Master the Account Based Marketing Process: 4 Essential Stages

Imagine zeroing in on the perfect target accounts, knowing exactly what they need, and delivering solutions that resonate at the right moment. That’s the essence of account-based marketing (ABM). Rather than casting a wide net, ABM requires a highly focused strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to engage high-value accounts with personalised content.

But how do you implement this tailored approach? In this blog, we’ll walk you through the four essential stages of the ABM process—from identifying prospects to fostering long-term relationships—providing actionable steps to help you master the art of ABM.

 

Key Takeaways
ABM is about collaboration—align marketing and sales from the outset to create a unified strategy for targeting high-value accounts.
Identifying prospects begins with crafting an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): And using tools like intent data to pinpoint key decision-makers.
Personalisation is critical: Use insights from AI and analytics to create content that addresses the specific challenges of each target account.
Effective engagement requires delivering timely, relevant messages: Through the right channels to move prospects through the buying journey.
Optimising your ABM process involves tracking metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV): And engagement scores to refine strategies and improve outcomes.

 

The Account-Based Marketing Process

 

Account-based marketing (ABM) represents a fundamental shift from traditional demand generation, which typically focuses on casting a wide net to capture sales leads through broad strategies like advertising and marketing automation. Instead, ABM brings a much more targeted and collaborative approach, where marketing is intricately aligned with sales. At its core, ABM requires marketing and sales teams to work closely together to identify high-value accounts, develop a deep understanding of their unique challenges and needs, and foster meaningful relationships through personalised content and interactions.

 

How Does the Account-Based Marketing Process Work?

While the specifics may vary slightly between experts and software vendors, the account-based marketing process can be broken down into five critical steps that form the backbone of an effective ABM strategy:

1. Collaborate Success in the account-based marketing framework hinges on collaboration. Marketing and sales teams must work together from the outset, selecting representatives from each to form the ABM team and develop a shared strategy. This collaboration should be maintained consistently throughout the entire sales cycle to ensure alignment and drive targeted outcomes.
2. Identify Prospects The next stage involves identifying potential customers that align with your ideal customer profile (ICP). Utilising tools such as ABM software, account mapping, and purchase intent data, you can pinpoint key decision-makers within these accounts. Account mapping, in particular, helps create a visual representation of each account’s internal hierarchy, detailing decision-makers’ roles and influence throughout the buying journey.
3. Create Custom Content Personalised content is the cornerstone of the ABM process. By leveraging advanced analytics and AI, marketing teams can gain deeper insights into what resonates with target accounts. Using this data, they can craft bespoke content that speaks directly to the prospect’s needs and positions your solution as the answer to their challenges. This step is all about creating a positive account-based experience that nurtures the relationship between the buyer team and your brand.
4. Engage Engagement within an account-based marketing strategy is all about timing and relevance. Deliver the custom content and messaging to prospects at the right stages of their buying journey, and back it up with personalised outreach. Every interaction should feel tailored and purposeful, demonstrating a clear understanding of the prospect’s journey and needs.
5. Optimise To continuously refine and improve your ABM strategy, it’s essential to measure and analyse key metrics. This includes customer lifetime value (CLV), which quantifies the revenue a customer will generate over their relationship with your brand, and account engagement scores, which track interactions such as website visits and event attendance. Regularly reviewing these metrics allows you to identify opportunities to fine-tune the process and improve account management.

 

Challenges in the Account-Based Marketing Process and How to Overcome Them

Implementing an account-based marketing process (ABM) can be demanding, requiring teams to re-evaluate how they collaborate and operate. It involves restructuring resources, scaling processes, and adopting new approaches unfamiliar to many. However, despite these challenges, mastering this B2B marketing strategy offers immense benefits.

Aligning Marketing and Sales Teams

One of the biggest hurdles in the account-based marketing framework is aligning marketing and sales, which traditionally operate in silos, each pursuing their own goals. To overcome this, joint planning sessions are crucial. These should involve clear communication channels, ensuring both teams share insights, strategies, and objectives. Establishing shared resources, like CRM dashboards, can foster transparency and collaboration, facilitating a seamless exchange of ideas and goals. By aligning these departments, the ABM process becomes far more efficient, driving better results.

Allocating Resources for ABM Programmes

Budgeting is often a challenge when rolling out ABM strategies, especially when resources are already tied up in traditional marketing efforts. ABM programmes may demand additional investment in tools, technologies, and staff to personalise campaigns at scale. To secure the necessary funding, it’s essential to build a robust ABM strategy that clearly connects your efforts to overarching business goals. Highlight where resources can shift from existing programmes, and emphasise the long-term financial benefits of targeting high-value accounts.

Researching Tools and Technologies

The abundance of ABM tools available can overwhelm teams, especially when considering integration with existing CRM systems. Each tool comes with its own set of advantages and potential drawbacks. Therefore, conducting thorough research is essential, but it can be time-consuming. Prior to investing in new technologies, it’s wise to consult with your IT department to streamline the integration process. This not only ensures a smoother transition but also helps avoid potential disruptions to your ABM strategy.

Adjusting Measurement and Reporting

ABM offers more accurate ROI measurement than traditional marketing, but it often requires a shift in how success is tracked. Conventional metrics might not align with ABM objectives, necessitating new measurement frameworks. Teams will need to adopt new attribution models and metrics, such as customer lifetime value and account engagement scores, to gauge ABM’s effectiveness. For businesses lacking sophisticated marketing reporting tools, this shift can prove difficult, so prioritising these tools is key to gaining clear insights.

Scaling the ABM Process

While starting an ABM programme with a few key accounts may seem manageable, scaling it as your business grows presents new challenges. As the number of high-value accounts increases, personalising marketing efforts becomes harder without the right tools. Planning ahead is crucial. Ensure your marketing platforms are scalable and capable of supporting the growth of your ABM campaigns. Also, evaluate whether your teams’ current workflows can handle the expanding account lists. Proactive planning helps avoid bottlenecks as the process scales.

Engaging Key Decision Makers

Identifying and connecting with decision-makers in target accounts is a central part of the account-based marketing strategy, but it’s not without its difficulties. Thorough research is needed to uncover not only the right individuals but also the office hierarchies and other influencers involved in the buying process. Understanding your prospects’ pain points, motivations, and decision-making processes is critical. This deeper knowledge, gathered through social media, online research, and third-party data, enables you to create tailored, impactful engagements that foster long-lasting relationships.

 

5 Key Stages in the Account-Based Marketing Process

 

1. Identifying the Accounts You Wish to Target The foundation of the account-based marketing process lies in selecting the right accounts. To begin, create an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that defines the attributes of your perfect customer—those who would most benefit from your product or service. The ICP will outline the key challenges your solution addresses, align the offering with client needs, and even anticipate future requirements for product or service enhancements.
   In addition to using the ICP, it’s also vital to identify prospects linked to high-value deals. Prioritise those with active, substantial opportunities and a clear intent to buy. Ensure that both the sales and marketing teams are aligned in their rationale for targeting specific companies. Once you have established your target accounts, the next step is to identify the key decision-makers within each. This is where tools like CRM systems and email lists come into play, providing data to help you pinpoint all relevant contacts.
2. Researching and Qualifying the Accounts With your list of target accounts in hand, it’s essential to dig deeper into each account’s specific pain points, needs, and where they are in the buying journey. Platforms like LinkedIn, alongside company websites, can help you gather relevant details, such as the contact information of key stakeholders. If your CRM holds data on these accounts, it’s crucial to verify whether these contacts hold decision-making power.
   During this stage of the account-based marketing process, it’s equally important to rank your target accounts. By prioritising accounts based on their likelihood to convert, you can focus your resources on the most lucrative opportunities. Optimising your approach to account qualification allows for a more focused and effective ABM strategy.
3. Engaging with Decision-Makers Once the accounts are qualified, the next step is to engage with their decision-makers directly. Tailor your content and messaging to speak to the specific needs of your prospects. A personalised approach is key here—show empathy by addressing their pain points and offering relevant solutions.
   Timing and precision are critical in the engagement phase. Decision-makers are inundated with marketing content, so delivering personalised, high-value information through well-timed interactions sets your account-based marketing framework apart. Whether through direct mail, targeted PPC campaigns, LinkedIn advertising, or email marketing, the goal is to foster meaningful connections with the right stakeholders at the right time.
4. Measuring and Optimising ABM Campaigns Monitoring the performance of your ABM campaigns is crucial to ensuring long-term success. There are several metrics to assess how effectively your account-based marketing strategy is working. Engagement rate, for example, indicates how well your content resonates with your target audience. A high engagement rate demonstrates that your ABM efforts are on track.
   Additionally, win rates offer insight into the quality of your selected prospects. Higher win rates suggest that your account targeting is precise and that your overall strategy is performing optimally. Other essential metrics include customer lifetime value (CLV), which measures the total revenue generated by a customer over the course of the relationship, and deal size, a critical factor in B2B ABM. Metrics such as pipeline influence, customer acquisition cost, and cross-sell/upsell rates should also be considered to gain a holistic view of campaign success.
5. Focusing on Retention and Advocacy Once an account becomes a client, the focus shifts towards retention and advocacy. Delivering an exceptional customer experience leads to increased loyalty, extending the client’s tenure and opening opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. Moreover, satisfied clients are likely to become brand advocates, promoting your services within their network.

 

Detailed Steps for Account Selection and Engagement

For any account-based marketing process to deliver meaningful results, establishing clear and well-defined criteria for selecting target accounts is critical. The following criteria provide a structured approach to ensure your account-based marketing strategy is built on solid foundations:

 

1. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

The first and most essential step in the account selection process is identifying your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Begin by analysing your existing customer base—these businesses are already familiar with your brand and have demonstrated success in working with your products or services.

Look for commonalities across key traits such as company size, industry, revenue, and geographic location. For example, identifying companies within similar industries or those with similar customer demographics will help refine your focus and target accounts that are more likely to align with your ICP.

Key Criteria for Defining Your ICP:

• Demographics: Assess factors like industry, company size, location, and revenue to pinpoint the traits of your most valuable customers.
• Behavioural Data: Analyse past interactions, content engagement, and purchasing behaviours to identify what resonates with your top clients. Consider what content they found compelling and how they engaged with your brand over time.
• Technographic Data: Evaluate the technology stack employed by your ideal customers. Understanding the tools they rely on will allow you to tailor your solutions to meet their specific technological needs.

 

2. Revenue Potential

Next, evaluate the revenue potential of each target account. This requires analysing both the current and future value of the account, the potential for upselling, and overall growth opportunities. High-revenue accounts should be prioritised in your account-based marketing framework, as they offer the greatest opportunity for long-term profitability.

 

3. Fit with Your Solutions

Ensuring that your products or services align closely with the needs and challenges of the target account is another critical step. Conduct in-depth research to fully understand the pain points these accounts face and determine how your offering provides a solution. The better your solution fits their needs, the higher the chances of successful engagement and conversion.

 

4. Buying Signals

Buying signals are key indicators that an account is actively interested in your product or service. These signals can include website visits, content downloads, webinar registrations, or form submissions. Utilising data from your marketing automation and CRM systems, you can identify accounts that are exhibiting these signals, suggesting they are closer to making a purchase. These accounts should be prioritised in your account-based marketing process.

 

5. Identifying Decision-Makers and Influencers

To effectively target accounts, it is essential to identify the key decision-makers and influencers within the organisation. These are the individuals who hold the authority to make purchasing decisions. By leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, you can pinpoint these stakeholders and gain insights into their roles and influence within the buying process. Understanding their decision-making power and responsibilities allows you to tailor your messaging and outreach to resonate with the right individuals at the right time.

 

Building Your Target Account List

Once you have established your account selection criteria, the next step is to build your target account list. This is where data-driven insights become invaluable. Utilise CRM platforms, analytics tools, and third-party data providers to identify accounts that match your established criteria. A well-researched and strategically compiled list will ensure your account-based marketing strategy is focused on accounts that offer the highest potential for success.

 

Account Engagement: Strategies for Success

Effective account engagement is a cornerstone of any successful account-based marketing process. It requires more than just a transactional approach; it’s about creating a holistic, personalised experience for each target account. Your engagement strategy should captivate your audience and encourage meaningful interactions that drive action.

If you’ve already captured leads at a tradeshow, congratulations—you’ve made a significant first step. Now, with a wealth of information and contacts at your fingertips, it’s time to capitalise on that momentum. Below are five strategies to help you engage your tradeshow leads effectively.

1. Record the Context of Every Conversation

It may seem basic, but this is where many teams falter. Your sales team, particularly your Business Development Representatives (BDRs) and Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), are only as good as the information they’re equipped with. Before you unleash them to follow up on leads, it’s crucial to arm them with detailed context from every conversation you had at the event. This could include pain points discussed, specific goals, or any unique challenges the prospect mentioned. The more personalised and informed the follow-up, the greater the chance of moving the lead further along the account-based marketing framework.

2. Enable Personal Follow-Up

Ideally, the person who had the initial conversation at the event should lead the follow-up. This adds continuity to the relationship and allows for a more personal touch. Be sure to focus on the challenges discussed during the initial meeting, gently steering the conversation towards exploring potential solutions. Setting up a one-on-one call is an excellent way to deepen the engagement and continue building trust.

3. Craft Highly Personalised Email Sequences

Driving leads into your pipeline is only the beginning. To keep the momentum going, ensure you nurture those leads with a highly personalised email sequence. Unlike generic display ads or social media posts, emails offer the unique ability to feel like a direct, one-to-one conversation. Each message should be tailored to the individual, addressing their specific needs and pain points. This is one of the most effective account-based marketing tactics, enabling you to maintain a connection with prospects as they progress through the buyer’s journey.

4. Use a Dynamic Landing Page Platform

A powerful tool in your account-based marketing strategy is a dynamic landing page platform. While there are several good options, Unbounce is a popular choice for its fast deployment, A/B testing, dynamic content, and detailed tracking capabilities. The ability to create multiple, personalised landing pages means you can offer a customised experience for each target account, further enhancing engagement.

5. Develop Highly Personalised Offers

When you’re focusing on a small number of high-value accounts, the key to success lies in delivering highly personalised offers that resonate with those specific prospects. For example, Upgrow’s sales team often carries out an SEO audit on a target account’s website before reaching out. The results are sent along with the first cold email contact, offering immediate value and demonstrating a deep understanding of the account’s needs. This level of personalisation may not be scalable for thousands of prospects, but for a carefully curated ABM list, it’s a powerful tactic that can significantly improve conversion rates.

6. Go for the Value-Add Meeting

When targeting high-value accounts, skip the generic lead magnets like whitepapers or webinars. Instead, offer something that provides immediate, personalised value. Although it requires more effort and time, presenting customised offers such as a strategy session, competitive analysis, technology assessment, or account audit can be highly compelling. These offers deliver clear value to the prospect, making them far more likely to engage and accept a meeting. By focusing on personalised value, you not only capture attention but also demonstrate a deep understanding of the account’s specific needs within the account-based marketing framework.

7. Track and Report ABM Leads Separately

It’s crucial to track and report your account-based marketing process separately from broader marketing campaigns. Adding unique Google Analytics UTM tags to your ABM efforts ensures that your sales team can prioritise these leads effectively. Furthermore, this approach ensures your marketing team receives proper attribution for reaching the target accounts. When setting up ABM campaigns, use distinct UTMs and direct traffic to specific ABM landing page versions, which can be easily set up on platforms like Unbounce or Instapage. This method allows for cleaner reporting and sharper insights into the success of your account-based marketing strategy.

9. Build an Evergreen Lead Magnet

It may seem counterintuitive to offer non-personalised content to ABM prospects, but evergreen lead magnets can be an effective first step in your engagement process, particularly with influencers or early-stage decision-makers. An evergreen lead magnet offers ongoing value by providing a content upgrade that:

1. Delivers immediate benefit to the user.
2. Encourages repeated use over time.
3. Is regularly updated to ensure it remains relevant.

When integrated with social media advertising, evergreen lead magnets serve as a powerful tool for retargeting. This approach offers three key benefits:

• Reach High-Value Decision-Makers with Quality Content: Decision-makers rarely have time to opt into a lead magnet while reading a blog post, especially when on the move. By incorporating lead magnets into retargeting campaigns, you can regain their attention and offer high-value content tailored to their interests.
• Facilitate Retargeting and Control the Customer Journey: By driving users to your website to download a lead magnet, you make it easier to retarget them throughout the buyer’s journey. Collecting their email further enables you to control the narrative and guide them towards conversion.
• Boost Engagement with Social Proof: A lead magnet promoted on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook gains perceived value through engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments. This social proof increases the magnet’s appeal and enhances its perceived authority, making it more likely to attract decision-makers within the account-based marketing process.

 

 

Best Practices for Ensuring Alignment Across Teams During the Account-Based Marketing Process

 

Achieving alignment between sales and marketing teams is essential to the success of any account-based marketing process. Misalignment creates roadblocks that can derail your strategy and hinder progress. So, how do you ensure that your teams are truly working in sync? Before implementing any new account-based marketing strategy, it’s crucial to address potential collaboration issues and establish a cohesive working environment. Here’s how to align your sales and marketing departments effectively:

1. Cohesive Strategising

For an effective account-based marketing framework, your teams must break free from working in silos. Sales and marketing need to collaborate, sharing insights on market trends, customer needs, and the challenges your buyers face. Regular collaborative meetings should be held to promote open, productive discussions where both teams can contribute. This creates cross-team buy-in and ensures that everyone is aligned on the same goals. By working together from the outset, you eliminate confusion and foster a united approach to your account-based marketing strategy.

2. Establish Clear Processes

Cross-functional collaboration between sales and marketing managers is necessary but can often become complicated. It’s important to set clear processes for how these teams will interact. Agree on how frequently communication will take place and what good communication looks like—whether it’s sharing insights, updates, or feedback. By establishing these expectations upfront, you streamline workflows and ensure smoother collaboration as you execute your account-based marketing process.

3. Encourage Constructive Criticism

Friction between sales and marketing is inevitable, but it’s a vital component of growth. Teams that avoid constructive criticism can become stagnant, missing out on opportunities to improve. Encouraging open communication, where respectful and constructive feedback is welcomed, helps both departments understand each other’s challenges and operational approaches better. This type of interaction strengthens collaboration and drives better results in the long run. Healthy debates can often lead to breakthroughs in your account-based marketing framework, so embrace the opportunity to refine your strategies.

4. Centralise Communication

Effective communication is the backbone of team alignment. Without it, key stakeholders may miss important updates, leading to misalignment between sales and marketing efforts. A dedicated communication platform, such as Slack, combined with project management tools like shared dashboards, can help centralise communication. This ensures transparency across the organisation, giving every team member easy access to the information they need. Whether it’s tracking progress on your account-based marketing campaigns or discussing next steps, centralised communication keeps everyone on the same page, no matter the size of your organisation.

 

Aligning Revenue Teams for a Successful Account-Based Marketing Process

Aligning Around Common Goals

To achieve true alignment within your revenue teams, it’s critical to establish clear and focused goals for your account-based marketing process. Start by addressing the fundamental question: “What are we trying to achieve with ABM?”

Pro tip: Don’t settle for a generic answer like “growth.” The more specific your goals, the more effective your account-based marketing strategy will be. Common objectives for ABM initiatives might include:

• Introducing a new product, solution, or service to the market
• Increasing market share in an established sector
• Breaking into new markets, industry verticals, or segments
• Winning business from a key competitor
• Expanding existing customer relationships through upselling and cross-selling opportunities
• Accelerating opportunities that are stuck in the sales pipeline

Aligning on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once your ABM goals have been collaboratively agreed upon by the entire revenue team, the next step is to align on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure success. It’s vital to determine how the performance of your account-based marketing framework will be tracked, analysed, and evaluated across the board.

At a high level, revenue team leaders should regularly review metrics such as:

• Engaged accounts
• Opportunity accounts
• Opportunities created
• Influence and attribution from marketing, sales, and customer success
• Revenue won
• Average deal size
• Deal velocity

On a tactical level, more granular KPIs—such as paid media performance, landing page conversion rates, pipeline influence, and other relevant metrics—should also be measured. Creating easy-to-read dashboards for these KPIs will make the data more accessible and informative. Ensure that your ABM performance is reviewed in every team meeting to keep your teams aligned and your strategy optimised.

Aligning on Target Accounts

The success of any account-based marketing strategy hinges on selecting the right target accounts. After all, the approach is called “account-based” for a reason. Your revenue team must align on a list of target accounts that directly supports your ABM goals.

For instance, if your primary objective is to grow through upselling and cross-selling to existing customers, your target account list should reflect this by focusing entirely on your current customer base. Speculating on new prospects will only dilute your efforts and resources, potentially derailing your account-based marketing process.

It’s tempting to include aspirational accounts or companies that have been challenging to convert in the past. However, unless these accounts align with your ABM goals, resist the urge to pursue them. Instead, rely on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) as a benchmark to filter out any accounts that may not align with your strategy.

Once you have built your initial target account list, scrutinise it thoroughly for any weak prospects. Understanding your ICP is crucial here—use it as the guiding framework to refine and validate your target account selections.