A different guide to ABM for small B2B companies (Part 1 of 2)

Here’s my controversial opinion: I believe Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the greatest stunt that McKinsey consultants pulled on us marketers. They tricked CEOs into thinking that we needed a different type of marketing for larger accounts.

(Probably an unnecessary disclaimer, but I have nothing against McKinsey consultants. Before I started writing I even checked whether it was McKinsey that introduced the concept of ABM and Perplexity told me that no, it is another consultancy called “Momentum ITSMA” that claims to have coined the term in 2003 and developed the initial methodology. I am just using “McKinsey consultants” as a figure of speech here).

I mean it. Try to google what ABM is and read the first five articles. It’s just fluff. Now do another thing: try to download one of those ultimate guides written by SaaS companies that want to sell you yet another CRM software. It’s even more fluff, but now in PDF.

Don’t believe me? Here’s how the best known ABM software company defines ABM:

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategic approach to marketing that focuses on targeting and engaging specific high-value accounts or companies, rather than casting a wide net to a broader audience.

Isn’t this…normal marketing?

Since the advent of digital platforms as the dominant acquisition channel we have moved towards targeting specific […] companies, rather than casting a wide net.

No marketer born after 1980 does marketing that is not targeted to their ideal customer persona (ICP). Does all their marketing activity qualify as ABM? The definition above is pretty clear, but that doesn’t gel with what 6sense is trying to sell you.

Let’s test another website. This is one of the hottest B2B software companies in the world:

Interesting. According to Hubspot, ABM is the type of marketing that focuses on:

creating personalized buying experiences for better customer acquisition, relationship-building, and business growth.

…as opposed to what, exactly? Again, this is just modern marketing.

It reminds me of the duck test: If it looks like marketing, sounds like marketing, and operates like marketing, then it probably is marketing.

Here’s what I think: ABM is a buzzword we created to loosely define “marketing to enterprise”, with the purpose of billing more hours (hi there, McKinsey consultants 👋) and sell more software (hi there, SaaS companies 👋). It’s still marketing, but it has an acronym now, so it’s sold at a premium. Marketers love acronyms, after all.

“But Simone” - you may ask -” I am a B2B marketing leader selling to enterprise. Should I ignore ABM?”

No, I don’t think you should ignore it. I argue that ABM is a fancy word for “marketing to enterprise”. I’m not arguing that it’s wrong.

[…aaaaand this is where this guide takes a twist.]

If you are a B2B marketing/revenue leader at a company whose target audience is less than 100k people, ABM is your gameplay and your primary job is to get sales onboard.

I have done ABM before, but I didn’t know where to start. So this is my attempt at explaining how to implement ABM, so the next generation of B2B marketers and CEOs doesn’t waste time reading vanilla guides on the Hubspot website.

Preliminary steps

Before you get to work, there are three necessary mind shifts I would recommend.

In my experience, the first thing to do is to get used to the idea that you have multiple marketing funnels.

In a traditional marketing funnel you initially target all your prospects in a specific market/geography/segment. At each step some of these prospects will exit the funnel and some will continue their buying journey, until some prospects end up doing what you have worked towards: converting to a customer (or talk to sales). That’s typically the bottom of your marketing funnel.

In ABM you have to use a different script. The marketing funnel is replaced by a list of very specific companies you want to close, and you track account activity based on customer engagement, rather than how many steps you need to close them.

The second thing to do is to focus on the objective: what do you want to achieve? Whilst the end goal is always the same – increase revenue – it helps to focus your marketing and sales activities on a specific goal. Are you using ABM to upsell a target account? Are you selling in a new market? Are you cross-selling existing accounts but targeting different buying groups? The goal shapes your ABM strategy.

The third thing to do at the beginning is to gather data. We will get back to review that in detail in a minute, but ABM requires insights and data. It also requires a deeper understanding of each target account and their pain points, challenges, and goals, as well as identifying key decision-makers and influencers within the organization. Again, if you do marketing in 2024 you are most likely already doing it. However, this is an effort that the whole revenue team really has to make, as it’s not just marketing doing the heavy lifting: sales, customer success, and even operations should shift the way they work to focus more on gathering high-quality data and insights.

Now that we have the introductory steps out of the way, let’s build an effective enterprise ABM strategy.

Define what type of ABM you need to implement

Alright, let's start now.

The first thing you have to do is define what ABM approach you need to adopt. The most common ones are:

1. One-to-one ABM: you are targeting one target account and you are effectively marketing only to them. A common example is B2B companies selling to government agencies: there’s only one client, so the marketing is very tailored to them. Hyper-focused, hyper-specialized content, not scalable. This only works when your average contract value (ACV) is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars at a minimum.
2. One-to-few ABM: you are targeting a small, very well defined group of companies within a specific vertical. This is the textbook definition of ABM, where your target accounts are homogenous enough to be able to market to them in a very personal and tailored way, while still being useful to a few buying committees.
3. One-to-many ABM: if you are targeting many potential buyers you’re not doing ABM. Scale is the opposite of ABM.

Step 1: Identify and prioritize target accounts

Your sales team may already have a list of accounts they want to target. This is great! Otherwise go through the companies in your CRM: I’m 100% sure you have already added some companies you wanted to close. Start from this list and work together with sales to identify the ones you want to prioritize.

One trick I recommend: during your sales & marketing alignment meetings, agree on a set of metrics that each account has to satisfy in order to be included in your target list. Some common metrics I consider for a first, high-level draft:

• vertical
• geography
• revenue

If you sell software, try to include targets that are already spending money on a solution like yours. If you are a property company, company size might be a good metric to understand their probable office needs (bonus points: Hubspot offers a ready-made property for this!). Are you trying to increase net new logos this year? Only include companies that are aligned with your objective. Agree on a set of metrics and stick to the data.

Let me stress this again: sales and marketing should work together on a list of metrics the target companies have to fulfill. There is no room for “but I really want to add this one company because I trust that Sam can close them this quarter”.

The largest list I have personally seen was made of over 3.000 companies, but if you have a small marketing team (or no team at all) and one/two salespeople then it will be tough. If you need extra help with your ABM campaigns, my company Fixmade can help you scale your ABM efforts. Send me an email.

Otherwise, my recommendation is to start small and eventually add new target accounts as you see fit.

At this point the theory is to rank these target companies.

I personally believe it makes sense to do this only if you are going after very large companies, each of which takes up a lot of your sales and marketing bandwidth.

A good rule of thumb for me is this: if a buying committee has an average size of more than ten individuals, it probably makes sense to rank the target companies and prioritize those with the highest potential. Otherwise, I believe you can avoid spending time ranking them.

If you rank your target accounts, this is how you do it

Building a scoring model helps marketing and sales stay aligned on what accounts to prioritize. I personally do this:

I create a scoring system, from 0 to 10. The higher the score, the best the target account. This scoring system measures two things: the account's fit and the account’s engagement. Each aspect gets max 5 points.

• Fit Score (max 5 points): it measures how well an account matches your ideal customer profile. This is as data-driven as possible, so use the data you have already gathered: industry, company size, revenue, etc.
• Engagement Score (max 5 points): it reflects the interactions and behavior associated with the account, gauging interest level and buying intent. Check the buying committee: are they vocal about the problem you are trying to solve? Are they active on social media? Do they already pay for a similar solution? This is a more qualitative score, so do this together with sales.

In the end, account scoring should reflect the sales-readiness of each account. The higher the score, the most promising a target account is. This is an ongoing process: even after you have started marketing to them, you should always evaluate how each account (and the contacts within each account) are responding to your activity and adjust your scoring system to reflect this. Try to review them at least every 4-6 weeks.

Step 2: Gather data on your target accounts and their personas

I assume you have already defined your customer personas. Now it’s time to map the most relevant individuals within these accounts. You obviously need to understand who the people with decision-making power are, but also who influences their decisions and who they consult with when they make a purchasing decision. You have to know as much as possible about these stakeholders, too.

The first tool to use to acquire information is obviously LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Clearbit is a great data platform for B2B, I use it for prospecting and I love it. Leadspace is a very popular tool for finding and ranking target accounts.

There are software products that are specifically designed for ABM. Two of them stand out: Demandbase and 6sense. They both offer go-to-market tools, an advertising platform and data enhancement for B2B companies. (I don’t get paid for promoting these tools).

I have used both and I like Demandbase way better than 6sense, but your mileage may vary.

Now, once you uncover information on your stakeholders (contact details, but also their jobs, their priorities, their headaches), you should consolidate everything into your CRM of choice. I use Hubspot.

Hubspot has a great ABM tool that allows you to define your target accounts, define different buying roles within each target account, set up account scoring and visualize ready-made ABM reports. By the way, Hubspot has recently acquired Clearbit, so you will probably see your CRM automatically enrich your target account with all the available company data. Pretty neat!

Regardless of the tool, the most important part of this exercise is to understand who you need to target within an account. I have previously mentioned the expression “buying committee” for a reason: in enterprise sales processes, it’s never only one person who gets to decide to purchase a product like yours.

There are most certainly people with decision-making power, and people who don’t have decision-making power but can influence the buying process. Your job is to identify who they are and add them to your CRM. This is as much an art as it is a science, and you probably won’t be able to map the org chart correctly for all your accounts. This is normal. As you discover more about your targets, you will be able to improve your data.

As with everything else in this guide, sales must be driving this, too. Think about it: in most B2B organizations, they already do discovery. It’s the same in ABM.

The reason why I insist on sales and marketing doing ABM together is that sales really is an integral part of ABM.

Step 3: Map your existing content and plan what to do next

Here we are. We’re once again talking about content.

If you follow me, you know I have strong opinions on content. I believe content is the most powerful force in marketing. It helps CEOs and marketing leaders build trust and authority. It helps individuals build a personal brand, and it helps companies build a qualified pipeline. It is the reason my first hire at both Defigo and Fixmade was a content marketer.

The challenge with B2B marketing is that it’s more difficult to build valuable content. In ABM even more so. If all you write is bullshit, customers and prospects see right through it.

The key to win deals is to write high-quality, valuable content that helps your target audience be successful at their job.

Content is not necessarily only written. When you are running a webinar, you are also producing content. When you are hosting a panel discussion, you’re producing content.

In ABM you need to make a ton of content, for two reasons:

1. buying journeys are very long. It takes months – in some cases, years - to close a target account. In some cases, sales is more about relationship building than the usual “lead → MQL → SQL → deal closed” motion. Content is what helps your brand stay top of mind and your sales team engage with target accounts for a long period of time.
2. you will be doing a lot of advertising. Online ads are an important part of an ABM strategy. The problem is that you’re targeting a relatively small, well-defined list of target individuals. In most cases, you have build this list using third party tools like Apollo or Zoominfo. When you advertise to such a small audience, you will exhaust the list very quickly, and you will cause ad fatigue. The only way to combat ad fatigue is content: if you serve your target audience white papers, webinars, panel discussions, customer interviews, and why not?, the occasional demo ad when they show higher intent, you can continue serving them ads without fear of tiring them.

When you are crafting your go-to-market strategy, you should review the content you have already made. Does it make sense to repurpose it? Should you make a copy for each specific buyer persona or should you keep it as it is?

You can map out what your funnel looks like, what your current gaps are in terms of content, and where in the funnel your existing content shines.

I won’t dwell on the content you are yet to make. I have written a guide here: you can use it a starting point, but I’m happy to chat with you if you have any questions or doubt.

This marks the end of the first part of this deep-dive.

The second part of this deep-dive is at this link. My newsletter subscribers got it one month before everyone else. I write one essay a month and you can subscribe anytime. If you are a B2B CEO or a marketing leader, you should consider subscribing.