SME business owners and sales leads often find themselves at a crossroads: Should you invest in personalised communication or opt for mass outreach, hoping to achieve results? We’re often asked which of the two is better and the answer is, it depends. Whether you’re asking yourself, ‘what is account based marketing,’ or considering an automation strategy, this guide can help you make the right decision for your business.

Key highlights

• Account-based marketing is a great approach if you have the time and resources to provide personalised content for potential clients.
• However, for most SME business owners and sales leads, automation is the way to go. You can spark conversations with a vast number of prospective leads at once.
• But this automation can itself be time-consuming. A B2B LinkedIn lead generation service can help you achieve this scale with ease and efficiency.

This is a high-level view of the two approaches. We detail these two in more detail below. Let’s dive in!

The power of account-based marketing (ABM) on LinkedIn

First, what is account-based marketing?

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a highly targeted approach that focuses on personalising content and outreach to a select group of high-value accounts. ABM excels when targeting a small, select audience where personalised communication can make a huge impact.

While it’s time-consuming, ABM can be a powerful strategy for engaging with your most important prospects on LinkedIn. These are some of the key benefits we’ve observed ABM providing to our clients.

You can personalise your approach

One of the key advantages of ABM is the ability to craft personalised content and messages for each target account. By understanding the pain points, goals, and challenges of your key audiences, you can craft compelling value propositions that resonate on a personal level. This level of customisation helps you stand out in a crowded LinkedIn feed and build genuine relationships with your clientele’s decision-makers.

You’re able to target your audience with precision

With ABM, you can focus your communication efforts on the accounts that matter most to your business. By identifying your ideal customer profile and mapping out the key stakeholders within each target account, you guarantee you’re using LinkedIn to its fullest potential.

According to research conducted by the Information Technology Services Marketing Association, 84% of businesses using ABM report that this strategy offers a higher ROI than other marketing campaigns.

LinkedIn’s powerful targeting capabilities, such as Account Targeting, allow you to customise your search further, such as filtering job function or seniority, on top of your account lists. This precision helps you avoid wasting time and resources on unqualified leads.

It synchronises your sales and marketing goals

ABM requires tight alignment between sales and marketing teams. Once you’ve started collaborating with your team on account selection, messaging, and outreach, you can create a seamless experience for target accounts and accelerate the sales cycle. This alignment is a critical component of account-based marketing on LinkedIn, where a well-coordinated approach can lead to higher conversion rates.

LinkedIn provides a shared platform for sales and marketing to engage prospects. Features such as InMail, Sales Navigator, and Sponsored Content make it easy to coordinate personalised outreach and content delivery.

The benefits of automation on LinkedIn

While ABM offers many advantages, it can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially for companies with a large target audience. Think about what it takes to commence a conversation with one person at a company. Now, multiply that effort by thousands to build a solid sales pipeline. You’ve got to think smart about how to do it.

This is where automation comes into play. By leveraging LinkedIn’s tools and features, you can scale your outreach and drive efficiency. Here is a bit more detail on the benefits automation on LinkedIn has.

Streamlining outreach to save you time

Automation enables you to scale your outreach without compromising on personalisation. Tools such as LinkedIn’s InMail automation and Sales Navigator’s Lead and Account lists make it easy to send personalised messages at scale.

By automating repetitive tasks such as sending connection requests and follow-ups, you can free up time for more strategic activities. These include, for example, account research and relationship building.

Automated messaging and responses

Keeping a conversation going with a potential lead can be tricky, especially when you have multiple prospects on the go at one time. With pre-set messaging capabilities, you can help maintain engagement with multiple prospective leads through personalised communication. This functionality includes sending bespoke messages and managing multiple communication flows, ensuring that no lead is neglected.

It allows you to focus on the important stuff

Closing a sale should never be an afterthought, it should be your only thought. But sales leads are often bogged down with the minutiae of lead generation. With automation in place doing the heavy lifting, you can focus on the true, human connection involved with closing a deal.

The verdict: It’s automation all the way

While account-based marketing offers a more personalised approach to relationship-building opportunities, automation emerges as the clear winner for businesses looking to broaden their outreach on LinkedIn.

With automation, you can efficiently manage a larger pool of potential leads without sacrificing the personal touch that account-based marketing provides. By streamlining repetitive tasks, you can focus your energy on results-driven activities, like closing a sale.

But creating an automation strategy for LinkedIn can be a bit tricky to get right on your own. This is where Higher Ranking can simplify things for you. Our fully managed B2B lead generation platform is designed and run by reliable, Australian-based experts to combine the best of automated technology with the human touch. We do the hard work, so you can focus on what matters most to your business.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enhance your sales pipeline and achieve your business goals. Partner with Higher Ranking today and experience the difference – book a demo now!