Postal + Demandbase Playbook: Tools to Power Up Your ABM

Everyone thinks they are doing account based marketing correctly, but few are unlocking its true potential. In order to level-up your ABM tactics, you don’t need the most sophisticated or complex systems in place. But, you do need tools that build a strong foundation with personalization and real-time data. There are many components we can list in an ABM strategy but if two aren’t right, it’s time to bring it back to basics: 

1. Contacting the right contacts of accounts at the right time 
2. Using impactful outreach methods when doing so 

Postal, the leading intelligent gifting platform, and Demandbase, a data-driven, account-focused GTM platform are architects when building best-in-class ABM tactics. We’ve brought together our solutions teams to create a playbook focused on unique methods to help you stand out with your target accounts, while efficiently using your resources.  

ABM’s Differentiators and Benefits

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) emphasizes quality over quantity. By spending time targeting high-value accounts rather than a generic, broad audience, you can spend your time creating personalized campaigns that resonate more deeply with key stakeholders. 

Notice we said stakeholders. We often focus on accounts, however a key part of ABM is identifying the correct stakeholders within those accounts. After all, it’s the individuals within a company who are interacting with your business and provide buying signals - not necessarily the account as a whole. Keep in mind that the account may not be homogenous - there are diverse stakeholders that make up the whole. This is where ABM gets fun!

Key Benefits of ABM

• Higher ROI: ABM delivers a higher return on investment compared to traditional marketing approaches, when executed with intention.
• Improved Alignment: ABM fosters better alignment between sales and marketing teams, ensuring cohesive and effective strategies.
• Shorter Sales Cycles: Targeted and tailored interactions often lead to faster decision-making and shorter sales cycles.
• Personalized Engagement: ABM enables highly personalized communication and engagement, enhancing relationships with target accounts. (more to come on this)

Power of Personalization

Personalization in our digitally crowded world is ever important and ABM is perfectly poised to lean into human-to-human connection. Sending a strategically selected gift is a powerful personalization tactic within ABM. Because we can spend more time thoughtfully curating your ABM outreach with a more narrow audience, you have the time to carefully select a gift that will create a lasting memory with your stakeholder. These lasting memories help to:

• Capture attention and differentiate your brand.
• Soften the transactional premise from the buyer/seller relationship
• Show appreciation and reinforce positive interactions.

The Power Tools

Remember the basics and do NOT over complicate it. Stay focused on contacting the right accounts at the right time and using effective outreach when doing so. Now you’re asking, “What do I need to make sure I’m getting the basics right?” A Demandbase Orchestration account and Postal ABM account are the two tools that allow for this at scale.

Demandbase

Demandbase Orchestration makes one-on-one conversations happen automatically and at scale. The ability to precisely segment audiences based on buyer persona, journey stage, behavior, intent, recent sales activity, target account status, fit with ideal customer profile, and more ensures you’re looking at the “right account” for your business. But now what about the “right time”? Orchestration solves that too! Set up a one-time automation, schedule one to run on a certain date and time, or set up a continuous action using static or dynamic account or people lists. No more worrying about missing the prime opportunity to contact your stakeholder. All of this connects with your CRM to ensure contact level detail is updated, enriched, and ready to feed into Postal.

Postal

Now we have a tool to make proper selections for an ABM campaign, but that doesn’t do us any good if our outreach doesn’t efficiently grab the attention of our targets. Postal’s intelligent gifting platform is one app for everything your ABM gifting campaigns need. Whether you’re looking to select a single, unique item from the global marketplace or want your recipients to have an exclusive, bespoke unboxing experience, Postal’s got it. Short on time or creativity? AI generated smart collections take the guesswork out of what to send with suggestions based on tailored audiences - perfectly connecting with your Demandbase segmentation. Connect Postal to Salesforce or CRM to trigger automated sends of gifts within your desired outreach sequence programmatically. But Postal doesn’t just send a gift and stop when it’s received. We track and measure the performance of your gifting ABM campaigns based on account level or recipient level detail. We’re “the everything app, for gifting” for a reason. 

Demandbase x Postal ABM Sequences by Stage

Sequence 1: Initial Engagement Stage

1. Identify Target Accounts: Use Demandbase to identify high-value accounts based on where accounts are in their buyer journey, engagement behavior, recent sales activity, and fit with ideal customer profile.
2. Account vs. Individual Approach: Create an overarching strategy to connect with the account as a whole but also how you intend to connect individually with each key stakeholder on a granular level. The buyer group is made of multiple roles, each with their own concerns, so it’s important to demonstrate that you understand and care about them at an individual level too.
3. Research and Personalize: Identify recent events, personal connections, or company-wide news that you can utilize to tailor your messaging and gift selection. You can accomplish this using manual research, or ideally with the help of a data enrichment tool.
4. Send Initial Gift: Get creative and select a gift that you know your stakeholder will love - and put effort to tie your messaging into it.
   • Bonus: After researching the company’s values, send an item that aligns with a value both your company and their company have in common and call it out. Build rapport over something you both care about that’s good for the world.
5. Follow-Up: After the gift is received, follow up with a personalized email or call to discuss how they might be enjoying their gift and start the conversation. Use this to form a genuine connection. Remember, it’s just the beginning of a longer-term relationship, and the more upmarket you go, the more this is important.

Sequence 2: Mid-Funnel Engagement

1. Behavioral Triggers: Monitor account behaviors using Demandbase insights. Identify triggers such as increased website visits or engagement with your marketing programs or even competitive intent signals. Using your Salesforce and Demandbase integration, add newly engaged personas to segments to trigger actions in Postal.
2. Branded Gifting: Stay top of mind! Your audience is starting to engage more, so a token with your brand presence is the perfect way to reinforce your business in their memory. They are choosing to return to your content so now’s the time to capitalize.
3. Multi-Channel Follow-Up: Tailor your method of follow-up to your stakeholder’s role. If it’s a C-level contact - consider engaging with LinkedIn thought leadership pieces; an internal champion - consider a phone call; a supporting team member - consider an email to the team asking how they liked the package you sent to the office for them to enjoy.
4. Offer Value: The team has shown interest and you’ve shown continued genuine effort so now is the time to move the buying conversation forward. Demonstrate your expertise and commitment to solving their problems with product-focused content. 

Sequence 3: Closing the Deal

1. Buyer Engagement: Utilize Demandbase to identify if your deal is stalled in a specific stage.
2. Partnership Gifting: Send a high-value, personalized gift to the account’s internal buyer with an offer to answer any budget, billing, or administrative questions they may need answered to understand the investment. Be a teammate to your internal champion who is looking to get the buyer on board.
3. Team Virtual Event: Host a virtual event to engage their team with your internal team that they’ll have access to throughout the customer journey. People want to buy from people, and the more people on the team who are aligned, the stronger the intent to buy. Connecting real internal employees with their team is the final bond to build before they become a customer.
4. Seal the Deal: Now that the buyer understands the investment and their team feels connected to your team, seal the deal!

Demandbase x Postal ABM Triggers by Account Status

In case you’d prefer to tailor your gifting efforts based on the account’s engagement level, there are some great opportunities to meet your lead where they are at and increase brand engagement through gifting. Below we’ve outlined triggers that can be identified within Demandbase in order to automate the sending of a gift through Postal at the perfect time to hit the engagement button. Here are some examples on when to engage and with what.

1. No Engagement or Lightly Engaged Accounts
   1. Example #1
      1. Demandbase Alert: A target persona from a top of funnel account visits your website for the first time 
      2. Postal Gift: Branded notebook and pen set with a personalized message saying, “We’re so glad you found us! Since you’re new to {{brand name}}, we wanted to give you something to help you take notes as you find out more!”
   2. Example #2
      1. Demandbase Alert: Sales executives from target accounts have visited your site and their account is showing competitive intent signals 
      2. Postal Gift: A box of cookies with your logo on top, asking them to “Share your treats and product solution with their team to see if they think it’s pretty sweet!”
   3. Example #3
      1. Demandbase Alert: Target Persona has visited multiple high value web pages such as “Pricing”, “How it Works,” or “Product Demos” 
      2. Postal Gift: A digital gift card for a popular online learning platform (e.g., MasterClass, Skillshare). Include a card saying, “Thank you for exploring how our product works! We believe in continuous learning, and we hope this gift card helps you discover something new and exciting.”

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2. Already Engaged Accounts
   1. Example #1
      1. Demandbase Alert: An account has an open opportunity which has yet to move into pipeline and has re-visited your “Pricing” page
      2. Postal Gift: A pair of blue-light blocking computer glasses with a note saying, “We saw you looking! We wanted to help your eyes as you do some intense reading and research.”
   2. Example #2
      1. Demandbase Alert: Account that was lost months ago starts engaging with your website and your marketing programs
      2. Postal Gift: An artistic puzzle with a note saying, “We’re ready to pick up the pieces from where we left off and help envision the big picture we can help you put together!”
   3. Example #3
      
      1. Demandbase Alert: The primary contact of a late stage opportunity has started to stall out in progress and communication
      2. Postal Gift: A branded champagne bottle and saber kit saying, “We’re ready to pop bottles when we partner with an awesome customer like {brand name}. All that’s left is a Yes & Cheers!”

Measuring Success and Optimizing Campaigns

Demandbase and Postal aren’t solely focused on helping you to implement an ABM strategy; we care about its success as well. In order to know if efforts are succeeding, your tools need to track and measure the ABM efforts from all angles and level of detail. You’re in luck!

Postal ABM reports on lifetime engagement and spend on an individual or account wide. This is crucial to not only understand if a specific strategy performed well, but also helps to identify widespread trends that are paying off in your campaigns.

Campaign Specific Metrics

To measure the success of your specific ABM gifting campaigns, Postal integrates with Salesforce to track the following metrics:

• Engagement Metrics: Gift acceptance rates, meeting bookings, and response rates.
• Net New Revenue Metrics: Deal acceleration, influenced pipeline, and conversion rates
• Existing Customer Metrics: Deal size increase, re-engagement rates, increased number of account users

ABM Strategy Metrics

On a macro level, it’s important to keep track of your campaign components to continue with the ones succeeding and stop those that aren’t effective. We like to look for insights such as:

• Gift Acceptance Trends: Identify which types of gifts from Postal are most frequently accepted by which segment from Demandbase.
• Engagement Patterns: Analyze the behaviors of different roles after receiving gifts. Do account-wide gifts create more buy-in or an individualized gift send to the CEO once Demandbase triggers new intent behavior.
• Conversion Rates: Measure the impact of gifting vs. online paid ads on account conversions and sales cycles.
  • Hint: gifting will outperform. See our study here.

With thousands of customers using the Postal Platform, we’ve already done macro-level analysis regarding gift trends to take the guesswork out of what to send depending on your target. Postal’s AI Smart Collections are intelligently curated collections of gifts already selected for you depending on your recipient. These are ready for your use the first time you log into the Postal app. Our collections are backed by proof of the top performing gifts for each demographic and occasion.

We also are ahead of the trend each year and provide our exclusive “Postal Unwrapped” report to give our users insights into the macro-level trends we are seeing for each use case (sales, marketing, customer success, and HR). We go one step further to analyze seasonality, price point, and categories of gifts.

Postal is set up to get you started sending from day one. Additionally, our solutions team is ready to bring our thousands of data points to the table to help you tailor your ABM gifting strategy and make it perfect for your brand.

Learn how to Integrate Demandbase and Postal

Discover how to elevate your ABM efforts by watching the recording of Demandbase and Postal’s webinar on “What’s In and Out for ABM in 2024” and connect with our experts to learn more about our tools. Book a call to strategize how you can use Postal and Demandbase to unlock additional power in your ABM strategies. And if you're a current customer wanting to maximize your gifting efforts and automation sequences, consider adding Postal ABM and Demandbase Orchestration into your existing toolkit.

Both platforms offer many other use cases outside of ABM campaigns, but we are partial to the power of hyper-personalized and targeted campaigns. Demandbase Orchestration provides the perfect trigger for Postal ABM gift sends to your target accounts. The emphasis should be placed on effectiveness and not always complexity because we believe there’s nothing quite like a one-on-one conversation for sales.