A breakdown of the LinkedIn ABM and search strategy that took Kovai PumpWorks from trade-show dependency.

Starting point: leads that depended on the calendar

Many industrial brands get most of their leads from a handful of trade shows a year. Between events the pipeline goes quiet, and the cost of each lead is hard to see because the stand, travel and staff time are rarely counted against it.

The goal here was not to replace trade shows. It was to create a steady stream of qualified conversations in between them, at a cost we could measure.

Step one: decide who you actually want to reach

Account-based marketing begins with a list. Instead of targeting an industry in general, we agreed a defined set of companies and roles that the sales team would genuinely like to speak to, and built the campaign around them.

A smaller, sharper audience feels counter-intuitive, but it stops the budget being spent on people who were never going to buy.

Step two: pair LinkedIn with search intent

LinkedIn put the brand in front of the right decision makers with content about the problems they face. Search captured the people who were already looking for a supplier. Each channel did a different job, and the landing pages spoke to each audience in its own terms.

Every enquiry was tagged by source, so we could see which combination produced real conversations rather than just form fills.

Step three: review, cut, repeat

Each month we compared cost per qualified lead by channel, audience and message, paused what was expensive and put the budget behind what worked. The reduction in cost per lead came from that discipline more than from any single creative idea.

The exact figures belong to that account, but the method travels: a clear target list, two complementary channels, honest tracking and a monthly decision to stop spending where it is not working.