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

Ignitium is an enterprise ABM company built as the ABX Orchestration® Operating System. Enterprise ABM programs often run across multiple platforms that produce intent data, campaign engagement, and account activity signals independently. Proprietary architecture enables coordinated activation at the buying group, account, and journey stage level— simultaneously. The ABX Orchestration® Operating System runs across every stage of the enterprise funnel. Ignitium turns buying-group engagement into prioritized account plays, sequences, and workflows so sales engages the right people at peak intent.

I think it’s important to mention that you don’t need to go full force with your ABM strategy from the start. Once marketing and sales are aligned on approach and which accounts to target, it’s time to map out a go-to-market plan. Creating an ideal customer profile for the accounts your company wants to target is key to answering this question and creating an ABM framework.

Growth Gorilla is a growth marketing agency that has carved out a strong niche in the FinTech sector, with a particular focus on user acquisition for startups and scaleups. Ironpaper is a B2B marketing agency based in New York City that specializes in aligning sales and marketing teams for unified ABM execution. If you listen to Eric Wittlake from TOPO, the vice-versa is also true, i.e. for an Account-Based Marketing campaign to be successful, both the sales and marketing teams should be on the same page. Initially, it is important to identify the channels through which your target accounts prefer to consume information and interact with brands. To Tier 3, we added startups with a team size of fewer than 40 people that need help with developing specific features according to US medical standards like HL7, HIPAA. The key is to scale it appropriately—start with a small list of key accounts and personalize outreach without breaking the bank.

Six months later, the list is stale and the routing logic is directing leads to the wrong people. Marketing owns account selection criteria and the engagement programs built around them. When only one or two of those people are tracked in your CRM, sales receives an opportunity with incomplete context and spends the first weeks of the deal just finding the rest of the committee. The system routed more than 6,000 leads and 3,800 accounts accurately, with Slack notifications creating accountability at every handoff. It can trigger an SDR sequence in Outreach or Salesloft, alert the account owner via Slack, attach the intent data to the lead record so the rep has context before the first call, and set a follow-up SLA with a timer.

ABM Strategy & Consulting

We assess your existing marketing and sales technology, identify gaps, and recommend practical solutions that support targeting, personalization, measurement, and scale. Programmatic and display ads allow you to put your brand in front of target accounts across the web. This is how abm campaign execution services the sales and marketing team gets aligned together with combined work to improve account-based marketing to bring better ROI. After defining the ideal customer profile and targeting accounts, you have come to step 2 for aligning the sales and marketing teams. One of the most effective features of an account-based marketing strategy is the alignment of the sales and marketing teams.

Before investing in expensive technology, consider the easiest way of reaching a small cohort of ideal target accounts. Therefore, the biggest advice for new account-based marketing programs is to start small and think scrappy. This should show up in the data with, Improved click-through-rates, conversions, lead quality, sales closing ratios, revenue from target accounts, and customer satisfaction and retention rates.

Giving all your teams a single point of contact through a messaging platform like Slack is a great place to start, so marketing and sales teams can keep service updated on key account insights. To make the most of ABM, you need to start with a great list of potential target accounts. While marketing teams may ultimately own ABM, it impacts every other team interacting with high-value target accounts. If your marketing and sales teams need alignment, you’re struggling to deliver personalised engagement at scale, or you need to make the most of a limited marketing budget, adopting an ABM strategy can help you. Rather than casting a wide net and hoping to catch good accounts, ABM starts by selecting high-value accounts and creating personalized campaigns that speak directly to each account’s unique needs and pain points.

Craft your value proposition and messaging

These 2 people (1 marketer and 1 SDR) will be enough to launch a pilot. Watch a webinar below where I share several examples of our direct mail swags. Here is a detailed case study about the ABM campaign that generated $300k in revenue where I used direct mail as a warm-up tactic.

ON24 stands out as one of the few ABM platforms that enables B2B marketers to host interactive online events, such as webinars, to connect with target accounts, identify potential buyers, and drive conversions. The platform integrates seamlessly with CRM systems like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, ensuring alignment between sales and marketing teams. Key features include advanced account targeting, which uses firmographic and intent data to pinpoint high-potential buyers, and multi-channel engagement across email, ads, and social media.

As your efforts scale, this marketer could support more salespeople. ABM strategies focus on creating personalized buying experiences for better customer acquisition, relationship-building, and business growth. They often know the common objections, pain points, and questions each segment has, so marketing teams can proactively create content to attract and convince target accounts based on these data points. Use account-based advertising to display personalized ads, sponsored content, or InMail ads to decision-makers within the selected accounts, increasing brand visibility and generating leads.

Our just-start framework helps you launch in weeks and quickly see results, while some orgs might take many months to stand up an ABM program. An ABM agency like Elevated Third brings proven strategy, platform expertise (like 6sense—we’re platinum partners), and a playbook for scalable execution. ABM helps you focus on high-value accounts by aligning sales and marketing. Define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) using factors like intent data, company size, and needs. Starting ABM requires aligning sales and marketing around high-value accounts.

Campaign Strategy & Planning

Apart from team-level alignment between marketing and sales, there is also funnel-level alignment from awareness to decision. In the spectrum of paid marketing, many companies often lose budgets because they don’t reach the right buyers. This is where ABM agencies come into the picture, bringing in frameworks and highly expert teams to do it for you. Agency retainers vary widely and typically include strategy, content creation, and full campaign execution.

Intent Data and Predictive Analytics

• With close alignment between marketing and sales, you can provide high-touch engagement to high-value accounts and nurture them toward renewals, upgrades, and expanded product and service offerings at relevant times.
• Demand Generation is the holistic and data-driven approach to creating and nurturing your products and services.
• Ultimately, successful account-based campaigns lead to more qualified opportunities, stronger sales and marketing alignment, and increased revenue from your most valuable accounts.
• Full capability utilization typically requires a significant investment in training.

Bev Burgess describes scenario ABM as time-boxed and outcome-focused, using pre-built tactics that you know work for that type of goal. That playbook can sit on the shelf until churn starts creeping up, then bam – deploy it. Vertical ABM means structuring your ABM programs around industry segments, creating highly personalized campaigns for clusters of accounts in the same sector.

Want to start prioritizing high-value leads and optimizing your pipeline to generate maximum revenue. Moreover, Salespanel is built for first-party data collection, making it one of the most viable ABM solutions for businesses in a cookieless future. While our list of top ABM agencies is a good start, we recommend you do your own research. The platform’s website personalisation capabilities ensure visitors from target accounts receive relevant content, improving engagement. With real-time intent data, Demandbase helps teams prioritise accounts showing buying signals, enhancing conversion rates. Its Salesforce integration streamlines workflows, aligning sales and marketing efforts seamlessly.

The platform provides a self-service interface for building campaigns. Features include display ads, social advertising, and web personalization. The platform includes display advertising, LinkedIn ad integration, and conversational tools. Terminus provides an ABM platform focused on advertising, chat, and email. You need existing marketing and sales tools for full functionality. Demandbase includes features for building account lists, personalizing website content, and measuring engagement across channels.