8 steps to build your account-based marketing strategy + recommended tools

This results in higher-quality leads and a more efficient sales cycle. IBM’s team relied on Demandbase personalization data to tailor outreach based on each account's activity on the campaign microsite. IBM prioritized more than 9,500 engaged accounts through Demandbase insights, tripling campaign results year over year.

For example, if CFOs in Tier 1 accounts care about ROI but you lack ROI-focused case studies, flag this gap. Use Abm content approach tools like Screaming Frog or Semrush to crawl your site and catalog all blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, and videos. Schedule a workshop with sales reps and customer success teams to extract insights from their daily interactions. Remember, the key to ABM success is tight alignment between sales and marketing at every step. Empower your sales team and subject matter experts to authentically engage target accounts on social channels. Website personalization tools like Optimizely, Adobe Target and Mutiny allow you to tailor site content, imagery and calls-to-action to each target account.

Rather than take a blanket approach – going after small businesses, SMBs, and enterprises – you might start by focusing on those accounts that have the highest need and the required budget. “The right martech stack can provide insights, enable innovative ways of delivering your message to your target accounts and prove ROI" This is the process by which marketing and sales have worked together to define what the ideal account will look like, and then selects the target accounts. Sales and marketing teams should be closely and continously aligned around the exact same ABM objectives, target accounts, messaging and proposition, outreach and measurement. Thankfully, ABM doesn’t just require collaboration between sales and marketing, it helps to encourage and build it. ABM may be focused on the objective of protecting and growing existing accounts, or on winning new business from specific target accounts – or on a combination of both.

Best Practice: Identify and Tailor Messaging to Different Stakeholders

This strategy has helped Restaurant Furniture Plus save money on paid advertising, and increase its base of recurring customers. This wholesale restaurant furniture supplier relied on search traffic and paid Google ads to attract new customers. Now that you understand the fundamentals of an account-based marketing strategy, let’s walk through a few examples of how B2B account-based marketing has worked for real businesses. I like this tool because it also allows users to run digital ad campaigns and automate certain sales functions, like outreach.

The sales cycle is also streamlined by your marketing and sales alignment, as well as the consistent and personalized customer experiences you offer. ABM allows you to angle your business in a way that makes it the most relevant and ideal choice for your target accounts. For Davidson, that means using all the tools available from personalized ads to dynamic landing pages. This alignment helps make sure all communications, interactions, and content are consistent for the accounts you work with.

• This guide walks through the complete process of building an ABM content strategy that delivers genuinely personalized experiences across hundreds of target accounts.
• Your ABM team can use website personalization tools to make your company website and personalized content hubs more engaging to increase lead generation and conversion rates.
• Another tactic we’ve implemented is enabling sales teams with curated, personalised content for each account.
• Start building awareness with your target accounts.

Its success requires intent-led targeting, role-based personalization, and multi-channel engagement that reaches stakeholders across email, ads, social, and sales outreach. Because many companies treat ABM like a rebranded demand-gen strategy instead of a highly focused, account-centric approach. ABM can deliver strong ROI for businesses of any size—it just looks different depending on your scale and resources. Intent data is a major asset in any ABM campaign, providing visibility into what target accounts are actively researching and when they may be in-market.

Establish a regular meeting cadence between sales and marketing leadership to stay in lockstep. Executing ABM plays requires tight handoffs and ongoing collaboration between sales and marketing. Orchestrate these touchpoints to create coordinated sales and marketing plays.

The insights they gain during discovery calls can tell you exactly which messaging will land. Every target account has a group of people who influence purchasing decisions. Think event attendees, content downloaders, form fillers, and people who’ve visited your pricing page. First-party intent is data from people who’ve already engaged with your brand directly. If not, look at your best existing customers.

It is about focusing on high-value prospects and creating personalized experiences that drive real results. ABM only works when sales and marketing align to target the right accounts. However, advances in the AI tools available to consumers mean that brands find themselves having to grapple with exactly that. New technologies often mean new customer journeys, they don’t normally mean a completely new type of customer. “That ICP (ideal customer profile) would be a good starting point, because if you don’t know who you’re targeting, then you’re going to fail at the first hurdle.”

Next, you’ll want to attract the buying committee members and stakeholders of your target accounts. Next, review your findings and pick your ideal set of high-value target accounts to invest your time and resources in. These people will create and publish content for accounts. On average, one marketer can typically stay aligned with up to 10 salespeople, and each salesperson can manage up to 10 accounts. As your efforts scale, this marketer could support more salespeople. They can work together to find potential issues and generate ideas before focusing on executing your ABM strategy.

Beettoo helps clients navigate the increasingly complex B2B buying journey with a model that is different by design. Gripped is a B2B marketing agency, based in London that helps SaaS and tech businesses drive traffic, increase lead conversion, grow pipeline and close sales. Leavitt said it's important to have a process in place and people with strong sales and marketing skills. "For most people who are running ABM programs effectively, marketing and sales are meeting on a weekly basis to walk through their account list," he said.

See how teams like Impartner generated $130,000 in influenced pipeline from three target accounts. These account based marketing examples show how signal-based orchestration replaces manual coordination. Account managers and customer success align on value-realized narratives tied to the usage uptick, then multi-thread back into the account to engage additional buyers and decision-makers. The buying committee is covered, the messaging is persona-specific, and sales and marketing are moving in lockstep.

Each piece of content should be crafted to address the specific concerns and goals of that persona, ensuring relevancy at every touchpoint. By closely monitoring these metrics, you can ensure that your content for ABM campaigns delivers real value and keeps your target accounts moving steadily through the pipeline. In an ideal scenario, abm personalised content would immediately convert your top target accounts, but in reality, measurement is necessary to understand the full impact of your efforts.

Traditional marketing metrics like leads generated don’t tell the full ABM story. Look at your current best customers – what traits do they share? This success stems from the alignment between sales and marketing teams – both departments work together to pursue the same specific accounts, rather than operating in separate silos. Research shows that companies using ABM generate 208% more revenue from their marketing efforts compared to those that don’t.