ABM in the 'Dotlight'

The Hardest Part of ABM Part 5: Customer Intimacy

The Hardest Part of ABM: Customer Intimacy

We are all very familiar with brand intimacy in a B2C context.

Think of all those famous household names that have managed to create a strong positive feeling between their brand(s) and their customers.

The MBLM Brand intimacy report for 2022 shows the top five ranked brands are:

All these brands create a positive feeling that establishes trust, loyalty, and... intimacy.

These B2C brands achieve brand intimacy through strong investment in social media, video marketing, podcasts and the like that establish almost a one-on-one relationship with each customer.

Storytelling forms a huge part of building this brand intimacy.

It builds an emotional connection, creates (or recreates) special moments, and, importantly, sets the brand apart as personal, human, and real - and not inanimate or intangible.

The numbers back up the importance of brand intimacy. In a study conducted by Oracle:

So you can see why B2C brands go to great lengths to invest in building emotional relationships with their consumers – not only to increase their share of the wallet but also to create an army of brand advocates.

And what about Brand intimacy and B2B?

We have a surprise for you. B2C customers don’t take their B2C hat off when their B2B day starts.

We are motivated the same way in our work life as in our personal lives.

Ok. There may be more of a weighting on one factor over another when it comes to the characteristics of the B2B brands we value (fulfillment, identity, enhancement, ritual, nostalgia, and indulgence.)

But creating that emotional connection between B2B brands and B2B customers is where companies are now succeeding (or failing).

Who hasn’t lost a client you thought was ‘loyal’? The reasons can be multiple but brand intimacy, emotional loyalty, and customer loyalty are intrinsically linked.

It’s worthwhile mapping where you think each one of your customers is against this criteria from Oracle:

B2B customer intimacy

Putting the customer at the heart of your organization, ‘customer-centricity’, customer engagement, and customer intimacy are just some of the many terms you hear in B2B Marketing these days.

Here, we’re not talking about what should be the ‘bread and butter’ of any CMO, i.e. what you do, what you offer, why you vs, X, Y, or Z, etc.

With customer intimacy, we’re looking to go deeper.

Ultimately, you are looking to not only know what motivates your customers but gain a deep understanding of them and their business to predict their future needs.

Customer intimacy and ABM

Account-based Marketing’s origins - some 20 years ago - were in growing existing customers.

While much of the fanfare these days may be on new logo acquisition and running ABM into hundreds or even thousands of accounts, the ‘purest’ form of ABM is One-to-one with your most important customers.

And with any one-to-one relationship, it's all about getting to know the account and the people that matter(let’s not call them decision makers, influencers, etc.).

What are you looking to achieve? In simple terms, understand:

Knowing the answers to these questions (their problems) will help you to understand what motivates each and every person you are looking to connect with and what communication and marketing strategy you need to engage them and build that customer intimacy.

Stop leaning on MarTech

So, we know the key to customer intimacy is about showing them how well you know them.

MarTech does serve a very important purpose: gathering first- and third-party intent data is the bedrock of any successful customer intimacy strategy – but, keep a close eye on what role this tech plays in your strategy specifically. It’s about a lot more than intent data these days.

Over the years in the B2B industry, with the introduction of some pretty impressive MarTech, the focus has shifted to volume. The thinking was: if your CTR was 0.3%, you’d better hit as many accounts as possible to drum up the numbers!

Now, though, it’s not unusual for our ABM client campaigns, for example, to see click-through engagement of 3-5% when the CTA really speaks to the person.

No one wants to report back to their CRO that they only hit the benchmark... you’re always trying to smash it out of the park, and then some.

However, the conscious shift to more targeted, intent and data-driven advertising and retargeting is now at the forefront of a successful One-to-many, One-to-few, and especially, One-to-one laser-focused campaigns.

And that’s what ABM is.

When it comes to fostering brand awareness, loyalty, and ultimately, advocacy, you want to create a situation where the customer or prospect will only reach out to your brand – not a competitor’s – whenever they are in the position to buy a product(s) or service(s) within your remit.

ABM, and any form of modern marketing, will fail without strong data points; that’s undeniable. But the nature of what that means, what constitutes strong, has shifted.

By using this intel, you can then target the prospect in a genuinely empathetic manner. (See, intimacy isn’t so intimidating after all, is it?)

To be seen by your customer, you must have a genuine 360-degree understanding of their personality – not merely likes and dislikes, but career goals, challenges and influences.

So, we know what customer intimacy is and why you need to invest time in it; let’s move on to the ‘how’.

As a Marketer, with minimal face-time with your customers, how can you get the lowdown on their successes and disappointments?

Customer interviews, focus groups, and online surveys can be useful, but you don’t necessarily get unbiased data. So, look more at a mix of quantitative and qualitative data.

Customer-facing team members are also a goldmine of information.

Those casual little chats at the beginning of meetings and calls aren’t just about building relationships – they’re where you can get the most honest feedback about what’s really going on within their industry.

Carry out Empathy mapping to reveal many of the answers ‘hidden from view’.

Want to know more? Take a look at our recent article on empathy mapping.

Also, listen to what your sales and customer care teams have to say, marry this up with your insights data, and suddenly, you’ll find the picture is much clearer.

Now you have the right data, how do you extract valuable insights from it?

It seems obvious, but you need to really listen to what your first- and third-party data is telling you, and take the time to interpret it for what it is, not what you want it to say.

Remember, 95% of your Total Addressable Market (TAM) will not be in the market for your solution right now, so how do you identify your golden 5%?

What are they researching? Which sites are they visiting? What kind of competitor content are they exploring? And which of your pages and campaigns are they engaging with?

Your target audience is already telling you what they want to know - now's the time to listen.

The most important piece of the ABM puzzle is internal engagement.

You can gather incredible insights, but is that data making its way to your own teams?

They need all the same information you have to be able to continue customer intimacy throughout the customer journey.

It’s vital to educate and empower your customer facing employees to provide both a better customer experience and engage in the ABM programs.

When you have sold into a brand via a prospect, you want to maintain and build on that advocacy.

Make the prospect (now, hopefully, a loyal customer) your brand champion. They will open doors for you in new territories and teams – and help to upsell and cross-sell your products. Encourage your own internal sales teams to do the same.

‘See a need, fill a need’ was the catchphrase of Bigweld from the kids' movie, Robots.

This is the exact opportunity that the right data can present for you.

How are you to know the gaps in your own offering and the wider market, if you don’t understand what your customer needs? Third-party intent data can really highlight new opportunities for your business, to ensure it’s growing in a way that matches your ICP’s needs.

Show them you know them.

Use all the insights you’ve gathered to create campaigns based on the different challenges faced by the job roles you’re targeting, rather than more broad industry issues.

Does the data show that CFOs struggle to balance the number of employees with the amount of invoicing that is processed every month?

If you have a solution for that, highlight that issue specifically – in a campaign targeted at CFOs. And because you’re not aiming at a broader audience, you can use the industry jargon they use, building further trust in your understanding of their sector.

Remember the lessons learned from B2C

Let’s return to what we have learned from our B2C cousins. To create genuine customer intimacy, you need to:

1. Identify the right people to connect with

2. Build strong emotional connections

3. Create a unique story between you and the customer

4. Strengthen the relationship

It’s human nature to want intimacy, to be understood and seen by the people we interact with. Just because we’re in the B2B Marketing industry, doesn’t mean we can’t create an emotional connection.