Snowflake’s account-based marketing (ABM) content was kind of messy. On one side, they had content programs: brand, industry, account, and people. On the other, channels: inbound, outbound, sales, and prospecting.

To hear Hillary Carpio, Senior Director of ABM at Snowflake, tell it, they often approached ABM content with a “marketer’s perspective.” They’d crowbar brand content into sales sequences and squeeze industry pieces into inbound experiences.

It created a disconnected web of experiences.

That mess of arrows looks confusing… but it’s a simplified version.

Imagine that multiplied across eight workflows, six verticals, 200 SDRs, and 400 AEs.

It got really complicated, real fast—and Snowflake’s ABM team was going to fix it.

Snowflake’s ABM team had a strong foundation to work from. They had:

• Great content to educate each of her ideal customer personas

• A strong grasp on how to use personalization to increase conversion rates

• An accurate list of prospects and key accounts to engage

They just needed to rethink how it fit together. Instead of a disconnected web of ABM content and channels, they wanted a joined-up experience. 

The hypothesis was simple: Channels shouldn’t just be simple content distribution tools. By curating Snowflake’s content in each channel, they’d create stories, narratives, and experiences for her buyers—ones buyers genuinely enjoyed.

Start at the top—industry

Snowflake’s ABM team kicked things off with their highest level of segmentation—industry.

The following examples of outbound and inbound experiences are for a visitor from a financial services company.

On the inbound side, they used Snowflake’s homepage to deliver tailored ABM content. In the example above, they know the visitor is in financial services, so they deliver an on-demand webinar on data sharing – a highly relevant topic for that segment. This experiment alone drove a 24% conversion uplift.

Other companies might use chatbots to serve this content. But Snowflake? Not so much.

“Why have buyers engage with a fake person,” Hillary explains, “when you can put the content in front of them?”

In the outbound example above, you can see an outbound personalization at the industry level. There are two simple pieces of personalization:

• Headline tailored to industry pain points

• Hero image matched the industry

Personalization doesn’t always have to be crazy complex. As long as you show you understand someone’s goals and pain points, that’s all that matters.

Need proof?

Snowflake’s pages with account-level personalization have an account-to-meeting rate 4X higher than those without.

Work down to the account level

Account-level personalization is easy. Slap a company name on an experience and it’s ABM, right?

Nope.

You need to personalize way beyond the account name.

In this first example, you can see that Snowflake’s ABM team added the company name. (All sass aside, you should still do it when appropriate.) Below that, a sales rep has added a personalized note addressing key talking points like:

• Why does this matter to the account? 

• Why should they take notice? 

• What’s in it for them?

In the second example, there’s a block of personalized content. This play doesn’t mean you need to go out and create net new content. Think about Netflix. When you log in, you see a personalized homepage. The shows weren’t made for you… but they were curated for you. Same deal here. The ABM team curates the blogs, eBooks, and reports most relevant to each account.

Personalize to individual people

Recently, Snowflake began experimenting with person-specific personalization. Problem is, that tactic treads a fine line between creepy and effective.

“Let me be clear,” Hillary says. “On an inbound campaign, it’s very creepy to say, ‘Hey, Carol!’ when Carol doesn’t know who you are. It’s weird.”

So they focused on outbound.

Snowflake creates people-focused pages for outbound campaigns supported by one-to-human targeted ads and personalized mail.

On the pages, they use the person’s name (although not always), a headline customized to their specific pain points, and a subhead copy that agitates their challenges. But Hillary says they’re careful not to overdo it.

If you checked out your blind date on Facebook and learned they liked blue roses, you wouldn’t say, “I know you like blue roses.” You’d just give them some flowers. Same deal here. Show you understand, but don’t be creepy.

And bring it all together

Throughout 2022, Snowflake’s ABM team experimented with industry, account, and personal personalization. Then they pulled the tactics together to create a hyper-personalized experience.

It was coming up to Snowflake’s flagship event, Summit. To engage their top accounts, the ABM team designed personalized event landing pages for each buyer.

The page dynamically added the company’s name and prefilled the ticket checkout with a unique promo code.

Further down, they included curated event tracks for industry, account, and role. The body copy spoke to the person, teasing tracks and talks for a data scientist, marketing analyst, or whatever role the viewer held.

And that was the tip of the iceberg.

Each page had 22 separate personalizations. It resulted in 1,600 different variations, engaging hundreds of high-value buyers.