Build Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy

ABM success requires a strong set of marketing capabilities, tight alignment with Sales, and a content personalization strategy targeting high-opportunity buyers.

Thought Model: Build Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy

Member Challenge

  • Select the right ABM strategy for your organization and create complete alignment between the Sales and Marketing teams.
  • Clear the clutter and jumpstart your ABM implementation with a solid foundation.
  • Build a targeted account list with optimized data.
  • Engage buying account committees and create personalized content that helps buyers educate themselves.
  • Understand the necessary platforms and tools required to be successful with the selected ABM strategy.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

The success of each level of ABM maturity is closely tied to available resources, business needs, and having foundational elements in place to support your ABM strategy. Marketers should keep their initial ABM strategy simple to deliver a successful program. The goal is not to employ a complex program or include all levels of ABM strategy but rather to select the most feasible for your organization.

Impact and Result

With a strong set of marketing capabilities, tight team alignment with Sales, and a content personalization strategy, you will:

  • Create a solid foundation for a best-fit ABM strategy for your Marketing and Sales organization.
  • Target and build relationships with high-opportunity accounts.
  • Design experiences that will guide the buying committee through their buyer’s journey.
  • Develop a process for your team to continue to build on their maturity.

Research & Tools

Name Actions

1. Build the Foundation for Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy Storyboard – This blueprint will help you to build a strong foundation for your ABM strategy and support future growth.

This blueprint will help marketers understand ABM strategy types and accompanying levels of personalization, how to quickly assess their organization's ABM maturity, and how to implement best practices to build a foundation for their ABM strategy.

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Build Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy Storyboard

2. ABM Maturity Diagnostic Assessment – Use this assessment to gauge your organization’s ABM maturity profile.

Quickly and accurately diagnose your current account-based marketing (ABM) maturity. This diagnostic assessment will help you understand how prepared you are for each ABM strategy you may want to employ.

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ABM Maturity Diagnostic Assessment

3. ICP Workbook – Leverage this tool to drive your ABM strategy by creating tiers based on your ICP.

Create a personalized approach to defining your ideal customer profile (ICP), uncover valuable insights to develop a targeted account list (TAL) and measure your marketing performance.

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ICP Workbook

4. ABM Strategy Presentation Template – Use our comprehensive template to communicate your ABM implementation plan.

This presentation template covers all steps of implementation including aligning Sales and Marketing, results of gap assessment, optimizing lead generation performance, and designing a programmatic pilot.

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ABM Strategy Presentation Template

Onsite Workshop: Build Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy

Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Do-It-Yourself Implementation

The slides in this Best Practice Blueprint will walk you step-by-step through every phase of your project with supporting tools and templates ready for you to use.

Project Accelerator Workshop

You can also use this Best Practice Blueprint to facilitate your own project accelerator workshop within your organization using the workshop slides and facilitation instructions provided in the Appendix.

Module 1: Drive Aligned Vision for Your ABM Programmatic

The Purpose

Align Marketing and Sales teams, conduct a foundational assessment of your ABM capabilities, review your tech stack, and define your ICP tiers.

Key Benefits Achieved

Create a comprehensive plan for ABM strategy implementation, with a focus on defining your ideal customer profile (ICP).

Activities Outputs
1.1 Assess your foundational capabilities of ABM and conduct a gap analysis. Create a plan to address gaps.
  • Align Sales and Marketing teams.
  • Gap analysis and plan to address foundational capabilities.
1.2 Review your tech stack integration requirements.
  • Tech stack assessment to support ABM strategy.
1.3 Define your ideal customer profile (ICP).
  • Establish ICP, define tiers 1-3.

Module 2: Define Your Targeting Strategy

The Purpose

Identify and focus on the accounts and individuals that are most likely to become your high-value customers.

Key Benefits Achieved

Develop a focused targeting and performance-tracking plan.

Activities Outputs
2.1 Document your buyer persona and journey.
  • Buyer persona and journey map (Optional).
2.2 Create your target account list (TAL) and segmentation strategy. Review predictive modeling and behavior-based targeting options.
  • Target account list and segmentation strategy.
2.3 Evaluate marketing performance and streamline your reporting process.
  • Executive performance metrics dashboard outlined.

Module 3: Develop your Content Strategy and Account-Based Scoring.

The Purpose

Develop a comprehensive plan for engaging and nurturing those targets to drive measurable business results.

Key Benefits Achieved

Develop a content strategy to guide target accounts through the buyer's journey and measure progress.

Activities Outputs
3.1 Optimize your lead generation engine.
  • Lead gen engine optimized across owned properties. (Optional)
3.2 Develop your content strategy: pillars, clusters, personalization strategy, and taxonomy.
  • Content and personalization strategy with documented taxonomy—key elements for tracking and attribution activities.
3.3 Implement your account-based scoring model and behavioral tracking.
  • Account-based scoring model.

Module 4: Plan Your ABM Programmatic Pilot Strategy.

The Purpose

Select the right tactics and channels to engage with your target accounts in a personalized and effective way.

Key Benefits Achieved

Develop an ABM Programmatic pilot.

Activities Outputs
4.1 Develop an actionable Programmatic pilot / discuss other ABM strategies.
  • Strategy, execution and analysis plan for your ABM programmatic pilot.
4.2 Establish a process for continuous improvement and refinement.
  • Apply ABM Best practices.

Module 5: Present Your ABM Programmatic Pilot Strategy, Next Steps

The Purpose

Finalize the pilot strategy and review the implementation plan and next steps to ensure a successful outcome.

Key Benefits Achieved

Finalized ABM Programmatic pilot and best practices.

Activities Outputs
5.1 Finalize pilot strategy plan.
  • Finalized pilot strategy.
5.2 Establish a process for continuous improvement and refinement.
  • Review implementation plan, next steps and ABM best practices.
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