Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B marketing approach that aims to align marketing and sales to reach specific prospect accounts. It’s an attempt to transform the one-to-many marketing and sales approach present in the B2B world into a one-to-one approach while engaging with potential clients who’ll likely bring in the highest revenue.
It’s a process that can also work for freelancers who work with B2B clients since you’re doing much of the same thing. You’re looking for the right clients that’ll bring you the most revenue, no matter if you only market to one person or an entire company.
Let’s take a closer look at how you can apply ABM to marketing your freelance B2B writing business.
A Quick Primer on Types of ABM
Here’s a quick list of the types of ABM B2B companies do today.
- Strategic or One-to-One ABM: This delivers personalized content and messaging directly to the primary accounts and relies heavily on established relationships within those accounts. It’s generally used with the most lucrative and primary accounts companies want to work with.
- ABM Lite or One-to-Few ABM: This approach focuses on groups of accounts with similar characteristics, such as size, revenues, etc. It uses lighter personalization and speaks to groups instead of contacts at each account.
- Programmatic or One-to-Many ABM: This is used to generate leads, as opposed to conversions and signings, because it’s more about brand awareness and uncovering opportunities to develop relationships. The term “programmatic” applies because many companies use software and ad networks to attract leads.
Most B2B companies tend to use a mix of these approaches as there are advantages to each option that affect success.
How to Implement ABM as a Freelancer
Now, let’s look at ways you can apply the account-based marketing approach to your freelance B2B writing business.
- Create your ideal client profile. Is it Fortune 500 companies or ones with $1+M in annual revenues? Is it a large market or a subset of a larger one? Do they typically need help with strategy or execution? One clue is to take a look at your past clients to see what characteristics they had that you liked and didn’t like. Search for potential clients that have all the positives you’re looking for.
- Identify prospects. Search for people and companies who match your ideal client profile. List the people, roles/job titles, and companies you find. Group all the people according to employer to find them more easily later.
- Research their pain points. Discover their pain points and what they need to make their workdays go more smoothly. Is it a new process or tool? Is it more help, time, or upskilling? Align these challenges with the services you provide.
- Create content. Create content around the challenges they face and develop custom content for them. Show up in places they are, such as in-person events and online platforms.
- Engage with people. Share personalized content wherever you can, reach out to your network, and have relevant conversations in-person and online. Don’t forget to tailor your messaging to the different stages of the buyer’s journey so they get relevant info from you that matches where they’re at.
- Optimize your efforts. Track your efforts to see how well you’re doing. Important metrics to track include comments/shares of social media content, newsletter signups, email conversations, phone calls, and conversions.
- Adjust as needed and continue. Your metrics will tell you which channels and content are the most effective, so refine the ones that work and drop the ones that don’t lead to new business.
Enterprise companies find that ABM approaches produce higher-quality leads because of the personalization level and focus on only relevant prospects. They’re able to attract more of the right leads and convert them more often because they’re delivering a more customized experience.
Freelance B2B writers should try an account-based marketing approach to level up their marketing and prospecting game. It can help focus your efforts and help you deliver better messaging to prospects. Besides, they’re already familiar with ABM and may be more receptive even from a solo freelancer.
