Account-Based Marketing Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide

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One of the key benefits of account based marketing is personalization. Because reaching more people is not always better. And meaningful engagement never really starts. Executive Context This document is intended to support leadership discussion around how to stand up an enterprise outbound motion.

Many companies use lead generation to identify potential prospects and then apply ABM tactics to the most promising accounts. Leverages marketing automation and other account-based marketing tools to streamline steps in the process, such as lead generation automation or email follow-ups. Requires marketing teams (ABM team) and sales teams to work in sync. Traditional marketing focuses on attracting large numbers of leads.

INBOUND MARKETING

The concept of account-based marketing developed in the early 2000s as companies searched for more structured ways to coordinate sales and marketing for their most important customers. This formalized earlier practices of key account management and industrial marketing, positioning ABM as a structured framework for aligning sales and marketing around specific accounts. Her leadership experience shapes her perspective on marketing strategy, attribution, and the systems modern revenue teams use to drive sustainable growth. She specializes in revenue-driven marketing strategy, demand generation, and aligning marketing and sales organizations. Jillian Als is Chief Marketing Officer at Leadfeeder and a B2B SaaS marketing executive with nearly two decades of experience leading global go-to-market teams.

In B2B sales, you’re often dealing with committees of four to ten stakeholders across different departments. If you’re running outbound sales, you already know the value of precision. For sales teams, continuity is the glue that holds your ABM strategy together. Effective account-based marketing tactics use content as a conversation starter, not a sales pitch. It starts with building an ICP Account-based marketing strategy and selecting accounts that match it.

Join our Marketing Cloud AI product leaders to discover how Agentforce for Marketing transforms AI insights into tangible actions, driving real enterprise value. See the latest trends in AI, Data 360, and personalization, based on insights from nearly 4,500 marketers worldwide. Finally, ensure your sales team is fully involved in the process from start to finish. Traditional marketing usually spreads a wide message to many people, like broadcasting a general advertisement to a large crowd. It helps sales and marketing teams work together more closely, which can lead to better results. The main idea is to concentrate efforts on a few, very important targets rather than many less-qualified ones.

Combine that narrow focus with an amazing customer experience (more on that below) and conversion rates start to climb. According to Forrester Research, organizations with aligned sales and marketing teams see an average of 32% annual revenue growth, while less aligned companies see a 7% decline in growth. This means arguments over lead quantity and lead quality go away, and your sales and marketing teams become unified in their focus on good fits. With ABM, sales and marketing are both working towards converting the same list of target accounts. ABM differs from other types of marketing in that it acknowledges all the different people — and different viewpoints — that comprise each account.

• IBM's marketing strategy leverages account-based marketing (ABM), thought leadership content, LinkedIn B2B campaigns and AI-powered email marketing through Watson Campaign Automation.
• We partnered with The Smarketers to update our website, looking for a fresh, modern, and accessible design.
• Whether it’s blog posts, guides, or webinars, you’re probably already tailoring them to your general customer base.
• We positioned the product as a “field agent” — not a chatbot, not an assistant — capable of stringing together complex audit tasks autonomously.
• We create strategic, expertly crafted stories, graphic design, and brand experiences that attract, nurture, and retain the right audience.

When your goals speak the language of the C-suite, earning executive support becomes significantly easier. The most powerful goals connect social activity directly to business outcomes like revenue, pipeline, retention and customer satisfaction. Once your audit is complete, you have the foundation you need to set goals that are grounded in reality and a strategy that builds on what’s already working. You can optimize your social scheduling with Sprout Social’s patented ViralPost® technology that ensures you’re utilizing optimal send times. Whether through paid ads or content promotion, social media raises awareness for your brand and creates a path to conversion for audiences who don’t know yet you exist. Billions of people are active on social media daily and there’s a large chance your audience is already online.

According to the Q Sprout Pulse Survey, 90% of marketers reported that sponsored influencer content performed better in terms of engagement compared to organic content posted on their brand accounts. Closing that gap requires better measurement, clearer reporting and a strategy built around business outcomes, not vanity metrics. And all marketers regardless of seniority say real-time audience insights would be the #1 most impactful resource for their content strategy, according to the 2026 Sprout Social Content Strategy Report. Consumers don’t just want polished content; they want brands that feel real.

LinkedIn is your friend here – follow your target companies and engage with content from their key stakeholders. Quality matters more than quantity – start with accounts you can realistically pursue with dedicated resources. Start by identifying your ideal customer profile (ICP). 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.