Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has become a critical strategy for B2B companies aiming to increase conversions, build stronger relationships with high-value accounts, and achieve a higher ROI from their marketing efforts. But while ABM is highly effective, executing a successful strategy requires a precise, well-defined approach.
This playbook will walk B2B marketing leaders through a step-by-step guide to crafting and implementing a successful ABM strategy. Whether you’re just starting or refining your current efforts, this playbook provides actionable insights, tips, and tools that will help you target the right accounts, engage with them effectively, and measure your success.
A key focus will be on the importance of high-quality B2B data—something that can make or break your ABM campaigns. By the end, you’ll have the knowledge and resources to supercharge your ABM strategy for optimal results.
Who is ABM playbook for?
✓You sell high value/complex products/services
✓ You target mid-market and enterprise accounts
✓ Your ACV is over $50,000
✓ You have a long sales cycle
✓ You’re now looking to consolidate your growth
✓ You need to influence multiple decision-makers in buying committees
Who is ABM playbook not for?
X You are still at the product/market fit stage
X You have a low average deal value
X You do not target enterprise accounts
X You do not have internal marketing resources
The Business Context for ABM
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused strategy designed to win, grow, and retain the most valuable accounts for your business. Unlike broad marketing approaches, ABM zeroes in on specific, high-value accounts, aligning sales and marketing efforts for maximum impact. Here are the four main commercial pillars where ABM shines:
1. Account Penetration
ABM helps businesses grow and retain key existing accounts by identifying new opportunities within them. This includes:
- Cross-Selling: Offering complementary products or services to existing units.
- Upselling: Encouraging upgrades or higher-value purchases.
- Geographical Expansion: Entering new business units or regions within the account.
2. Change Perceptions of Your Brand
ABM can reposition your brand to influence how target accounts perceive you, particularly in these scenarios:
- Value Proposition Communication: Delivering tailored messaging to sway decisions in your favor during critical phases like final evaluations.
- Market Entry: Establishing credibility in new markets where your brand is less known.
3. Pursue Major Opportunities
ABM’s precision targeting makes it ideal for:
- Winning High-Stakes Deals: Engaging strategically to land significant accounts.
- Shaping RFP/Tender Processes: Influencing potential clients before formal decisions are made.
- Dislodging Competitors: Gaining a foothold in accounts dominated by competitors.
4. Win New Accounts
ABM excels in acquiring new business by aligning sales and marketing efforts to focus on a prioritized list of target accounts or “new logos.” This ensures consistent messaging, tailored engagement, and improved conversions.
By addressing these pillars, ABM drives business growth, fosters deeper relationships, and ensures a higher return on investment for your marketing and sales efforts.
ABM is Zero-Waste Marketing
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) flips the traditional marketing funnel on its head. Instead of focusing on generating broad leads or chasing MQLs and SQLs, ABM targets the specific accounts you want to win, grow, and retain.
This focused approach, often called zero-waste marketing, ensures every effort is directed towards high-value opportunities. By leveraging detailed industry, account, and executive-level insights, ABM enables you to:
- Develop tailored value propositions.
- Create personalized experiences for each target account.
- Foster meaningful sales conversations that drive results.
The result is a highly efficient strategy where no resources are wasted on unqualified or low-priority leads.
The 3 ABM Program Types
ABM strategies can be tailored to fit your goals and audience, often blending these three approaches:
- One-to-Many ABM
Focused on raising brand awareness across your Total Addressable Market (TAM). This approach uses broader outreach to engage a large set of accounts, typically with scalable, less personalized content.
2. One-to-Few ABM
Targets a cluster of accounts that share similar challenges or goals. With a moderate level of personalization, this program tailors messaging and solutions to address common drivers among a small group of high-priority accounts.
3. One-to-One ABM
Dedicated to high-value opportunities, this approach involves deep personalization for key accounts. Often used for nurturing existing relationships or pursuing significant deals, it aligns closely with the account’s specific needs and business objectives.
Each program offers flexibility and can be combined to create a comprehensive ABM strategy.
ABM Journey: A Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1: Validate Your Market
Start by defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)—the foundation of your ABM strategy.
- Identify the products or services you want to focus on.
- Match these to your current customers and analyze their firmographic and technographic data to identify trends.
- Profile your best accounts against success criteria like profitability or long-term value.
- Integrate external insights from industry reports, G2, and other trusted sources.
- Collaborate with C-suite, Sales, and Customer Success leaders for validation.
- Finalize your ICP as the blueprint for targeting accounts.
Step 2: Focus Your Resources
Account selection is the cornerstone of ABM success. Target the right accounts to streamline the rest of your efforts.
- Identify your Total Addressable Market (TAM)—all potential accounts within your ICP.
- Tier accounts based on alignment with your ICP, from strong to partial matches.
- Assign prioritized accounts to the appropriate ABM program type (One-to-Many, One-to-Few, or One-to-One).
Pro Tip:
Run an Always-on ABM program for all tiered accounts, but reserve highly personalized One-to-Few and One-to-One programs for your most strategic opportunities.
Step 3: Uncover Your Market and Customers
Develop deep insights into your target accounts, their industries, and the current and future market conditions.
- Combine publicly available data with custom reports about accounts, industries, competitors, and trends.
- Use these insights to shape your value propositions and craft messaging strategies that resonate.
This research helps you understand not only where your accounts stand today but also where they’re headed, enabling highly targeted and effective engagement.
Step 4: Align Your Message with Impact
Your value proposition is the heart of your ABM strategy, designed to resonate deeply with your target accounts. Here’s how to ensure your message hits the mark:
- Focus on Value: Clearly communicate the benefits your solution brings to the customer.
- Understand the Audience: Dive into their pain points, challenges, and competitive landscape.
- Differentiate Yourself: Highlight what sets you apart from the competition.
- Craft a Unified Message: Create a single, cohesive message that speaks directly to the customer’s needs.
- Bring it to Life: Enhance your message with a compelling account experience that aligns with their specific context and challenges.
Step 5: Build Your Multi-Touch Strategy
With a solid foundation in place, it’s time to ideate your strategy. The type of ABM program (One-to-Many, One-to-Few, or One-to-One) will shape the tactics and touchpoints.
- Leverage the insights from your research, combined with Account, Buyer, and Decision-Making Unit -specific data, to plan:
- Tactics: Personalized outreach, events, or campaigns.
- Channels: Email, social media, direct mail, or in-person engagements.
- Assets: Customized content and offers that drive engagement.
- Ensure each touchpoint aligns with your account’s journey for maximum impact.
Step 6: Design Your ABM Experience
The core of ABM is delivering an exceptional account experience that stands out and creates a meaningful connection.
- Use data to guide your approach. Insights about the account, their industry, and individual contacts should inform every aspect of the experience.
- Create unique moments of connection through a mix of online and offline engagements tailored to:
- The account’s specific needs.
- The contact’s role and objectives.
- The unique business challenges they are aiming to solve.
- Focus on cutting through the noise and making an emotional impact that builds trust and drives action.
By ensuring relevance and personalization at every step, your ABM strategy becomes a powerful tool for driving engagement and business growth.
ABM Framework
This ABM framework is designed to help Sales and Marketing teams effectively win, grow, and retain key accounts. It allows accounts to move seamlessly between highly personalized experiences and scalable campaigns, ensuring continuous engagement and impactful results.
Phase 1: Strategy, Plan & Build (Months 1-3)
Laying the groundwork for ABM success involves strategic planning and creative preparation:
- Kickstart Accelerator Program: Launch the ABM Kickstart Accelerator™ to jumpstart efforts.
- Define Your ICP: Identify the characteristics of accounts that are ideal for your business growth.
- Commission Insights Reports: Gather industry and account-specific data to inform strategy.
- Target Account List: Build and tier your target accounts based on alignment with your ICP.
- Value Proposition: Craft messaging that speaks to the unique needs and challenges of your accounts.
- Content Strategy & Creative Experience: Develop a tailored content strategy and experiences that resonate with your target audience.
- Execution Plan: Incorporate early learnings and finalize the roadmap for campaign delivery.
Phase 2: Campaign Execution (Months 4-6)
Begin implementing your strategy through coordinated ABM campaigns:
- Launch ‘Always-On’ One-to-Many: Drive brand awareness across your Total Addressable Market (TAM).
- One-to-Few Campaigns: Engage up to 15 target accounts with personalized content and outreach.
- One-to-One Efforts: Reserve this for your most valuable accounts to deliver maximum personalization.
- Reporting Dashboards: Build dashboards to monitor progress, ensure transparency, and measure ROI.
- Optimize Campaigns: Continuously refine tactics based on early performance insights.
Phase 3: Campaign Optimization (Months 6-9)
Refinement is key to sustaining momentum and improving outcomes:
- Review & Optimize One-to-Many Programs: Adjust broad campaigns based on engagement data.
- Revisit Account Insights: Update research to reflect shifts in account priorities or market conditions.
- Second-Wave Campaigns: Select additional accounts for One-to-Few efforts.
- Promotion of Accounts: Move highly engaged One-to-Many accounts into One-to-Few, or promote One-to-Few accounts into One-to-One programs.
Phase 4: Advanced Optimization (Months 9-12)
Enhance your ABM efforts by integrating deeper insights and expanding outreach:
- Optimize All Campaigns: Focus on fine-tuning One-to-Many campaigns for broad reach and impact.
- Refresh Insights: Revalidate account research to ensure alignment with current priorities.
- New Waves of Campaigns: Introduce additional accounts into One-to-Few or One-to-One programs.
- Strategic Promotions: Elevate select accounts through the tiers to maximize engagement and conversions.
Personalization in ABM: The Core of Success
At its heart, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is about treating an account as a market of one. The essence of ABM lies in deep personalization, making it a unique and powerful go-to-market strategy.
Personalization in ABM doesn’t just differentiate your approach; it builds a strong connection.
- Resonance: It helps your message align with the account’s unique needs and priorities.
- Relationship-Building: By engaging on an individual level, you establish deeper relationships with stakeholders.
- Trust: Trust is the foundation of ABM, and personalization is the key to building it.
Impact of Personalization on ABM
Each ABM program type (and the account enrolled in each program) requires different levels of personalization. So how much personalization is enough at each level?
The 3 Metrics of ABM Success: Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue
The Three Rs Framework, developed by ITSMA, is a comprehensive way to measure the success of ABM programs. It evaluates your strategy across Reputation, Relationships, and Revenue, offering a dynamic and actionable measurement tool to align your ABM efforts with your business’s strategic goals.
1. Reputation
Definition:
Reputation reflects your standing and credibility within your industry or sector. It is company-centric and focuses on how others perceive your legitimacy and trustworthiness.
Key Measurement Areas:
- Stakeholder Feedback:
-
- Conduct surveys, interviews, or advocacy programs with key stakeholders.
- Ask questions like:
- How do they perceive your brand now versus before?
- Is your value proposition resonating?
- Do they see you as distinct from competitors?
- Look for evidence of advocacy, such as internal references or support for your reputation.
2. Social Media Engagement:
-
- Analyze who engages with your social content, what they say, and how often they share it.
- Metrics to watch:
- Changes in follower count.
- Shares, comments, and engagement rates.
- Website traffic driven by social media.
3. Campaign Engagement:
-
- Track interactions from target accounts, such as email opens, clicks, and website visits.
- Measure paid campaign impact:
- How many target accounts view and click your ads?
- What do they do next?
4. Website Visits:
-
- Use landing pages, blogs, and gated content to draw in your target audience.
- Track website traffic and ensure it’s shared with Sales for follow-up.
2. Relationships
Definition:
Relationships represent the depth of your connections with key stakeholders in target accounts. These relationships are crucial in high-value, long-sales-cycle deals.
Key Measurement Areas:
- Contact Depth and Quality:
-
- How many contacts do you have in each account?
- Are these the right contacts (decision-makers, influencers, etc.)?
2. Champions vs. Blockers:
-
- Can you identify champions who advocate for your solution?
- Are there blockers who need nurturing or mitigation?
3. Engagement and Conversations:
-
- Are you having meaningful conversations with stakeholders?
- Metrics to track:
- Number of sales conversations generated.
- Attendance at events, peer groups, and workshops.
- Engagement with content crafted for the account.
3. Revenue
Definition:
Revenue is the ultimate indicator of ABM success. It is built on the foundation of reputation and relationships.
Key Statistics:
- 87% of B2B marketers report higher ROI from ABM compared to other marketing investments.
- 91% of ABM programs see an increase in deal size, with 25% reporting deal sizes more than 50% larger.
- 86% report improved win rates.
- 70% increase in opportunities created via ABM.
- 28% increase in deal velocity.
Key Measurement Areas:
- Pipeline Impact:
-
- Are ABM initiatives leading to larger and more qualified deals?
- Are they contributing to faster deal closure rates?
2. Revenue Contribution:
-
- How much revenue is tied directly to ABM activities?
- Measure against average deal size, total closed deals, and sales velocity.
3. Collaboration with Sales:
-
- Build a shared ABM dashboard with Sales leadership to ensure alignment on metrics.
- Regularly report on revenue contributions from ABM efforts.
B2B Data is Critical for ABM Success
In Account-Based Marketing (ABM), accurate and reliable B2B data is a critical foundation for success. The quality of your data directly influences the effectiveness of your campaign strategies, ensuring you engage the right accounts with meaningful interactions at the right time.
Benefits of High-Quality B2B Data
- Target with Precision
-
- High-quality data enables you to identify and prioritize the most valuable accounts that align with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
- By focusing resources on accounts most likely to convert, you increase efficiency and ROI.
2. Enhance Personalization
-
-
- Reliable data offers deeper insights into an account’s business needs, pain points, and goals.
- These insights help craft highly personalized messaging that resonates with decision-makers and influencers within the account, fostering trust and engagement.
-
3. Track Intent Signals
-
-
-
- Intent data reveals where accounts are in their buyer’s journey.
- By understanding their interests, challenges, and readiness to purchase, you can align your outreach to their stage and drive higher conversions.
-
-
Risks of Poor-Quality Data in ABM
Without reliable data, ABM campaigns are prone to several challenges that can hinder their success:
- Targeting Irrelevant Accounts
-
- Misguided targeting leads to wasted resources on accounts that do not fit your ICP or have no real intent to purchase.
- This reduces campaign efficiency and dilutes your efforts across too many unqualified leads.
2. Delivering Generic, Ineffective Messaging
-
- Low-quality data limits your ability to tailor communications, resulting in generic messages that fail to connect with the specific needs of an account.
- Ineffective messaging reduces engagement rates and damages your brand’s credibility.
3. Missing High-Value Opportunities
-
-
- Poor data may prevent you from identifying key intent signals, causing you to overlook accounts that are actively in-market for solutions like yours.
- This leads to missed chances for high-value deals and lowers your competitive edge.
-
Accurate B2B data for marketing is not just a supporting element in ABM—it is the backbone that drives precision targeting, meaningful personalization, and effective engagement. Investing in high-quality data ensures you maximize the impact of your ABM campaigns while avoiding the pitfalls of irrelevant targeting, ineffective messaging, and missed opportunities.
How SalesIntel Helps You Maximize ABM Success
SalesIntel offers the most comprehensive and accurate B2B data to support your ABM strategy. With features like:
- Intent Data Integration: Identify accounts showing high purchase intent. You can personalize your marketing material based on the highest score intent topic.
- Advanced Filtering: Segment accounts using firmographic, technographic segmentation, and intent data.
- Human-Verified Data: Ensure accuracy with data verified by a global research team. To keep the data fresh and accurate, the data undergoes human-verification every 90 days.
- Real-Time Insights: Stay ahead with updates on account activities and signals.
SalesIntel enables you to execute hyper-targeted ABM campaigns, align your sales and marketing efforts, and drive tangible results.
Ready to transform your ABM strategy with SalesIntel and experience the power of data-driven marketing? Whether you’re targeting new accounts or strengthening relationships with existing ones, SalesIntel equips you with the tools to succeed in today’s competitive B2B landscape. Schedule a detailed and tailored demo today based on your ICP.