Account-Based Marketing: Generating a Sales Pipeline for Your Business

(last updated August 29, 2022)

Generating new business for B2B companies can be a complex challenge when you don’t know where to start.

With the constant pull of new technology, automation, and replication, it's easy to forget that, at the end of the day, business takes place between humans.

That point was the clear foundation of a recent virtual training hosted by Inbound Marketing Expert, Dan Tyre.

Over the course of eight weeks, I worked alongside 40 or so executives who learned how to generate a consistent pipeline for our business (and, in my case as an agency owner, our client’s businesses as well). 

I wanted to share a few of my personal takeaways to help you grow your business through Account-Based Marketing.

Key Takeaways

• Cold calling does not need to be cold (and it works)
• Be genuine 
• Follow up 
• Account-Based Marketing 101 (kind of)

Cold Calling Doesn't Need to be Cold (And It Works)

Use modern technology to identify your ideal client(s). We use a sales matrix which includes company size, time in business, and the industry as criteria for whether or not we reach out to a specific company. 

When we find a company that fits our criteria, we do research to help turn a cold call into a warm call. This process takes 15 minutes or so.

Our tech stack at Growth includes the following 5 software tools:

• HubSpot Sales + Marketing Pro
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced
• BrandGen.io
• Apollo.io
• Dux-Soup

These tools help us make better decisions about who we reach out to, when we reach out to them, and how they prefer to be contacted.  

Be Genuine

Our favorite part of the process is recording a 20-30 second video to embed in an outreach email. The video is made for each prospective client and includes a greeting, thank you, and briefly explains why we've reached out. 

This video helps to separate us from the competition by showing our carefully chosen prospects that we are real humans and that we took the time to do our homework. 

Follow Up

The most important part of this process is creating and adhering to a strategic follow-up regimen. So much hard work has been put into researching target accounts and recording a video for outreach, so you don't want to lose that work by not following up. 

We follow up 3-4 times over the course of 15-20 business days using HubSpot sequences email tools.

HubSpot sequences reduce the time our sales team needs to put into communications with prospects by pulling customizable email templates right into their inboxes so they can have personalized (but branded + standardized) conversations quickly and easily so they can spend more quality, human time building relationships through nurturing leads. 

The beauty of sequences for sales email:

• Customizable + Targeted: sales reps can tailor templated messages for specific leads. 
• Simple, both ways: recipients can’t tell the email has been sent from a template. Sales reps find it as easy to use as…well, email.  
• Direct: all emails are sent directly to the lead from the individual sales rep. 
• Automatic unenrollment: when a lead responds, they're unenrolled from the sequence. 

This is all ABM 101 (kind of)

Account-based Marketing—ABM—is a strategy that offers businesses and organizations a way to get directly in front of their target accounts with both marketing campaigns and content as well as sales conversations. It's typically used by enterprise-level businesses and organizations. 

Even though there are a lot of moving parts behind a well-oiled Account-Based Marketing campaign, it's the smarter (not the harder) way to do B2B.  

If you  want to learn more about ABM and how it could change the way you do business, introduce yourself. We're always happy to help.