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As account-based marketing (ABM) has become more innovative and scalable, more businesses are integrating target account lists and outbound marketing programs to help with sales.
SEO content and ABM strategy are commonly created in silos, isolated from each other during the most critical parts of the process.
However, by incorporating both SEO and ABM from the get-go, your marketing and sales team can save time and costs and generate faster and bigger returns.
Does SEO Matter in Account-based Marketing?
Effective SEO shares the same thing with any decent ABM marketing campaigns, targeting the right people with the right messaging. While SEO is key in educating the audience, account-based marketing helps you convert leads.
So now that we’ve discussed the basics, here’s how you can use SEO with your ABM strategy to help you create high-quality leads:
1. Utilize the power of keyword research
One of the most peculiar practices in an SEO lead-generation strategy is keyword research. You can look for specific words used for looking up a particular product or service related to your brand.
You optimize your leads by using the right keywords, allowing search engines to identify your brand for your target audience. You can use tools like Answer the Public and Keyword Planner to find the right keywords for your business.
2. Create a user journey map
Keyword and user intent research done at the initial stages of the ABM campaign is beneficial, allowing you to create a connection first with decision-makers.
SEO insights allow you to build a visual map wherein you can map out different stages of the buying journey and what type of content decision-makers are searching for at every stage.
You can start by coming up with a list of relevant keywords for your campaign and searching for these keywords. When you reverse-engineer organic search results, you can gain insight into your audience, user intent, and the B2B sales cycle stage.
3. Support and sustain with SEO-driven content
You know that personalization boosts the chances of significantly converting more leads. This is particularly effective in B2B scenarios wherein the stakes are high and lead to costly purchases. ABM helps shorten that cycle.
Leading your target audience into a particular marketing funnel with personalized content is a fantastic way to convert them. In the same way, you also need to come up with the right content at the right time, whether it’s via articles, blogs, eBooks, guides, case studies, and white papers to nurture your target audience.
SEO allows you to create personalized content to boost your target audience’s chances of conversion and even nurture existing relationships. You can get more value from your existing customers using the correct type of messaging.
4. Personalize your ABM strategy
ABM treats every account as its own market. However, ABM also tends to segment all of the buyers of a single company into one big category. But the team responsible for software buying at a company comprises people from various teams.
SEO lets you track various buying team members’ behavior and search intent. Moreover, Google has announced BERT, a new neural network tailored to understand search intent better. This makes less-understood words like prepositions easier for search engines to decipher.
Moreover, SEO allows you to create customized content for every stage of the sales funnel. Not only will this boost your chances of conversion for new contacts, but it nurtures relationships with your existing contacts.
You could get more value from your existing accounts using the right messaging. This could either be in the form of repeat purchases, or upselling or cross-selling items that’s related with the customers’ latest purchase.
5. Gather data based on target audience interaction
You can’t just launch a campaign instantly and expect it to perform well. You need to keep analyzing your strategy and make tweaks for optimal results.
Here are some of the questions that you can start with:
● Which channels does your target audience come from?
● What content are they clicking on?
● How long do they bounce off your site?
● What type of content do they engage with?
SEO allows you to keep track of your target audience. The more that you know about them, the more personalized experiences you can make an offer.
5. Reach out to your target account via optimal channels
There are also times when it’s not enough to create personalized content. Your content should also reach people in channels that they prefer.
So, make sure you run background research, study your target audience’s media and channel preferences, and then publish content on these platforms to ensure optimal visibility.
6. Check their competitors’ activities
Smart business owners are the ones that check their competitors’ activities so that they know that they’re just one step ahead of time.
You can use good analysis software like Similar Web to look for what’s missing in your competitors to help you outrank them. It also enables you to analyze more than one competitor and then compare their performance to help you understand how you can stand out.
An SEO competitor analysis tool allows you to find where the most traffic comes from, the top-performing pages, blogs, and so much more. If you’re new, doing a competitor analysis is a guide to help you design your marketing and sales strategy.
7. Convert, measure, and learn the effectiveness of ABM campaigns
The last step in ABM implementation is when you measure, learn and optimize. Measuring the effectiveness of your ABM campaign needs a different approach than measuring broad marketing campaigns.
Once the dust settles, you have more time to reflect on what went well and what things you could have handed better for every converted account. Accounts that don’t convert allow you to learn, making your campaigns in the future more precise and targeted.
Here are essential metrics to track:
● Coverage of all stakeholders involved in the purchasing decision
● The engagement rate of contacts at every stage of the sales cycle
● Calls and meetings that result from ABM
● The number of prospects in the pipeline
● The time it took to convert
SEO provides a handy benchmark to compare your ABM performance with traditional content marketing results. With ABM as a turbocharged approach to B2B marketing, it’s expected to see better reports via this method than inbound and content marketing.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it. These are handy tips to use when incorporating SEO with your ABM strategy to garner high-quality leads. The best SEO practices give the audience highly informative, targeted, and quality interactions. Moreover, ABM and SEO share quite the same goals and are often powerful when used hand in hand.
If you’re starting with ABM, you might want to consider SEO through every step of your implementation. If you’ve been using ABM for some time without significant results, you might want to consider how you can integrate SEO with your strategy.
Doing primary keyword and user intent research are all excellent starting points. It allows you to find where your content misses the mark while giving an in-depth and detailed explanation of how you can resolve the issue. Good luck!