Account Based Marketing (ABM) sits at the top of B2B marketing strategies these days. It’s a proven way to target primary accounts and drive meaningful business outcomes. To pull off ABM well, organizations need to create high-value offers (HVOs) that resonate with their target account list (TAL).
The Definition of an HVO:
an interaction that provides such unique and timely business value that it compels a prospect to engage.
So let’s get into it and explore the ins and outs of high-value offers and how to leverage them.
Understanding High-Value Offers
When we talk about HVOs, this is where the biggest difference between demand gen and ABM comes into play. As a CMO doing demand gen, if you got 1% of your audience to sign up for a demo you’ve hit the mark. But if you’re doing ABM looking at a TAL (target account list) of 100 accounts and getting just 1% of them into a demo, you’ve missed the mark. So where do the HVOs come in? They help nurture your audience and carry them along the funnel. Since high-value offers are relevant content pieces or experiences designed specifically for your target accounts, they serve you in capturing more of your audience. Using these tailored approaches take your efforts beyond generic marketing collateral to address the unique challenges and pain points of the account.
Personalization and Relevance
To speak directly to your accounts, you have to understand their needs and goals. For an HVO to succeed, you have to keep it buyer-centric. This is where research and buyer conversations come into the picture. Specificity will win with buyer challenges. By developing informed insights through data and human experience, marketers can gain a deep understanding of their audience and craft impactful HVOs that genuinely alleviate a pain point.
We’ve mentioned timeliness as an essential part of an HVO, but what does that mean? Quite literally, it’s looking 60-90 days out at an immediate solution. These offers need to be relevant to the problems they’re facing now. To be engaging, it also needs to be unique to the experience of the prospect. This isn’t just the best webinar or best eBook, this is a truly meaningful interaction that feels like a conversation.
Creating Compelling Offers
When it comes to creating that uniqueness, there are different approaches. You can scale your offers to find a sweet spot. The overlap of relevance and exclusivity creates this upper quadrant, timely, relevant, and difficult to replicate offer. This formula is precisely what puts that coveted HV in HVO. A common criticism of these offers though is the exclusivity and uniqueness. To brands, this can sound like a huge lift to be overcome. But it’s essential to accept that what you create for each prospect should be uncommon. It should meet every single account where they are and demonstrate your brand’s unique perspective and value. Competitors can’t replicate it because they lack exactly what you have in your set of expertise. Putting that empathetic understanding behind the conversation puts your brand over the edge. And if your offer is truly that special, you’ll notice a few things about it.
What are Some Common HVOs
- Custom content: Webinars and eBooks can become HVOs. You can take your best performing content and make it specific to an account.
- Insights: Data can provide industry insights. The information you’ve gathered can become customized for your TAL. Your perspective on this data will make it unique. You can make something new from what you have. The effort is higher, but so is the reward thanks to the specificity of use-case.
- Exclusive peer events: These are much more than a webinar. They give the feel of a Zoom meeting or a conversation. The group comes together to share insights and experiences. You’ll be the host of a small number of decision makers or key personas discussing challenges. Rather than selling off the bat, you’ll build connections.
- Auditing and diagnostics: These take effort up front and on repetition, but they’re well worth it. This offer centers around leveraging what you have and know (frameworks, best practices, benchmarks). In this case, your offer is a report that shows you where your prospect may be coming up short and how they might improve.
- Strategy sessions and workshops: These can be one-on-one, small groups, or even an outside firm running the whole thing. Here, you’ll work with the audience to figure out the biggest thing you can help them solve—and you’ll give it away for free. This will demonstrate your value in a way that’ll have the highest impact.
Effort yields impact. Your TAL is made up of unique individuals that you can speak to directly with HVOs. At every turn, it’s up to you how much you want to invest in the upfront and the follow-up in order to see success with these offers. HVOs are more than just another marketing acronym, they’re the linchpin of ABM and a gateway for a valuable conversation.