How to Run Successful ABM Campaigns Using Rewards?

Do you ever find yourself asking any of the following questions:

• How do I give rewards to my customers without making it look transactional? But I still want something in return.
• What kind of rewards should I give to different stakeholders?
• How to run successful ABM campaigns?
• How to maximize the ROI of ABM campaigns?

As sales leaders or demand generation managers, running successful ABM campaigns using gifts and rewards might be a daunting task. But not until you have read this blog till the end.

“There are two common reasons rewards and gifting fail in account based marketing campaigns. Either the customers don't see enough value in participating. Or, the campaign creators can't decide how much to park to run the rewarding campaigns.”

By the end of this blog, you will learn:

• How can rewards increase the ROI of ABM campaigns?
• How to choose the right gifts for your ABM?
• How to get the messaging right when sending gifts for ABM?
• How to integrate rewards into your ABM campaigns?
• How can you measure the success of your ABM campaigns?

Without further ado, let's begin.

How can Rewards Increase ROI of ABM Campaigns?

One-to-one ABM marketing requires you to look before you leap when dealing with C-suite or key decision-makers at the corporates. A tiny mistake might turn your target account's delight into disappointment.

For example, You can't expect to get on a call with a C-suite executive with a $5 Amazon voucher. However, a donation of $20 to their charity choice for their 20 minutes might appeal to their persona.

Not only this, but sending thoughtful digital gifts and rewards can also help increase the ROI of your ABM campaigns by encouraging people to take a favorable action or give a positive reaction.

How? The answer is “Reciprocity.”

How does Reciprocity Work?

The Principle of Reciprocity is a fundamental concept of interpersonal psychology. This concept explains the human urge and desire to return something when something is received. This desire is amplified when a gift is given without expecting anything in return.

Marketers use this principle of reciprocity to their advantage in their marketing strategies.

Let's now see how rewards, especially digital ones, can drive positive behavior from targeted audiences and help run more successful ABM campaigns.

1. Digital rewards increase response rates

Consider three scenarios here. Let’s say that you are trying to get:

• Scenario #1: More attendees for your webinar.
• Scenario #2: More leads from email marketing.
• Scenario #3: More conversations with key decision-makers at your target account.

How can you grab your audience’s attention and get them to respond?

Answer: By sending them digital rewards.

Given the flexibility of choice and the element of reciprocity in it, digital rewards have the power to increase the response rates in all three scenarios mentioned above.

Let’s face it—you can't play a guessing game for your target accounts. Interestingly, our clients have witnessed a high response rate with the use of digital rewards in their ABM campaigns.

Here are a few more reasons that make digital rewards more effective:

• Instant gratification
• Global coverage
• No possibility of misplacing them
• Easy to scale up
• Lower risk of misuse or scam
• Easy to enable/disable different offers
• Convenient in tracking customer behavior
• Real-time data of redemption

2. Digital rewards increase conversations

The probability of a person accepting a meeting request is high when you have a reward element attached to it.

Let’s understand this with an example. Assume that one of the key goals of your ABM campaigns is to land the meetings you have been seeking for a long time. How will you accomplish this? You may have a great landing page, a compelling message, and every little element in it to grab your target group’s attention but they will still not be bothered.

Why? Reciprocity is missing. To make it successful, have a foolproof strategy in place and there’s no better way to go than R.E.W.A.R.D.S.

So create a hyper-personalized experience for your target persona by using rewards and digital gifts. Invite leaders of your target accounts, for example, to a Skype question-and-answer dinner, with a meal of their choice that you have made available via UberEats’ digital gift cards.

3. Digital rewards saves on business cost

Digital rewards are a low-cost, low-effort approach for targeting accounts. Our experience says that sales leaders get a better response when a request is tied with a gift—whether the gift gets redeemed or not. However, you are not required to pay for all of these rewards.

One other caveat to this is to check how many redemptions are actually happening with your reward program. Does it bring the desired outcome? Are people being receptive to this?

Despite having such a significant influence on ROI, today's businesses still struggle to add meaning to their rewards program and increase their reward marketing ROI. One of the reasons for this is not picking the right gifts for the right people at the right time.

But, you can dodge this bullet by reading further.

Rewarding Right: What Gifts to Choose for your ABM Campaigns?

Choosing gifts that can move the needle in your ABM campaigns is a bit tricky.

• You can't give away too much. Do this, and you will break the bank and make the acquisition cost extremely high.
• You can't give away too little. Do this, and you will end up losing buyers' interests.

So find a middle ground.

Choose an appropriate amount for digital rewards

Finding the best amount to boost engagement while staying within your budget might be challenging. However, as you offer digital rewards more frequently, you will be able to experiment with different amounts until you discover the sweet spot.

Here are some crucial points to consider when determining the appropriate value of the digital rewards:

• Time commitment associated with in-exchange of the digital reward
• The persona of the accounts you are trying to attract
• Type of reward into consideration
• Your total allocated ABM budget
• Ease of redemption

Once you have decided the right amount for your gift coupon, the next step is to make the reward more personalized and valuable based on your persona's demands.

When it comes to choosing rewards for your ABM campaigns, here are a few important questions to ask yourself:

• Which stakeholders should be addressed?
• How should the stakeholders be incentivized?
• What is the purchasing power of your target group?
• What is your target group’s buying pattern like?
• What do your target accounts care about?
• What do your target accounts don't care about?
• How valuable is a particular account/person for your business?

After making a comprehensive list based on the above questions, you might narrow down your digital reward options only to the relevant ones.

Examples of digital rewards for one-to-one ABM

• Send coffee vouchers to attend a webinar.
• "The lunch is on us!" coupon to get on a 20-minute meeting with them.
• Health and wellness vouchers in exchange for taking a demo.
• News/ Entertainment subscriptions as a thankyou gesture.
• Volunteering to make donations for charitable causes on behalf of target accounts.

You may do a great job mapping the persona to choose the right gift for your ABM campaign. However, if you are not confident about the gift, don’t worry! we got your back.

You can give your target an option to choose a gift of his/her choice from a humongous catalog of 20000+ gift options that are spread over 80+ countries. Xoxoday helps you assure that your gift makes the impact you aim for. There are two ways to go about it with Xoxoday:

• Xoxoday Vouchers: Allows you to send gifts in the form of vouchers that can be redeemed online as well in physical stores.
• Xoxoday Links: Allows you to send multiple brand vouchers of the selected denomination in the form of a link via email/SMS.

Picking the right reward is one thing. Sending the right message is a whole other ballgame. Let’s see how you can attach a relevant message with your digital reward to sound like another sales email.

How to Write an Email when Sending Gifts to your ABM Audience?

“What is the best message to use?” is probably the most frequently asked question while sending out a digital reward.

Your reward program should not sound like I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Instead, send out an empathetic message that you care.

Companies are increasingly adopting reward strategies that go beyond transactional point-based strategies to build emotional relationships with clients.

You can do this by giving them the freedom to select their gift card. This way, you show that you genuinely care about them as human beings, not just as a potential revenue source.

Most companies engaged in account-based marketing programs are using email as an essential communication channel. One ABM email strategy taking off is gifting to catch your target's attention.

Sure, a killer subject line must have both intent and delight. More than 45 characters long, a message may not even tell what your intention is at a glance. And that conversion rate which you're chasing quarter-after-quarter will go straight out the window.

If you need target accounts to pay heed to your intent, here's what you should stick to:

• A great opening line and subject that drives urgency
• A meaningful message and how-to content
• Your intent brief, plus a complimentary voucher for a one-on-one meeting
• Clickable CTA

To make things easier, we have put together 7 email templates for your ABM campaigns based on different use-cases.

Use-case #1: Landing a virtual meeting

Use-case #2: Re-engaging with a lost lead

Use-case #3: Inviting for a webinar

Use-case #4: Post webinar triggering

Use-case #5: Sign up for a free product demo

Use-case #6: Strengthening relationships during special occasions

Use-case #7: Delighting prospects on their birthdays

How does Xoxoday help Integrating Digital Rewards in ABM Campaigns?

Setting up your first rewards-based ABM campaign isn't as onerous as you think. Xoxoday's console is designed to work seamlessly with little technical expertise for SDRs. Our RaaS stands out from the pack. It allows campaigns to be created and executed in minutes, with eGifting specific to each region or role.

Our drag and drop features add a fun twist to a standard template. It only takes a few minutes to customize all of your campaign's features - messaging, banner, logo, you name it.

Step 1: Getting Started with Xoxoday Plum

Plum by Xoxoday also enables administrators to launch customized campaigns for several particular events.

Check how simple Xoxoday's UI is—designed with a human touch to let anyone create ABM campaigns independently. To get started, click the 'create new' button.

Plum allows you to generate and send Xoxo Codes to recipients. People may use/redeem codes for products of their choice from the store's platform or the campaign associated with it.

On the other hand, Xoxo-links allows the admin to send multiple brand vouchers of the selected denomination in the form of a link via email/SMS.

Note: If you prefer email distribution, we suggest going with "links" because our proprietary implementation makes integration possible.

Step 2: Start a New Campaign

Start with a title so your campaigns can stand out from the sea of emails.

Next, click "add landing page" to bring recipients out of the crowded inbox and into an opera hall.

Change the logo, eGift title, blurb, and button style on the landing page using the customization panel. We've left nothing out that will leave you wanting more. After customizing the landing page, preview the desktop and mobile views before distribution.

Step 3: Choose Gifts from Popular Brands

You can pick the vouchers from over 2000+ brands. The other configurable campaign features are –

• Country (currency automatically updates based on your selection)
• Reward value (USD 5~ USD 2000 or it's equivalent)
• Vouchers from specific online stores in the receiver's region

Step 4: Set-Up Customized Email/SMS Configuration

It is great to customize a digital delivery package that feels as pleasant as unwrapping a holiday gift.

We have a partially filled template to paint your brand theme, brand logo and finish off with a witty message.

Step 5: Recharge Your Wallet

You can quickly recharge your Plum wallet to get your campaign started.

Some of the payment options available are:

• Payment Gateway (Paypal: Internation, Payu: Domestic)
• Direct Bank Transfer
• Domestic option includes debit/credit cards, UPI, etc., through PayU.

Step 6: Adding Recipients for Campaign

One can deliver xoxo-link through one of the three options:

Adding recipients manually

Bulk Upload

It allows you to send xoxo-link to multiple people at one go.

Generate for self

This option allows the user to generate the xoxo links and then distribute them to the end-users at their convenience.

Step 7: Check Redemption Report

With Xoxoday Plum, you can keep track of all your Xoxo Points, Xoxo Codes, Xoxo Links, Perks History, and Plum Pro transactions. Reports enable you to view the status of your rewards and data such as the invoice date, amount, invoice note, balance, and comments. You may also review the recipients' redemption history.

Ease of Redemption for End Users

One of the pillars on which the success of ABM campaigns depends upon is the ease of redemption of rewards.

Let’s see how Xoxoday keeps it super easy for your target audience to redeem gifts and rewards.

• Target receives a link on the email/SMS.
• Target clicks on the link and sees a page that shows various options he can choose from. For instance, The various gift options may look as shown below - USD 25 voucher for Starbucks, eBay, XBOX, Amazon, etc.
• Target chooses the gift and clicks on the redemption button. Target sees the code with which he can redeem the gift. Let’s say the target selected Starbucks, he would be shown a web page as follows. When he/she clicks on “Collect Voucher”, they will see a code that can help them redeem the voucher at Starbucks.
• Target goes to the respective website or physical store to redeem his gift voucher with the code provided.

It’s that easy. 🙂

CRMs that Xoxoday can Integrate with

Xoxoday offers you a variety of integrations to help you send and manage rewards at scale. This helps create a consistent cross-channel engagement strategy that helps build trust and confidence in your contacts.

No more prodding marketing teams to learn new campaign tools and complex metrics. Instead, give them a free hand to test ad creatives with complete autonomy on existing CRM. No matter what technology stack is already in use, our rewarding system will enrich the values you deliver.

Our integration is supported on 4 CRMs, making rewards distribution through campaigns a work of art. These are:

Hubspot

The integration of HubSpot Marketing Hub and Xoxoday Plum allows you to boost campaign response rates by engaging prospects and customers with personalized rewards, incentives, gift cards, and so on.

In addition, the seamless integration of the two platforms enables you to monitor and track information such as the number of campaigns running, the number of gift vouchers issued, and so on from either platform without having to switch back and forth.

• Email-based Reward Automation with HubSpot | Mail Merge

You can set up a reward automation campaign to send emails with your custom template from HubSpot. Just as you personalize fields like name, company name, country, etc. - Integration with Plum HubSpot helps you embed unique reward links as a personalization token wherever you want in the email.

You can also restrict the number of rewards sent out based on criteria like - campaign time range, maximum reward count, repeated rewarding, etc. Cherry-on-the-cake is you always get to view the redemption reports to understand the engagement with rewards.

• Set up Reward Triggers with HubSpot Workflows

You can easily integrate rewards in your HubSpot workflows while running one-to-many ABM campaigns. You just need to define a specific enrollment trigger to send rewards.

For example, you can choose to set up the trigger when a lead completes the demo. When integrated with Plum, the reward you chose would be automatically sent to the prospect or lead who completed the defined action for the trigger.

Zoho CRM

Xoxoday Plum, when integrated with Zoho CRM, gives you the ability to influence your prospects, customers, and partners to drive specific actions and behaviors.

This integration allows you to boost your sales velocity and complete more deals while remaining in the flow of your business. As you scale, you'll get the best of both products as both are constantly introducing new features and capabilities.

• Send one-to-one Rewards with Zoho CRM

As a sales rep, when you wish to build a rapport with a particular contact (on a one-to-one basis), you try to keep them engaged throughout the sales cycle. Integrating Xoxoday’s Plum in your Zoho CRM enables you to send one-to-one rewards to a selected contact as required at any stage in the sales cycle. Thus helping you boost the performance of your one-to-one ABM campaigns.

Also, in case a target account asks you to connect with them after a few days/weeks, with the Zoho-Plum integration, you can re-engage with them on the agreed timeline but this time with rewards to drive positive behavior.

With the Plum Reward drop-down menu, you can select any existing reward campaign. Next, you can modify the reward amount as you may prefer. You can also choose to personalize the email content, subject line, greetings, etc. And wollah!, your reward is sent! It’s that simple.

Active Campaign

At any step of workflow for sales management, lead nurturing, and enablement, Xoxoday Plum seamlessly integrates with ActiveCampaign.This integration helps you engage your audience using delightful rewards with custom workflows. This makes the entire process of sending rewards and redemptions hassle-free.

Salesforce

While Salesforce helps you engage with your leads, integrating it with Xoxoday plum can add value. It allows your sales team to surprise prospects and customers with fun giveaways and rewards from the workflow.

Well, this doesn't end here.

Zapier

Xoxoday helps you connect with over 2000+ apps with Zapier integration.

Plum adds value to Zapier by recognizing, rewarding, and incentivizing customers, prospects, and employees.

Case Study: How FreshWorks Booked more Meetings with their Potential Customers?

An Overview of the Client

Freshworks Inc. is a SaaS platform that recently made waves for its NASDAQ Stock Exchange launch. As a result, it became the first Indian SaaS company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Challenges

• Giving physical gifts to event participants from different geographies became inconvenient with the pandemic.
• There were complexities in incentivizing ABM and referral campaigns. The search for a local vendor was time-consuming and costly.
• Auto currency conversions are complicated.
• Creating personalized emails and sending them out in bulk with gifts took a long time.

The Solution

Freshworks' diverse demands were properly satisfied by Xoxoday's comprehensive rewards platform. In addition, they used our Zapier integration to create bespoke processes to reward their consumers more smoothly and timely.

Approaches Followed

• They leveraged both "Xoxo Codes” and "Xoxo Links" to overcome these obstacles to distribute digital prizes and coupons.
• They automated their reward program and created customized referral programs for customers in different parts of the world.
• They set up bespoke virtual meetings with their targeted prospects over a cup of coffee.
• They distributed digital gifts to their speakers and attendees worldwide without dealing with multiple vendors.

Results

• They send a total of $5000+ brand vouchers in just a few clicks.
• They have distributed 500+ reward vouchers so far to their recipients across multiple locations.
• This increased brand awareness and meetings booked by their potential customers.
• It helped the end-users instantly redeem their localized brand vouchers without the hassle of currency conversions.

What's Next

Freshworks also intends to utilize our services in two other future use cases.

1. To arrange a virtual lunch by giving appealing experience-based options to their clients and allowing them to dine at their favorite restaurants.
2. To reward their staff (like Sales representatives and Account executives) whenever they drive registrations for any forthcoming events.

Case Study: How Graziani Multimedia Increased Attendance and Got More Leads through Incentivized Webinars?

An Overview of the Client

Graziani Multimedia is a firm in revenue operations consulting. The CEO of the company Tracy Graziani has helped many clients achieve great heights with her.

The Challenges

• In the first week of launching the landing page, the number of registrations did not cross the minimum threshold of 30
• The team launched the email campaign in the very first week, but the click-through rate was less than 10%
• The bounce rate of the landing page was more than 90%

The Solution

Aside from offering them insights into customer delight and how their organization's flywheel works, the easy solution was to reward them for their time spent on the webinar with a gesture of gratitude. The team determined that every attendee on the webinar would receive a $5 coupon from Xoxoday.

Approaches Followed

Overcoming the challenge of engaging attendees was difficult. To achieve this, the team decided to follow the following approaches:

• Ask questions about their current problems faced by them in their organization. And when someone explains about their issue, send them a reward instantly of a $10 Xoxoday voucher.
• Create a breakout group of 6 people and give them simple questions to break the ice. The group with the funniest answer would receive another $10 Xoxoday voucher reward.

Results

Here are some interesting stats that came out:

• 108 people signed up for the webinar out of 46 attended it
• 85% of the audience remained from start to finish
• In the breakout sessions, 95% participated and discussed their issue
• 6 meetings were generated
• 13% wanted to learn more about the solutions offered by Xoxoday

Now that you have mastered the skill of rewarding in your ABM campaigns, lastly, you would want to measure its success. After all, you can't measure it; you cant improve it.

How to Measure ABM Campaigns the Right Way?

So you've been actively pursuing accounts using ABM campaigns. Your marketing and sales teams have worked together, carefully customized messaging and emailed content to target accounts.

Your engagement statistics, too, as it appears that the personalized ABM campaign has paid off, with incentives opening more doors.

If you're wondering where we're going with this, these metrics will tell you what to measure in ABM campaigns:

1. Check the rate of overall engagement

An account-based marketing campaign aims to build brand engagement within target accounts.

Measuring prospects' engagement and interaction with your brand may help you identify whether or not your campaigns are working. If you observe that your engagement rates are low, you should evaluate the outreach and content you're providing. Ensure it corresponds with the receiver in terms of persona and pain areas and that their organization is genuinely a fit for your target account.

2. Check redemption report

Talking about engagement, Xoxoday's Redemption Report is a great way to check your prospect's activity w.r.t your digital rewards.

These reports enable you to view the status of your rewards and data such as the invoice date, amount, invoice note, balance, and comments. You may also review the recipients' redemption history.

3. Sales cycle length

Introducing your target audience to personalized emails may reduce the buyer's journey's awareness and research phase, shortening the sales cycle. Therefore, keep an eye on your sales cycle time to determine the effectiveness of your ABM campaigns.

4. Track the customer retention

Account-based marketing isn't just for bringing in new customers. It is also used to track client retention (and even upselling and cross-selling).

Most happy customers are easy to persuade with cross-selling and up-selling ideas. They are also more likely to become loyal clients.

If you haven't previously assessed customer retention for ABM initiatives, net promoter score measurement tools like SurveySparrow use precise metrics to provide insights into the health of your campaign. For example, it indicates what your prospects were interested in and how close they are to switching to a competitor's service.

5. ROI (Return on Investment)

You want to see a positive influence on your result, just like you do with any marketing effort. Are you receiving more value for money with your ABM marketing than you're putting in? Make sure to adjust your campaigns regularly to achieve the best potential return on investment.

Key Takeaways

Businesses need to re-think their marketing strategy to overcome the challenges resulting from the pandemic and survive in the new business era.

Business leaders must go beyond the account-level focus of conventional account-based marketing (ABM) and adopt a hyper-personalized approach that sees business stakeholders as individuals.

And digital rewards play an essential role in this. A reward-linked high-touch campaign unlocks more doors than any lead generation strategy is capable of.

Incentivizing recipients for their time is a great way to motivate them. It sets the foundation for a long-term partnership. Even if the first conversation didn't lead to an opportunity, it becomes a bridge that will allow people to exchange more handshakes over coffee or lunch.

Choose the Right Reward Partners

With ABM campaigns whether you want to:

• Host incentivized webinars to capture more leads
• Re-engage with prospects, you have lost touch with
• Design a referral engine that goes viral for customers
• Or more

You need the right partners to make sure you achieve the purpose of your ABM campaigns. The partner who can offer:

• Reduced admin effort for managing gifts and rewards.
• Variety of meaningful gifts and rewards like travel or dining experience, high-end paid subscriptions of newsletters/magazines, donations for charity, etc.
• Effortless redemption of rewards for your clients