Employee Email as an ABM Channel

November 7, 2022

Imagine you are a marketer and have identified a key account you want to target with your marketing efforts.

You've already been using display ads as part of your account-based marketing (ABM) strategy, but you want to take it one step further.

What if there was a way to tie a targeted banner directly into an employee's email? This is where employee email comes in as an ABM channel.

The ABM Dilemma: Solving for Scale and Personalization

Sales is a strategic game. It's all about timing. If you can reach your target customer at the right time with the right message, you're well on your way to a closed deal. The challenge with account-based marketing (ABM) is that it's difficult to scale personalization — especially when targeting multiple accounts. Not to mention the one million emails exchanged each year fighting for our shorter-than-ever attention span.

Enter: employee email as an ABM channel. Email, you say? You know that signature at the bottom of your email? The one your company may have formatted for you when you started your position? What if you could use it as a tool — an effective tool — to drive the sales funnel?

Bullseye Targeting Your Audience

Most marketers are familiar with segmenting their target audience into personas. This ensures that you're creating content that appeals to the interests of each type of customer you're targeting. The challenge with this approach is that it can be difficult to target multiple personas within the same company — until now.

With employee email as an ABM channel, teams can break the audience down even further into granular details that tap into when and how people buy.

For example, let's say you're targeting a company with three decision-makers: the sales director, the IT manager, and the marketing director.

⮕ The sales director is interested in hitting their revenue targets.

⮕ The IT manager cares about the company being SOC2 certified.

⮕ And the marketing director wants to promote the company's webinar.

When using employee email as your ABM channel, you can send each decision-maker the same email message but with a targeted banner that speaks directly to their interests.

⮕ The sales director sees a banner about revenue targets.

⮕ The IT manager sees a banner about the company being SOC2 certified.

⮕ The marketer sees a banner promoting the company's webinar.

Each recipient receives the same email message but with a targeted approach for a more effective conversation. But what happens if they're in different stages of the buyer's journey? That's okay, you can hit each of those marks too.

Successful stage-specific targeting involves meeting your recipient where they are in the journey. So whether you're just warming up the account in the hunting stage, actively engaging them in the assigned-to-representative stage, or almost at the finish line in the negotiation stage, employee email can take your account-based marketing strategy to new levels.

Not only does this type of hyper-targeting show that you're paying attention to the specific needs of each decision-maker, but it also demonstrates that you understand their unique position within the company — which can go a long way in building trust and credibility.

And when it comes to ABM, trust is everything.

ABM Success: How to Make it Happen

When done correctly, account-based marketing can be an extremely successful strategy for B2B companies. But as with any marketing initiative, there are a few key things you need to keep in mind to set yourself up for success.

Aligning your sales and marketing team is essential. While sales owns the relationship with the customer, marketing owns the brand. For ABM to be successful, both teams need to be on the same page — otherwise, you risk delivering a disjointed message that confuses your target account.

A tool like Opensense gets the ABM team in the driver's seat and allows them to coordinate perfectly orchestrated campaigns with little lift or change in behavior for the sales team. With this type of integration, marketing and sales can work in tandem to tell a better story to their customers.

Imagine delivering more impact by aligning employee email activity with account strategies, creating a cohesive effort that improves campaign engagement and hooks target customers with relevant, personalized, and compelling content.

In a world full of noise, personalization is key. Get as granular as you want when using email as an ABM channel. Layer in role-based and stage-based targeting, and run thousands of ABM campaigns simultaneously for optimal results.

As one of our customers said, "Our ads have to make sense for the buyer and be exciting, creative, and relevant. We can do that with Opensense. That's how we've been able to drive awareness, lead generation, registrations, and deliver our brand."

The Bottom Line

Email is one of the most commonly used tools in the business world, yet it's often overlooked as a powerful marketing tool. But with employee email as an ABM channel, you can take your account-based marketing strategy to new levels.

By targeting specific accounts and using custom banners, you can deliver a more personalized and effective message that speaks directly to the needs of each decision-maker. And with Opensense, aligning your sales and marketing team has never been easier.

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