Mastering ABM: A guide to modern account-based marketing

01 - Introduction

With its focus on personalized marketing and tailored strategies for individual accounts, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is an effective approach for businesses looking to stand out in a crowded market. 

However, for ABM to remain successful, it’s crucial for companies to embrace a modern approach. With new technologies emerging daily and buyer behaviors evolving, companies practicing ABM must stay up-to-date and adapt their strategies accordingly. 

Modernizing ABM may involve using advanced intent data analytics for deeper insights, leveraging generative AI for scaling personalization, or even incorporating social media influencers.

But most importantly, it requires getting the fundamentals right, staying on top of trends, and continuously adapting to meet changing customer expectations. 

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• How to modernize your ABM strategy by integrating the latest tools and technologies. 

• Key trends in buyer behavior and how they impact your ABM efforts. 

• The most effective tactics for executing an ABM strategy that delivers results. 

• How to align your ABM fundamentals with emerging trends to fuel business growth. 

Let’s dive in, and learn how to craft a new ABM playbook that will support your business’ growth goals. 

02 - What is account-based marketing (ABM)? 

ABM is a targeted approach that focuses on high-value accounts rather than broader market segments. Instead of casting a wide net, ABM works by zeroing in on specific companies, tailoring marketing efforts to address their unique needs and challenges. This strategy aligns marketing and sales to create personalized experiences, driving better engagement and higher ROI. 

The key components of an ABM program

• Targeting and selection: Identifying the right audience and choosing the best approach for engagement. 

• Personalization: Tailoring the customer experience to individual preferences and needs. 

• Aligning sales and marketing: Ensuring coordination between sales and marketing. Aligning on target account lists unifies efforts for a robust strategy. 

• Multi-channel engagement: Interacting with customers through various platforms for a seamless experience. 

• Content creation: Developing compelling and relevant content to attract and retain customers. 

• Data and insights: Using information to make informed decisions and enhance strategies. 

• Measurement and analytics: Tracking performance metrics to evaluate effectiveness and optimize results. 

• Long-term relationship building: Creating lasting connections with customers to promote loyalty and retention. 

Whether you're new to ABM or looking to refine your strategy, this guide provides the essential components and practical insights you need to build a targeted, results-driven ABM program that maximizes engagement and delivers long-term success.

03 - How has ABM evolved?

ABM has evolved significantly since it gained popularity. Lunio.ai say that the term “account-based marketing” was coined in 2004 by the ITSMA ABM certification, although the concept had already been in use for some time. 

The origins of ABM can be traced back to the 1990s, when B2C and B2B companies began to recognize the need for more personalized marketing. ABM evolved from initial concepts into a formalized strategy with the help of technology platforms, gaining widespread adoption and becoming a key component of modern B2B marketing strategies. 

But ABM has evolved in recent years. Driven by changes in technology, buyer behavior, and marketing practices, it’s no longer enough to just pick your target accounts, adopt an ABM tool, and press play.  

The challenges of older ABM playbooks

Modern ABM needs to evolve because the B2B buying landscape has fundamentally changed. Older ABM playbooks don't address the fact that:

• Today’s buyers are more informed than ever, conducting their own research long before engaging with a sales team.

• This shift has led to the "dark funnel," where buyer activities are invisible to traditional tracking, making marketing attribution more challenging.

• B2B buyers are bombarded with marketing messages, often tuning out the noise.

• As competition increases, standing out becomes even harder, while digital advertising costs rise just as marketing budgets face cuts.

To stay relevant, ABM strategies must focus on delivering highly personalized, value-driven content, that creates meaningful engagement, and uses smarter data insights to navigate the dark funnel. 

Here are just some of the challenges that have emerged with using older ABM playbooks, and how modern marketers need to adapt:

1. Reaching personalization at scale 

With advances in technology, marketers can now personalize campaigns at scale. AI and machine learning tools help tailor content and messaging for each account, ensuring relevancy and increasing engagement. 

Early ABM campaigns often relied on manual processes, focusing on personalizing content and outreach for a select few high-value accounts. One example of this is early personalized direct mail campaigns. Marketers would manually create customized direct mail packages for target accounts. This involved physically designing, printing, and shipping materials like brochures, product samples, or handwritten notes tailored to specific companies or decision-makers. 

In contrast, today’s ABM relies on advanced technology and data to scale personalization.  By using AI-driven platforms, predictive analytics, and automation, marketers can now achieve highly personalized communications across hundreds or even thousands of accounts simultaneously. 

2. Integration of multi-channel engagement 

ABM strategies have historically been limited to a few key channels, such as email or direct mail, and heavily focused on sales outreach.  

Today, however, ABM encompasses a broad range of digital channels, including social media, programmatic advertising, webinars, content syndication, and even email signatures.  

This evolution delivers cohesive engagement across the buyer's journey, providing an omnichannel experience throughout. 

3. Using data-driven decision making 

ABM once relied heavily on intuition, experience, or basic firmographic data, with measurement centered on broad outcomes such as revenue or number of closed deals.  

In contrast, today’s ABM is highly data-driven, using intent data, technographics, behavioral insights, and AI to identify and prioritize accounts. Metrics have become more sophisticated, tracking various aspects from account engagement and pipeline velocity to customer lifetime value (CLTV).  

This transformation allows modern marketers to create more personalized engagement and achieve precise measurements of success.  

4. Working in a silo 

One of the key ways in which ABM has evolved is in the tighter alignment between sales and marketing teams. Collaborations between these two teams ensure everyone works towards the same target account list complete with shared metrics and a unified strategy. 

Early ABM efforts were often not aligned in this fashion, leading to disjointed strategies and inconsistent execution. Today’s ABM programs focus on seamless collaboration, shared goals, integrated tools, and unified account plans.  

Service Level Agreements (SLAs), shared dashboards, and joint planning sessions have also become standard practices for ABM campaigns, ensuring both teams work together toward common objectives. 

Finally, some ABM strategies are changing into Account-Based Everything (ABE), where ABM principles are applied organization wide. ABE involves all parts of the business from customer success, product, and finance teams to drive audience engagement and conversion. This evolution ensures a unified approach to managing key accounts throughout their entire lifecycle. 

5. Overemphasis on technology over strategy  

Some older ABM playbooks became too reliant on technology, neglecting the importance of a well-defined strategy. Without a strong strategic foundation, even the best tools won't drive meaningful results.  

A successful ABM approach now balances technology with strategy, guided by clear goals, strong account insights, and a deep understanding of buyer needs, rather than allowing technology to dictate the process. 

As we can see, ABM has matured from what was a niche marketing strategy to a sophisticated, data-driven approach across the entire customer lifecycle. This means that modern ABM marketers must be flexible, collaborative, and dynamic to succeed.

04 - The benefits of ABM 

There’s a reason why 93% of SaaS marketers rate their ABM efforts as having been very successful. By concentrating on quality over quantity, companies create meaningful interactions that drive growth and success. 

Here are just some of the benefits of a well-executed ABM strategy: 

• Higher ROI: By focusing on high-value accounts, ABM drives better returns on marketing investments. That’s why 74% of ABM programs tend to drive significant revenue growth when implemented effectively. This allows businesses to concentrate their efforts on the most promising accounts, ensuring that every marketing dollar spent is more likely to lead to conversions and significant revenue generation.  

• Improved customer acquisition: Personalized campaigns make it easier to attract and convert top-tier prospects. ABM tailors marketing strategies to the specific needs and pain points of each targeted account. This results in messages that actually resonate over more generalized messaging, encouraging more active engagement.  

• Better alignment between teams: The basis of a great ABM strategy involves a slick collaboration between marketing and sales. When both teams work towards common goals, and share insights and strategies, a seamless experience is created for potential clients, making it easier to move them through the buyer's journey and turn them into advocates.  

• Efficient resource allocation: Targeting specific accounts means precious marketing resources are used more efficiently. Rather than spreading efforts thinly across a broad audience, ABM gives companies the opportunity to allocate time, budget, and workforce to those accounts that promise the highest return.

  
  
  This better optimizes marketing efforts and increases campaign effectiveness. That’s why 70% of companies see a noticeable improvement in brand awareness, perception, and knowledge after implementing an ABM strategy.  
  
  

05 - Building the foundations: The importance of brand in ABM 

Brand presence is critical for ABM campaigns to succeed. That’s why at Exclaimer, we believe that a strong brand is the foundation of any successful ABM strategy. Without an established brand presence, there’ll be little to no demand for your product.  

Over the last five to ten years, an excessive focus on lead generation at all costs has led to buyer indifference and anonymity. Up to 81% of customers wouldn’t download content because of a form, and 39% would enter false information to download content. Consumers are increasingly sensitive to how their data is used, preferring to engage with brands that align with them on a personal level.  

Modern brands must therefore seek to create demand in both the short and long term, creating loyalty through value-led emotional connections. 

To achieve a balanced approach, general best practice recommends allocating 54% of your marketing budget to direct demand generation and ABM and 46% to the more challenging-to-measure aspects of brand building. This strategy will help ensure that both immediate and long-term goals are met, driving overall success for your brand. 

06 - 8 steps to create and execute a top ABM strategy

Now that you understand what ABM is and what the benefits can bring it’s time to go through the essential steps to not only create an effective ABM strategy but also execute it flawlessly. 

1: Define your goals and objectives  

Before diving into an ABM strategy, it's crucial to clearly outline what you want to achieve, and what’s realistic for your team and budget. Having defined goals will steer your efforts and measure success effectively. However, launching an ABM campaign without a solid plan will likely result in increased time and costs. 

2: Build your target account list  

Start by analyzing your top-performing accounts to pinpoint shared characteristics that led to successful engagements and conversions. Define target attributes by honing in on industries, company sizes, and roles within those organizations to refine your account selection.  

Then, develop Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) summaries from your findings to focus on high-value accounts and maximize resource efficiency. 

3: Align sales and marketing teams  

For an ABM strategy to be work, your sales and marketing teams must be completely aligned. This involves establishing shared goals, metrics, and strategies, as well as setting up regular communication and collaboration with the two teams.

Also, don’t forget to update your sales and marketing SLA to include ABM accounts. 

4: Develop customized content and messaging  

Personalization is what makes an ABM campaign effective. Create tailored content that speaks directly to the unique needs and challenges of each target account.  

This can range from customized emails and landing pages to bespoke offers, ensuring that your messaging resonates on a personal level. You should also identify your channels at this stage, to help you strategically plan, personalize, and adapt your ABM efforts to maximize impact. 

5: Leverage technology and tools  

Using ABM platforms and tools like Demandbase, 6Sense or ZoomInfo, streamlines and enhances your campaigns.

Invest in technology for account selection, content personalization, and campaign tracking, which will automate processes and provide valuable insights, making your efforts more efficient. 

6: Execute your ABM campaigns  

Once your strategy is in place and your campaign is built, launch your ABM program across your defined channels. It’s important to maintain consistency across all touchpoints so that they align with your strategy, as well as reinforce your message and brand. 

7: Measure and optimize  

Continuous monitoring of your ABM campaign performance is crucial for success. Use analytics to gain insights and make data-driven adjustments. This adaptive approach allows you to fine-tune your strategy for better results. 

8: Scale and expand  

After you see success with your ABM strategy, explore ways to scale your efforts. Consider expanding your focus to include more accounts and experimenting with new tactics, channels, and tools to drive further growth and enhance your impact. 

07 - ABM tactics to fire up your campaigns

While strategy forms the backbone of any ABM approach, it’s the tactics that bring it to life. From personalized email outreach and account-specific landing pages to social media engagement and content syndication, effective execution is critical.   

The right tactics ensure your strategy resonates with your target account at every touchpoint, helping to capture attention, create engagement, and convert. Tactics like leveraging email signatures for targeted messaging or hosting exclusive events for high-value prospects can significantly enhance your campaign's success, when done well. 

To ensure your ABM approach drives sustained success, focus on refining the fundamentals, embracing innovation, and executing the right tactics to achieve measurable results. Consider the following tactics to give your ABM strategy a boost: 

Email signature marketing

Using Exclaimer’s Salesforce and HubSpot integrations, you can use your ABM target account lists to tailor your outbound email signatures, so you’re maximizing every touch point.  

By incorporating links to relevant content or tailored messages into your email signatures, you can engage your target accounts with every business email sent. This way, you’re turning this valuable real estate at the bottom of your email into a subtle yet impactful channel. You’ll then find that you’re reinforcing your brand authority and driving traffic to your most important resources. For more on mastering email signatures for ABM, check out 5 Steps to ABM with Exclaimer. 

By identifying all your existing marketing and communications channels, you can brainstorm ways to further target your ideal accounts. Check out this webinar for insights on how to use your owned channels in your ABM strategy. 

Personalized email outreach

Craft tailored outreach emails that specifically address the unique needs and pain points of each target account. By personalizing your messaging, you create stronger connections and improve response rates.  

For more insights, check out this blog on business email best practices for ABM: 5 Business Email Best Practices for ABM. 

Account-specific landing pages

Create landing pages uniquely tailored for each account to improve the user experience. Offer relevant content and offers, making it easier for potential clients to interact with your brand. 

Content syndication

Distribute customized content through various channels to reach your target accounts wherever they are. This multi-channel approach allows you to maintain visibility and keep your brand top-of-mind. 

Webinars and events

Organize exclusive events or webinars for key accounts. These provide valuable insights, learning opportunities, and build stronger, trusted relationships with your audience. 

Direct mail

Send out personalized direct mail campaigns to make a lasting impact on your target accounts. This traditional approach will set you apart in what is a digital world. 

Social media engagement

Actively engage with target accounts on social media platforms. Share relevant content, respond to comments, and participate in conversations to strengthen rapport and keep your brand on their radar. 

08 - Who is ABM for?

ABM is particularly effective for B2B businesses with longer sales cycles. Let's explore how various industries can leverage ABM to their advantage.  

ABM for SaaS and technology 

In the tech industry, companies sell complex products that require detailed explanations and demonstrations.

ABM helps tech firms focus resources on their key accounts, creating personalized messages that address each target organization's unique challenges. This approach reduces wasted efforts, creates stronger relationships, and leads to higher conversion rates. 

ABM for startups and scale-ups 

Startups and scale-ups benefit significantly from ABM by focusing on specific accounts to meet growth targets.

With limited resources, these companies can focus their marketing on high-value prospects, ensuring the messaging is always relevant and impactful. This can lead to quicker customer acquisition and scaling. 

ABM for finance 

In finance, institutions operate in a highly regulated and competitive environment. ABM enables interactions with high-value clients through personalized financial solutions.

By understanding the specific financial goals of each account, firms can provide customized services that enhance client satisfaction and loyalty. 

ABM for healthcare providers 

Decision-making in the healthcare industry involves multiple stakeholders and lengthy approval processes.

ABM lets private healthcare providers target key corporate accounts, delivering relevant information and case studies that resonate with their specific needs. This approach overcomes barriers to entry and builds long-term partnerships. 

ABM for professional services 

Firms in professional services, such as consulting or legal, operate on strong client relationships. ABM allows them to identify and connect with organizations likely to need their expertise.

With a personalized outreach and a deep understanding of each client's business, these firms can differentiate themselves from other competitors and win valuable contracts. 

09 - Best practice examples of ABM

Many companies have successfully introduced ABM programs and have seen significant results. Let’s look at some best practice examples of ABM, and what we can learn.  

Sandler increases marketing influenced pipeline by 30% 

One compelling case study is Sandler, a sales training and development company that transformed its ABM strategy with the help of 6sense. By leveraging predictive analytics and intent data, Sandler moved from a stagnant position to a 30% increase in marketing-influenced pipeline in just six months.  

By integrating 6sense’s platform, Sandler identified high-value accounts, personalized their outreach, and measured campaign effectiveness at each stage of the funnel, doubling their revenue. This transformation showcases the power of data-driven strategies in ABM. 

HubSpot wins more enterprise clients with ABM 

Another noteworthy example is HubSpot, which adopted ABM to enhance its efforts with larger enterprise clients. Using tools like Salesforce for CRM and their own Marketing Hub for automation, HubSpot focused on creating tailored content and marketing campaigns specifically for targeted accounts.  

The result? A remarkable increase in engagement rates and upsell opportunities within existing accounts, demonstrating how strategic alignment and targeted efforts can yield impressive returns in an ABM framework.  

As businesses increasingly embrace ABM, learning from these success stories can provide valuable insights for others looking to implement similar strategies. 

10 - The modern ABM tech stack

Building a robust ABM tech stack is essential for executing a successful strategy. Below is a recommended tech stack organized by each stage of the funnel, including platforms that fit within the different stages of an ABM campaign. 

1. Targeting and account selection 

• ZoomInfo or Clearbit: These tools provide enriched data on companies and contacts, helping you identify and select the right target accounts based on firmographic, technographic, and behavioral criteria. 

• Demandbase: This ABM platform helps with account identification and segmentation, using AI and predictive analytics to select the most promising accounts. 

2. Account insights and research 

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: A powerful platform for researching target accounts through LinkedIn and identifying key decision-makers within those organizations. 

• InsideView: Provides detailed insights into companies, including financials, organizational charts, and real-time company news, helping you tailor your ABM strategy to each account. 

3. Content creation and personalization 

• Uberflip: Helps create personalized content experiences for different stages of the buyer’s journey using account-specific insights. 

• PathFactory: This guides prospects down the funnel with personalized content journeys, increasing engagement and conversion rates with relevant content. 

• Vidyard or Drift Video: Allows you to create personalized video content for key stakeholders within target accounts. 

4. Engagement and orchestration 

• Engagio: Focused on marketing automation for ABM, Engagio allows you to track and manage account engagement across multiple channels. 

• HubSpot or Marketo: These marketing automation platforms let you create and manage customized email campaigns, nurture sequences, and landing pages for specific accounts. 

5. Sales enablement and outreach 

• Exclaimer: Exclaimer's personalization features allow you to create account-specific email signatures tailored to target industries or campaigns, embedding dynamic content like relevant promotions or CTAs.

  
  
  Additionally, with signature interaction data, such as link clicks, you can capture valuable data for A/B testing and lead scoring.  

• Outreach or Salesloft: These engagement platforms help your sales team execute personalized outreach at scale, ensuring consistent and timely follow-ups with target accounts. 

• Chorus or Gong: Conversation intelligence tools that analyze sales calls and provide insights into how your team can improve engagement with target accounts. 

• Seismic: A sales enablement platform that lets sales teams find, personalize, and share relevant content with prospects or customers. 

6. Advertising and retargeting 

• LinkedIn Ads: Enables highly targeted ads based on attributes in LinkedIn such as company, job title, and industry, allowing you to reach specific decision-makers within your target accounts. 

• RollWorks: Helps you run account-based digital advertising campaigns across various channels, with options for display, social, and retargeting ads aimed at specific accounts. 

• Google Ads with audience targeting: Enables you to retarget visitors from specific accounts who have engaged with your content or website, keeping your brand top of mind. 

7. Analytics and reporting 

• Google Analytics with account-based tracking: Customizes your Google Analytics to track account-level engagement and analyze the effectiveness of your ABM campaigns. 

• Bizible: A B2B marketing attribution solution that helps track and analyze the ROI of your ABM efforts, showing how marketing activities contribute to account conversions. 

• Tableau or Power BI: These data visualization platforms allow you to create custom dashboards that provide insights into the performance of your ABM campaigns, segmented by account. 

8. Account relationship management 

• Salesforce CRM: A CRM platform that integrates with most ABM tools, allowing you to track all interactions with target accounts, from initial engagement to closed deals. 

• CustomerGauge: Focused on customer success and relationship management, this tool helps track the health of your relationships with key accounts, providing insights for retention and upsell opportunities. 

Summary of tools for each stage of the funnel

This ABM tech stack covers the entire customer journey, from identifying and targeting the right accounts to managing relationships and optimizing strategies based on detailed analytics.

Each tool is strategically placed within the funnel to maximize the effectiveness of your ABM efforts.  

11 - Scaling your ABM strategy

Scaling your ABM strategy can seem like the logical next step, but challenges can arise from this. Here, we look at some of the most common challenges and how to overcome them. 

The challenges in scaling an ABM strategy  

Marketers can encounter huge hurdles when expanding their ABM strategy. Firstly, creating tailored content and campaigns for lots of accounts is time-intensive but demands resources. This leads to the need for efficient tools and strategies to streamline the process.  

Secondly, ensuring consistency in messaging and branding across diverse touchpoints and channels is crucial for a unified brand image and customer experience. Tools like marketing automation platforms and customer relationship management systems can help with this.  

Finally, marketers must navigate the delicate balance between personalization and privacy. Implementing robust data protection measures and adopting AI technologies can help marketers tackle this intricate challenge effectively. 

Overcoming those challenges 

Overcoming these challenges is a continual journey of measurement and change.

At Exclaimer, the strategies we've implemented have played a pivotal role in being able to scale our ABM efforts efficiently. 

Automation and technology

We leveraged marketing automation platforms to streamline and automate the creation of personalized content. Tools like AI-driven content and Mutiny help scale personalization without a proportional increase in manual effort.  

Repurposing content

By developing a robust content library, we can repurpose and tailor existing content to fit the needs of different accounts. This approach saves time while maintaining relevance and personalization.  

Centralized narratives and brand guidelines

We created detailed brand and company narrative guidelines and ensured that all team members and external partners adhered to them. This includes tone of voice, visual identity, and key messaging frameworks.

Consistency in messaging and personalization strengthens our message, brand recognition and trust. Using email signatures to deliver tailored content or offers ensures every email interaction aligns with our brand voice.  

12 - Conclusion: A new era of ABM

Now that you understand what ABM is and what the benefits can bring it’s time to go through the essential steps to not only create an effective ABM strategy but also execute it flawlessly. 

As customer expectations shift and new technologies emerge, modernizing your ABM strategy is no longer optional—it’s essential. By integrating advanced analytics, leveraging AI, and adapting to the latest tools and trends, companies can continue to harness ABM’s full potential while maintaining a competitive edge. 

To ensure your ABM approach drives sustained success, focus on refining the fundamentals, embracing innovation, and staying adaptable. 

Try Exclaimer for yourself, or book a demo to learn how to automate account-specific email signatures tailored to target industries or campaigns.