How to Optimize ABM Strategy With Influencer Marketing to Maximize ROI

ABM marketing is a marketing strategy that targets and engages high-value accounts in the B2B space. 

Rather than casting their nets wide, hoping to reach as many customers as possible, marketers who use ABM marketing identify and prioritize specific accounts that align with their goals and customize their efforts to those accounts. 

But here’s the twist: Do you know influencer marketing outreach can be the perfect way to optimize your ABM strategy? 

The right influencers add credibility to your marketing efforts, making it easy for you to appeal to your B2B prospects. 

In this article, we will learn how to optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing to maximize your ROI. 

What Is Account-based Marketing?

Account-based marketing is a strategic approach where brands focus their B2B sales processes on a few high-value companies (or accounts). 

Rather than launching broad campaigns targeting thousands of prospects as with traditional marketing, ABM focuses on a few companies that align with the brand’s strategy. 

The aim is to connect with the key decision-makers in the target companies and build a thriving relationship through cross-selling, upselling, and referrals. 

The technique known as “land and expand” can be visually represented with an inverted marketing funnel.

The prevalence of account-based marketing is overgrowing as organizations realize the benefits of delivering personalized and highly-relevant campaigns to their target users. 

Technology has also played a vital role in the growth of ABM. This lead generation software list by Attrock shows some of the tools B2B organizations use to generate quality leads. 

Marketing automation tools, CRM software, and performance management systems have collectively revolutionized how businesses manage client relationships and deliver personalized messages. 

B2B organizations that use ABM marketing have enjoyed impressive results such that many plans to continue with the strategy going forward. A benchmark study by the ABM leadership alliance found that 71% of companies plan to increase their ABM spending in 2023. 

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Yet, as much as marketers enjoy success with ABM, most still don’t optimize ABM with influencer marketing. B2B marketing is all about trust; the right influencers can speak credibly and authentically about your products to your target users. 

The Need to Optimize ABM Strategy with Influencer Marketing

B2B marketing has shifted fundamentally over the last couple of years. Organizations are shifting from quantity to quality as they realize that meaningful engagement matters more than cold outreach.

As such, savvy B2B brands now prioritize account-based marketing and are learning to optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing. Influencer marketing provides additional voices from subject matter experts your target users trust. 

When you identify the influential individual in your target organizations, you can gather insights about the influencers who can impact their buying decisions. 

Some of the questions you need to consider as you optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing include:

• Who are the influential people to key decision makers in your target accounts? Study the social media activity of the critical individuals in your target organizations to discover the significant people they follow. 
• Which issues do your target users talk about most online? Monitor the online activity of your target users and identify the key topics they talk about. Study their interactions with other professionals in the industry and note the key issues that are always the subject of their conversations. 

From here, you want to seek niche experts and influencers with authority on that subject matter. 

• Who are the influencers your target users relate to? You don’t want to choose just any individual for your influencer engagements. The influencer you work with should be someone your target users easily relate with. Otherwise, they will struggle to connect with your target accounts and convince them to buy your products. 

For maximum impact, as you optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing, focus on finding creators with purchasing influence. Check the content of your potential partner on the best video streaming platforms to ascertain they have relevant experience with products in your niche. 

This will make it easy for you to create appropriate content to educate your target accounts about your product and its benefits. 

Optimizing your ABM Strategy with Influencer Marketing

Ready to optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing? Follow this 5-step plan for the best results:

Find the Topics That Appeal to Your Customers

The first thing you need to do as you work to optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing is to find the topics that resonate with your target accounts. These are the issues they talk about most of the time. 

To do this, you need to listen in on their conversations online. Follow the key individuals in your target organizations on Linkedin and the key issues they talk about. You also want to join the groups where they interact with other professionals and track their engagement. 

Tools like BuzzSumo, SEMrush, and Brandwatch can also help you identify your customers’ key topics and how they find answers. 

These measures will help you understand the pressing issues related to your solutions and brand expertise. 

Find the Right Influencers

Once you know the customer topics, it becomes easy to identify B2B influencers to work with; You can use influencer tools to identify relevant influencers in your niche. 

Alternatively, you can search for your crucial topic ideas online and study the experts who actively discuss that issue. The best influencers to work with are those with high engagement rates, so take time to explore the interactions on their posts. 

Qualify and Recruit

With an idea of the influencers, you want to work with. It’s time to qualify and recruit the right content creators. There are three issues you need to consider when recruiting influencers. They are:

• Popularity: Does the influencer you want to work with have a large following? While numbers matter, the nature of influencer engagement is more critical for your B2B campaigns. 

As such, you should not disqualify an influencer just because they have a small following. If they have good engagement metrics, you should consider them for your influencer campaigns. 

Alternatively, you should choose an influencer because they have a large following. If their engagement metrics are low, they may not be the right pick for you. 

• Resonance: Does the influencer regularly move their target users into action? For your marketing to be successful, you want to work with an influencer who can move their audience into action. 

To determine this, study the influencer’s previous campaigns to see if they achieved the set brand targets. Pay attention to the comments on their posts to see if the audience gained something from the whole movement. 

• Relevance: Is the influencer closely aligned with your solution and its benefits? Do they match your brand values and talk about the topics that matter in your industry?

Success with influencer marketing, especially in the B2B space, relies heavily on working with relevant influencers. Your target users are the key decision-makers in their organizations, and only highly-relevant subject matter experts can convince them to buy a particular product. 

For traditional marketing, popularity is the top consideration when choosing an influencer. But with account-based marketing, relevance, and resonance reign supreme. 

So, take time when selecting influencers to ensure they have the qualities you need to make your ABM campaigns successful. 

Activate Influencers and Create Content

With your chosen influencers, you can start creating content. While giving the influencer creative freedom to create the content is essential, you set the direction for the whole campaign. 

Remember you’re targeting critical individuals in your target accounts. Your influencer content should align with your values and the messaging delivered in your brand voice. 

As you work to optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing, sit with the influencer to plan your content types and mode of delivery. From your audience research, you will know the platforms you need to publish your marketing content. 

You can do a live stream with the influencer talking about your B2B solution on YouTube. 

Alternatively, the influencer can publish an informative post on their blog and promote it on Google Ads to reach the right people. 

After co-creating the content with your influencer, activate them to share the material and engage their users. Track their engagement and ROI to note areas of improvement. 

Practice Ongoing Engagement

You should not end your engagement with the influencer once the campaign is done. Stay connected with the creator and discuss ways to deliver more impactful campaigns in the future. 

Influencer marketing trends are constantly changing, and keeping track of all the changes can be difficult. However, the influencer follows all the trends and will enlighten you about the industry’s emerging strategies and latest developments. 

Final Thoughts

Account-based marketing is a useful strategy where brands direct their marketing strategies and resources to specific target accounts. 

While many have achieved their goals with this strategy, your chances of success are higher when you optimize ABM strategy with influencer marketing, especially when pursuing enterprise clients. 

Just ensure to choose influencers who align with your topics, audience, and values to guarantee the effectiveness of your campaigns.