Account-Based Marketing (ABM) for Mobile SDK Developers

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a business marketing strategy predicated on treating individual prospects or customer accounts as “markets of one.” Unlike traditional marketing strategies, which typically fish with wider nets, ABM entails hyper-personalized outreach and focusing resources on targeted accounts within a market. This has made it an especially popular strategy for businesses that operate in the mobile and connected TV (CTV) app markets, such as mobile SDK developers, AdTech companies, and app performance analytics companies.

This is because, while the app market is extremely diverse, differentiation among solutions providers is often extremely difficult. Indeed, the SDK market isn’t particularly large and many of the offerings are nearly identical in terms of quality and capabilities. For this reason, these businesses need to seek differentiation elsewhere, such as in customer care, service diversification, or sales and marketing strategy. By turning to ABM, these companies can focus on app publishers that match their ideal customer profiles (ICPs), target them with bespoke campaigns, and establish more personable relationships.

With this in mind, we focused this article on how mobile SDK developers can benefit from ABM, ABM techniques for helping them sell to app publishers, and tools they can use to stand out in a crowded market. Here’s what we cover:

What Is Account-Based Marketing?
How Mobile SDK Developers Can Benefit From Account-Based Marketing
Account-Based Marketing Techniques for Mobile SDK Developers
Account-Based Marketing Tools for Mobile SDK Developers
USE CASE: How SDK Developers Use 42matters to Power Their Account-Based Marketing Initiatives

Want to use app intelligence to power your ABM strategy? Let’s chat!

What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?

In essence, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused strategy where businesses treat individual potential or current customer accounts as unique markets. This approach is particularly favored by B2B companies targeting large clients, due to the complex and extended nature of establishing business connections with such entities.

ABM stands apart from broader marketing tactics by offering a highly personalized approach, directing efforts towards select accounts in the marketplace. This strategy demands a close collaboration between sales and marketing departments to develop customized campaigns that cater to each account's distinct needs and characteristics.

Key elements of ABM include:

Identification of Target Accounts: Pinpointing the accounts with the most potential revenue or strategic value to the company.
Customized Marketing Initiatives: Crafting marketing activities that are specifically designed for the needs and preferences of each chosen account.
Sales and Marketing Collaboration: These teams must work together closely to select target accounts, create tailored campaigns, and guide them through the purchasing process.
Multi-Channel Engagement: Employing a variety of channels such as email, social media, personalized web content, and direct interactions to engage target accounts.
Continuous Evaluation and Refinement: Like with any marketing approach, it's crucial to consistently monitor and fine-tune ABM campaigns to ensure their effectiveness.

How Mobile SDK Developers Can Benefit From Account-Based Marketing

ABM provides mobile SDK developers with a strategic approach for identifying and engaging with potential clients in a more personalized, efficient, and effective manner. It can be used to foster stronger relationships, better market positioning, and increased sales efficiency.

In this section, we look at eight ways SDK developers can benefit from ABM, including:

Enhanced Customer Alignment
Streamlined Resource Allocation
Personalized Communication
Long-term Partnerships
Market Differentiation
Feedback Loop for Product Development
Higher Conversion Rates
Efficient Sales Cycles

Let’s handle these one at a time.

Enhanced Customer Alignment

Mobile SDK developers provide solutions that cater to the specific needs of app developers and publishers. ABM is predicated on developing a deeper understanding and alignment with the unique challenges, requirements, and goals of each target account. As such, following the tenets of ABM helps sales and marketing teams ensure that outreach efforts are highly relevant and compelling.

Streamlined Resource Allocation

Given the niche market and specialized nature of mobile SDKs, ABM techniques help businesses focus marketing and sales resources on high-value prospects that are more likely to convert. This ensures better use of time, budget, and other resources, and when done correctly, it yields better ROI across the board.

Personalized Communication

Developers and companies looking for SDKs often require detailed and technical information tailored to their specific projects. ABM facilitates personalized outreach strategies that can address the technical nuances and specific use cases relevant to each account, thereby increasing the chances of engagement.

For example, when it comes to selecting the right topics for blogs, reports, social media posts, and other content pieces, marketers are constantly looking to strike a balance between relevance and volume. That is, they generally want to produce content that speaks to their target audiences without making it so niche that it tanks all other traffic to their site. However, ABM removes volume from the equation almost entirely. Thus, since relevance to your target audience is the only thing that matters, you can expedite the content creation process and craft ultra-specific messages.

Long-term Partnerships

The adoption of a mobile SDK often signifies a long-term commitment on the part of the developer or company. Through ABM, SDK providers can nurture long-term relationships by continuously providing value and support tailored to the evolving needs of their clients, leading to higher customer retention and upsell opportunities.

Market Differentiation

In a competitive market, ABM allows SDK providers to differentiate themselves by showcasing how their solutions can uniquely address the specific challenges and opportunities faced by each target account, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.

Feedback Loop for Product Development

Engaging closely with target accounts allows SDK providers to gain direct feedback on their products. This can inform product development, helping to create or adapt SDK features that meet the precise needs of the market, leading to a more competitive product offering.

Higher Conversion Rates

By focusing marketing efforts on a select group of high-value targets with tailored messaging, SDK providers can achieve higher conversion rates compared to broader marketing strategies.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that these higher conversion rates require a more hands-on approach, meaning the cost per conversion (CPC) will likely increase and there will be fewer resources to allocate to non-ABM efforts. As such, account selection is critical when it comes to applying ABM techniques.

Efficient Sales Cycles

In some cases, ABM may even help in creating more efficient sales cycles. Since it involves engaging with key decision-makers within targeted accounts and using highly-personalized content and messaging, the time from initial contact to closing the sale can be significantly reduced.

Account-Based Marketing Techniques for Mobile SDK Developers

ABM is a conceptual approach to marketing capable of accommodating any number of possible techniques. That is to say, while there is a general framework for ABM, there are no predefined methods. SDK developers must identify the channels, tools, and techniques best suited to their goals.

In any case, in this section we look at some of the most common approaches to ABM. These are tailored to resonate with the specific needs, challenges, and opportunities of each targeted publisher, ensuring more personalized and impactful campaigns.

Here's how SDK developers can get started with ABM:

Deep-Dive Account Research
Segmentation and Personalization
Targeted Content Creation
Direct Engagement Strategies
Strategic Partnerships
Custom Solutions and Integrations

1. Deep-Dive Account Research

First, SDK developers need to collect as much intel as possible on their target accounts. They need to conduct thorough research to understand their business models, market positioning, tech stacks, challenges, and any ongoing projects they might need assistance with. This is something 42matters can help with.

Likewise, they need to identify key decision-makers, influencers, and users within the organization who would interact with or benefit from the SDK. A good place to start here is with business tools and go-to-market solutions like ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, or even LinkedIn.

2. Segmentation and Personalization

Next, SDK developers need to zoom in on accounts that are the strongest fits for their solutions. They should segment based on industry, size, use case, or technology needs to create more personalized marketing messages and product offerings.

3. Targeted Content Creation

Following this last point, SDK developers need to produce tailored content such as case studies, whitepapers, blog posts, and tutorials that demonstrate the value of their SDK in solving specific problems faced by the target account. For example, they can create personalized demos and interactive tools that show their SDK in action within the context of the target’s own environment or projects.

4. Direct Engagement Strategies

Another one of the most common ABM techniques is direct engagement. For example: email campaigns, social media outreach, and other marketing efforts targeting key stakeholders with personalized messages and offers. SDK developers can offer exclusive webinars, workshops, etc.

5. Strategic Partnerships

This one requires a little more effort. Nevertheless, it’s always beneficial to build alliances with other companies, platforms, or communities that are already trusted by target accounts. SDK developers can leverage these partnerships for co-marketing initiatives, joint events, or bundled offerings that provide added value to target accounts.

6. Custom Solutions and Integrations

Another great strategy is to offer to develop custom integrations or features that specifically address the unique needs of high-value accounts. This enables SDK developers to showcase the flexibility of their SDKs and their willingness to support custom requirements.

Account-Based Marketing Tools for Mobile SDK Developers

The 42matters Explorer and SDK Explorer are powerful tools geared specifically towards the mobile and CTV app markets. They’re visual app market research platforms that provide in-depth insights and analytics that can be highly beneficial for SDK developers employing Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies. Here’s what the Explorer looks like:

And here’s the SDK Explorer:

By offering insight into trending apps, emerging markets, and popular categories, the Explorer makes it possible for SDK developers to get bird's eye views of their target markets. From here, they can leverage the platform’s advanced filtering capabilities to zoom in on publishers that match their ideal publisher profiles. Filters include everything from app and publisher details to metadata, ad partners (app-ads.txt), performance metrics, country availability, language options, categories, IAB categories, parental advisories, content ratings, compliance insights, integrated SDKs, and much, much more. Once they’ve homed in on key apps, they can even set alerts to track changes over time.

Meanwhile, with the SDK Explorer, SDK developers can track competitor integrations. Not only can they see their current client list, but they can also set alerts for when new apps are either added or removed. This makes it particularly useful for assessing competitor strategy, understanding their relative position in the market, and determining if any of their clients are worth pursuing.

In essence, both the Explorer and SDK Explorer are excellent options for identifying target accounts. By analyzing the data listed above, SDK developers can pinpoint high-value prospects, export relevant data, and leverage this data to perform targeted ABM outreach at scale.

USE CASE: How SDK Developers Use 42matters to Power Their Account-Based Marketing Initiatives

Okay, before we wrap up, we’d like to demonstrate where 42matters fits into the typical ABM workflow. Below we reveal how SDK developers leverage our solutions to power their ABM initiatives.

STEP 1: They begin by isolating apps according to their ICPs.

For this, they use the 42matters Explorer’s advanced filtering capabilities. Typically, they focus on key categories and IAB categories. So, if they want to target “Arcade Games,” they refine their search to all apps in the “Arcade Games” categories. It’s also worth noting that Category-insights come in handy later on in the content-creation process. Indeed, many SDK developers create category-specific pitches for their campaigns to automate outreach.

STEP 2: They set app performance thresholds.

Once they’ve focused on apps in target categories, they begin to separate the wheat from the chaff by setting minimum download and monthly active users requirements. This helps them weed out apps that may not generate much ROI or are otherwise unwanted. Indeed, apps with suspiciously low performance metrics may be fraudulent, overly niche, abandoned, etc.

STEP 3: They filter apps by country of origin.

This has a couple benefits. The first is that SDK developers want to target app publishers in countries where regulations are favorable and where they can support the local languages. The second reason is lead distribution. Many of our customers have global sales teams where Sales Representatives (SRs) are assigned to particular countries or regions. By filtering apps based on location, SRs can target their territories more efficiently and sales leaders can accurately distribute accounts in a more expedient manner.

STEP 4: They identify apps that use competitor SDKs.

Once they’ve narrowed down the list of target apps, they check their tech stacks to see which ones have integrated competitor SDKs. In the case of SSPs and Ad Networks, they can even check app-ads.txt files to see which ones list competitors as trusted ad partners.

If an app publisher IS partnered with a competitor, the SDK developer knows it should target them with a “poaching” strategy. This entails tailoring campaigns around comparing and contrasting their solutions and emphasizing areas where they have a clear advantage.

If an app publisher IS NOT partnered with a competitor, then the SDK developer has a little more freedom and can use a more standard pitch in their outreach.

STEP 5: They export leads from the Explorer.

Next they adjust the Explorer’s columns according to the data they’re interested in and export all apps that match their query into a CSV file.

STEP 6: They search for key stakeholders at each company.

We touched on this earlier, but many companies enrich the data they pull from the Explorer with contact information from key stakeholders using go-to-market solutions like ZoomInfo and Apollo.io. For example, if they want to target C-Levels, Senior Vice Presidents, and Department Leaders, they can take the CSV exported from the Explorer, upload it into Apollo, use the platform to search for individuals that match these personas, and export their contact information and LinkedIn profiles.

STEP 7: They use this data to direct outreach efforts.

With this data, they launch highly targeted outreach campaigns via email, LinkedIn, etc. Learn more here.

And that’s that!