’re confident in your approach.
Never having attempted an ABM campaign, there were no templates or playbooks handy to guide them. The sales team wasn’t sold on the idea and they weren’t sure which content resources they’d be able to draw from. So they needed to start small, build buy-in and scale quickly.
Tammy Graves, Strategic Content Lead at Assurant, worked with Content4Demand to leverage our expertise in buyer journeys, content mapping and multimedia content creation. They made the unusual decision to target a single company—a good option for Assurant in a highly competitive arena where that single client represented extremely high value.
They identified the key decision makers and influencers at the target account and built a campaign to increase awareness of Assurant’s industry expertise, end-to-end mobile value chain, differentiation and thought leadership across the content journey that Assurant had mapped for each persona.
Messaging maps in hand, we developed ideation and ultimately created more than 21 assets in a variety of formats over the next six months, mapping back into the buyer’s journey framework for each persona. The library included everything from E-books, checklists and infographics to articles, social media and blog posts.
Throughout the campaign, the Assurant marketing team shared intelligence with Sales about target lead account activity—not just leads—so that they could coordinate each step. The campaign successfully engaged senior-level management and achieved a progression through the content.
The results generated enthusiasm within Assurant and validated the ABM strategy. The resounding success of this initial foray into ABM earned Tammy’s team the approval to expand the strategy to build new ABM campaigns.
Click here to request a copy of the full case study.
For more help getting started with ABM, watch our Demand Gen Report #COSeries webcast, “ABM Without the WTF: 8 Lessons From Top-Performing Brands,” and read Alicia Esposito’s recent post, “ABM Success Is All About the Content.”
Holly Celeste Fisk
Holly Celeste Fisk is an accomplished marketing pro with 20+ years of experience in B2B and B2C. She’s responsible for Content4Demand’s internal marketing efforts, managing everything from content creation and email marketing to events and sponsorships, blog publishing, website management and social media presence. When she’s not working, you’ll find her sliding into third at softball, buried in a book or practicing her Italian.
