Ultimate Guide to Account-Based Marketing in HubSpot (2024)

Types of Account-Based Marketing

ABM comes in three different flavors. They all reflect the number of target accounts pursued at one time, the level of messaging customization, and resource allocation.

1. Strategic ABM (one-to-one)
   
2. ABM with clusters (one-to-few)
3. ABM targeting multiple accounts (one-to-many)

One-to-one ABM 

It is a high-end Account-Based Marketing strategy. It's deployed when going after accounts with the absolute biggest value.

In reality, this means targeting 5-10 individual accounts with highly customized programs.

It involves deep research and a much more thorough account listing process.

Check the video below to learn how it looks step-by-step.

One-to-few ABM

This approach groups target accounts in clusters based on shared attributes.

It works well when you have a solution to address a particular need of target accounts within specific industries (hence clusters).

The strategy aims to highlight opportunities without limiting the target accounts to one category.

One to many ABM

Is when you are marketing to a broader set of accounts. This strategy entails creating content that is relevant to multiple account types and industries in order to establish your expertise.

A company might use this approach when they have products for both the professional and DIY markets, or across different industry sectors such as education, finance, and healthcare.

Personalization for different types of ABM

Every Account-based marketing approach varies in the level of messaging personalization towards target accounts.

Look at the below spectrum to grasp the major differences between them and choose your own approach.

Account-based marketing readiness checklist

The sad truth is that most companies are not ready for ABM.

Check the below checklist to self asses your readiness to launch an Account-based marketing program.

HubSpot target accounts listing

For 1-to-few or 1-to-many ABM, tools like ZoomInfo, Apollo, and CrunchBase become essential.

They help you identify and gather information about potential target accounts. Integration with HubSpot ensures a seamless transfer of data to your CRM.

Using Apollo for building a target accounts list

Once you defined your Ideal Customer Profile criteria you can use Apollo to find matching companies.

Simply use the filters on the left side and choose specific values for revenue, industry, headcount, tech stack, funding, or whatever you find relevant.

What's more, you can check which target accounts have buying intent right now to make sure you're prioritizing the ones with the highest buying likelihood.

Once you've identified target accounts, upload them to HubSpot, and set the "target account" property to "true".

This allows you to track and manage them within the HubSpot target accounts dashboard with data like:

1. Number of target accounts
2. Accounts with open deals
3. Open deal value
4. Last engagement
5. Next engagement schedule

You can also create a company list by an owner using advanced filters like "Target Accounts is true".

That's the first step. The basic information mentioned above lets you list target accounts meeting your ICP. 

Now, it's time to enrich data with additional account research to ensure your ABM campaign will be effective.

Enrichment and segmentation of target accounts

Data enrichment in account-based marketing is how you gather insights about your prospects for personalized and relevant engagements.

Let's delve into the process step by step.

Manual research

The simplest option to enrich your data is through manual research. If you have a limited number of target accounts (say, 100 or 200), hiring someone to delve into specific information becomes a viable option.

This might include identifying top clients, exploring recent case studies, and understanding the range of products they offer.

Account data enrichment with tools like Crunchbase and Apollo

You can speed up the enrichment process by integrating HubSpot with external tools. Apollo, Zoominfo, or CrunchBase are the most common ones.

(Searching companies with Crunchbase)

But, before you dive into these tools, you should map information and triggers that are relevant to your Ideal Customer Profile.

Apollo offers advanced filters to enrich your target accounts with that information.

This could include signals such as:

1. Awards
2. New client signings
3. Partnerships
4. Relevant news 
5. Buying intent topics
   

Watch the below the video to see what it looks like inside Apollo.

Trigger-based target accounts list with Clay

In addition to Apollo, Zoominfo, or Crunchbase you can use Clay to scrape LinkedIn profiles of buyers within your target accounts.

This tool helps you find specific triggers like recent hires, sales growth, job openings or specific topics prospects can be interested in.

Build custom fields in HubSpot for enriched data

Enriched data fields not only aid in segmentation but also provide crucial insights to your sales team for relevant outreach.

You shouldn't stop there. 

Using the card view in HubSpot, sales can customize their interface to display associated contacts, buying roles, and a table filled with insights like:

1. Account strategic initiatives
2. Relevant use cases
3. Potential pain points

And much more...

Sales can now focus on relevant account engagements instead of scraping the web for data.

Target accounts segmentation, scoring, and prioritization

Here's how you can leverage enriched data to prioritize high-value accounts with scoring and segmentation:

1. Tiering based on account scoring: Define criteria for each tier, assigning points based on key traits.
   
   This scoring system helps identify the best-fit accounts that should be prioritized, ensuring efficient resource allocation.
   
   
2. Strategic approach with tiers: Consider a tiered approach where Tier 1 accounts are strategic and receive full personalization efforts.
   
   Assign a salesperson and a dedicated marketing team to nurture these high-priority accounts.
   
   Tier 2 accounts may have a moderate level of personalization, while Tier 3 accounts could be rotated based on intent signals or brand awareness.
   
   
3. Rotating tiers based on intent signals: Rotate accounts from Tier 3 that show intent signals or awareness of your brand.
   
   This adaptive approach ensures that you capture opportunities as they arise and respond promptly to signals indicating interest or engagement.

Account-based marketing advertising with HubSpot

Personalized advertising is a crucial component of Account-based marketing for building engagement and driving progression with target accounts.

To make sure your campaign resonates with your ICP start with building a strategic document that includes:

1. Campaign messaging
2. Value proposition with impact
3. Challenges your target accounts face

Most companies skip that part and waste tons of money on irrelevant ads with poor ROI. Don't be one of them.

(Example of LinkedIn Ads we used in our ABM campaign for CEO, Marketing and Sales personas)

ABM advertising with LinkedIn

Use LinkedIn integration with HubSpot to build ad audiences based on HubSpot lists.

This allows for precise targeting, ensuring your messaging aligns with specific target account segments or personas.

The key is to personalize your ads based on these well-defined audiences.

What's more, you can segment your ad campaigns based on HubSpot lifecycle stages.

E.g, for accounts with open deals, you can share case studies and social proofs to shorten the sales cycle.

For cold accounts that are not aware of your brand, you aim to:

1. Position yourself as their supplier: Get on the target accounts' radar in the areas they're interested in already.
2. Drive them to your website: present how your service can help stakeholders in the company.
3. Help your SDRs: make their job easier by warming up accounts with targeted ads, messaging, and relevant content.

Keep in mind that LinkedIn ads for account-based marketing require a minimum of 300 matched contacts for effective delivery and reporting.

Use a HubSpot ad campaigns dashboard to track ROI attributed to target accounts,

ABM advertising with N.Rich

N.Rich distributes the display ads using its Demand Side Platform (DSP) specifically designed for ABM as well as through Google Display Network and LinkedIn. The reach is global and goes well beyond the US, effectively covering EMEA and APAC too.

What's more, it's capturing target account intent for over 6000 topics and keywords and pushing this data to HubSpot to help you plan thematic sales and marketing campaigns.

You can also preview the exact ad your target account prospect saw on a publisher's website and get ABM engagement data straight into your target account record. 

Wrapping it up, if One-to-many ABM is your call, N.Rich can be a helpful tool in reaching your target accounts.

Read more about Programmatic Ads Distribution with N.Rich.

ABM advertising with RollWorks

RollWorks provides insights into account engagement, indicating awareness, clicks, and conversions from display ads.

This data is fed back into HubSpot, allowing you to understand the impact of your campaigns on target accounts with "journey stages".

(RollWorks Journey Stage inside HubSpot)

Journey stage definitions:

1. Unaware: > 0 page views in the last 30 days
2. Aware: > 1 page views in the last 30 days
3. Engaged: > 3 page views in the last 30 days
4. Open opportunity: is HubSpot deal closed? = False
5. Closed won: is HubSpot deal closed? = True

For prioritizing sales efforts, you can use the Revenue Impact Dashboard to segment your accounts based on journey stages.

Read more about RollWorks reporting in HubSpot.

Now, plot twist. You can use a similar segmentation natively in HubSpot. Without RollWorks.

Read on to find out how it works.

Align sales and marketing efforts with account statuses in HubSpot

The first step is to categorize your target accounts based on their interactions with your company.

Account statuses glossary:

1. Unaware: Accounts without any engagement with your brand. Don't know about you.
2. Aware: Accounts with demonstrated engagement through ad interactions or website visits.
3. Engaged: Accounts that have taken a step further, involving actions like form submissions, event attendance, content view, and e-mail replies.
4. Activated: Accounts that scheduled a meeting and became MQA (Marketing Qualified Account) 

(Account progression framework)

HubSpot allows you to define triggers for awareness and engagement based on both first-party and third-party data.

After setting criteria for what constitutes an aware or engaged account, you can track how they progress and allocate resources.

(Account progression dashboard in HubSpot)

Since we mentioned resource allocation, based on the statuses you should create SLAs for your SDRs to ensure prioritizing high-potential accounts.

Engaged accounts take precedence, triggering top-priority alerts for reps to "strike while the iron is hot".

In the case of cold accounts, reps may use 1st or 3rd party data like Apollo triggers and signals to make their outreach aligned with account initiatives. 

Again, a different sequence will be used for accounts that are aware based on their specific actions like web visits.

In every case HubSpot allows your reps to personalize their sequence as they go, making outreach not only timely but also relevant.

(HubSpot sequencing tool)

As you can see, the marriage of intent and engagement data in the form of account statuses is not only a technical integration; it's a strategic alignment of sales and marketing efforts.

Account-based marketing dashboards in HubSpot

Here's an example of ABM Dashboards we use internally.

And since account-based marketing is a team joint effort, don't forget about the prospecting activities dashboard where you can track meetings with target accounts.

If you can report the above to your executive board, you are way ahead of many other companies.

Additionally, is good to know what content brings big accounts (tier 1). This is great news, as your marketing team knows what type of content resonates most.

You can also add the no. of submissions per account to see which accounts are regularly signing up for your live events or downloading content.

Create these reports in your hub and you are ready for ABM reporting.

ABM requires strategy, relevant engagements, and the right infrastructure

Struggling to get your Account-based marketing program off the ground?

Maybe you want to kick start your 2024 pipeline growth with ABM, but don't know where to start?

We're here to help. 

Schedule a free consultation with our senior ABM strategist. He will analyze your current situation, and propose solutions to drive your Account-based marketing forward or build it from scratch.