Where so many marketing strategies take a shotgun approach to marketing and play a “numbers” game, account-based marketing takes a sniper approach to grow your business.
Think about this: you send a direct mailer to thousands if not more people in order to grab the attention of just a few percent of them.
You run a ppc campaign and pay per thousand impressions (cpm).
You advertise on radio and TV in order to get your brand seen and heard by as many people as possible.
But account-based marketing (ABM) is very different.
The goal of ABM is to find the top 100 or so people in your industry who are going to move the needle most and then target all of your marketing dollars to get their attention, introduce them to your company, and ultimately take them through your sales funnel..
What is an Account-Based Marketing Agency
An account-based marketing agency will help you create a hyper-targeted prospect list of individuals who are willing and able to sign 6 and 7 figure annual contracts with you.
They will get their attention with a marketing campaign. This can be done by targeting ads directly to the prospects, sending emails, and other forms of communication.
And finally, they will introduce your products and services to the newly engaged prospect.
How Giftology Compares to Other ABM Agencies
Most ABM agencies deploy traditional marketing tactics designed to take a sniper approach to client acquisition.
They ask themselves the question:
How can I get in front of the prospect in as many different mediums as possible?
So, they’ll send postcards in conjunction with emails.
Then they’ll run some sort of targeted ad campaign on LinkedIn targeting your prospect and all the members of his team.
And then they’ll reach out personally on LinkedIn.
The goal is to blanket the person with your message with the hope that one of these messages makes it through the gatekeepers, and into the hearts and minds of the prospect.
And then annoy them into submission.
At GIFTOLOGY, we typically target accounts in a very different way.
We’re obsessed with making your prospects feel loved. We aren’t going to send post cards that will just get thrown away.
We aren’t going to clutter the prospects email with yet another pitch.
Nor are we going to annoy them into submission on various social media sites.
Our philosophy is that in order to stand out from the crowd and endear your clients to you, you need to send highly practical and relevant gifts to your prospects and clients.
Before I share what a gifting campaign looks like, I want to fill you in on how our ABM agency can leverage a gifting strategy to grow your revenue.
Attract Needle Moving Clients
If you’re trying to attract “big” clients, then you’re going to have to spend a lot of time (and money) building that relationship.
It’s why ABM is so powerful for this type of business. You don’t need hundreds of customers paying $50 or $100 a month to make it.
You just need a few large contracts and you’re off to the races.
You can spend 100% of your marketing dollars laser focused on just a few people.
This is where an ABM agency that focuses on gifting can help.
Instead of blanketing your prospects and their team with emails, postcards, social media messages, and ads, we’re going to send highly relevant, personalized, and practical gifts that are going to help you stand above the crowd.
This will get your prospect’s attention AND every time they use the gift they’re going to be reminded to get in touch with you.
The gift is going to act as a salesman for you and your company.
Close Big Deals
Do you want to know the absolute best way to close a big deal?
If you guessed “send them a gift”, you’re partially right.
The best way to close a big deal is to send the prospect a gift that their spouse will use as well!
This will turn their spouse into your single biggest sales advocate.
Imagine sending your prospect a beautifully designed cutlery set. One that will be used by the entire family every time a meal is prepared.
I can’t tell you how many times someone has come to us and said:
“My wife is your biggest sales advocate. Every time they use the cutlery set, they ask if we’re working with you yet.”
You don’t even have to sell anymore. All things being equal, what guy do you know who isn’t going to work with the company their wife is BEGGING them to work with?
The spouse is going to close the deal for you!
Increase Lifetime Value
There are two ways that a company can increase the lifetime value of a customer.
Way 1: Get the customer to renew their contract year after year. A customer who renews their contract 10 years is going to be twice as much as a customer who only renews their contract for 5 years.
Way 2: Sell them more products and services. Upsells and cross-sells will help you provide more value to your existing customers.
So instead of sending clients autonomous birthday emails and loyalty programs, you can enter them into a cohesive gifting campaign.
You might think this sounds expensive at first, but the amount of business that will come back to you will be 100x or more what you invested in the client.
We typically like to start what we like to call a “luggage” campaign. Once they become a client, we send over a nice piece of luggage just to say thank you. This is usually a carry-on or personal type bag.
A nice luggage set is one of those gifts that is going to be an heirloom that your client’s grandkids are going to fight over in 50 years.
Then, one year into the relationship is the perfect opportunity to send that second piece of luggage in the set. A ”
This is going to be the under the seat bag.
This isn’t a transactional gift. You’re not going to ask for anything in return. This is going to be a way to say “thank you for being our client, we look forward to working with you for many more years.
And it’s the perfect gift that every family will love. Always be thinking of the family. If the wife and kids love you, the client will love you.
The thought here is this. You’re going to spend a few hundred, maybe even a thousand, on a client who’s worth high 6 figures or more per year.
The ROI on that $500 luggage campaign will be more than 100:1.
Finally, let’s say you want to upsell them a new service or have them beta test a new product that you’re releasing. What better way to introduce an upsell opportunity than by completing the luggage set?
You can gift your client the third piece of the luggage set – the piece that gets checked in when they travel.
What Giftology can Do For You
We recently finalized a ‘TOP 100 GIFTING CAMPAIGN’ for a rapidly-becoming known tech company.
The owner’s ROI goal was lead flow (first) and acquisition (second). The lucky 100 individuals were:
30 circles of influence (the people who KNOW people)
40 current clients (who could be referral partners)
20 prospects (that could pay for the investment 5x over)
And 10 referral sources who has provided numerous leads in the past.
100 recipients, 3 gifts each, spread out every 4 months.
Total gift investment for the year – $49,850
This individual was considering 2 gifts each, which would have cost – ~$34,600.
Another option would be to spend twice that (~70K) if they wanted to go bigger on gifts.
So as you can see? There’s wiggle room based on goals and budget spend.
We’ve done campaigns that cost $5K and campaigns that cost $250K.
Most of our clients hire us to be their agency partner (more on that below).
And when they do, we hear things like this:
“We’ve shifted our entire marketing budget to gifting and looking after customers. Revenue has catapulted as a result. Anybody who has had the chance to read the book can consider themselves lucky and fortunate. Fantastic work.”
-Jonathan Goodman, founder of The PTDC
Final Words…
Gifting is a powerful way to manage business relationships, especially if you follow the 7 key ingredients outlined in this article.
Click here for a free 30 minute strategy session and let us help you manage your relationships
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