Last week, we discussed uncommon webinar tips many B2B companies miss.

One discussed the importance of passing over high caliber Market Qualified Leads to your sales team.

Have you ever wondered, what exactly does your Business Development team think about the leads you giving them? Are they truly valuable, or are they dead leads? What is the real conversion rate between your webinar attendees and real leads who end up buying your product or service?

You can have the best content webinar strategy, coupled with the strongest webinar platform, but if you are not sending your sales team the right leads, you are wasting your time (and money).

In order to close this gap between marketing and sales, start leveraging an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy.

Market Qualified Leads vs. Sales Qualified Leads

Content marketers have their own goals they have to meet. How many conversions did we generate with our campaigns? What’s our click-through rate (CTR)? What’s our email open rate? These are just a few questions they may ask themselves.

At the same time, Business Development Representatives (BDRs) have their own challenges they must overcome. How many calls do I need to make today? Which accounts need to be nurtured? How can I create new opportunities? Who’s the best person to talk to that will be interested in my product?

Notice how different the priorities are for two departments that should be working together?

Webinar marketers care about increasing engagement. BDRs care about upselling accounts.

The disparity between what counts as a successful metric to both departments causes poorly qualified leads for both marketing & sales teams.

So, what’s the solution?

What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?

Let’s take a step back for a moment.

Traditional marketing strategies usually consist of casting a wide net that targets individuals by their interests. As marketers, we leverage keyword tools and SEO to pull in these leads and start pushing them down the marketing funnel.

ABM specifically targets certain accounts, engages them with niche and personalized content campaigns, then nurtures the relationship to create new opportunities.

Your marketers can still leverage their tools and strategies, but now they are focused on specific, high-quality accounts.

Leverage ABM & Webinars

We have discussed leveraging webinar topics that relate to the pain points your target customers would typically have. In other words, you tailored your content based on the audience you expected to show up.

The same technique can be used in ABM.

1. Build a list of potential accounts that are very interested in your service but are not ready to buy just yet.
2. Brainstorm 5 pain points that each account is currently experiencing.
3. Discuss how your business solves each of their problems.

Now, you have a basic plan on how to tailor your content for each of these accounts.

How To Reach Out?

Leverage social media and email marketing campaigns to drive these high quality accounts to ABM webinars. Start targeting them if you have yet to do so.

Let’s say your sales team needs a bit of assistance closing Company A. Launch an account-targeted LinkedIn campaign or create a new email list of just contacts from Company A. Start sending them tailored content to nurture them into warm leads. Utilize these tools to market your ABM webinar.

Need a talking point to start the conversation? Look into your existing webinar data on similar accounts. What questions did your webinar attendees ask? How did they answer in the survey polls?

Let’s Recap

Sales and marketing work as a two-way street. If your marketing team is producing ABM webinars and generating MQLs, your sales team should be immediately following up with them.

The end goal is to convert leads into buyers and increase your revenue (and eventually profit).

Let’s go over the general ABM strategy:

1. Curate a list of high-quality accounts that need some additional nurturing.
2. Identify 5 of their main pain points.
3. Start putting together a tailored webinar content strategy that shows how your business can solve their pain points.
4. Ensure you are discussing the unique value(s) and competitive advantage(s) you have over your competitors.
5. Produce your high-quality ABM webinar.
6. Start targeting these accounts on LinkedIn or email marketing with this asset in mind.
7. Leverage promotional webinar marketing strategies to increase your overall webinar engagement and ultimately, your ROI.
8. Continuously optimize your campaigns.

Marketing and sales may speak two languages, but both value a return on investment (ROI). Start incorporating the priorities of both departments in your overall strategy to increase your ROI.