Research from the LinkedIn B2B Institute and Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute argues that only 5% of B2B buyers are in the market to buy at any given time ↗. If that is roughly right, most of the companies you want as customers are not ready today, and a campaign built around "book a demo" ignores almost all of them.
Account-based marketing, or ABM, is the response. You choose the companies you most want, and you direct marketing and sales effort at them on purpose, so that you are known when they start looking. It has a reputation as an enterprise tactic, because large vendors run it with big teams and dedicated platforms. The core method needs neither. It needs a short list, a clear message and a way for marketing and sales to work from the same information.
For a founder-led team there is a second benefit. You cannot spread yourself across every possible buyer. A short list forces you to decide who you are really for.
CHOOSING ACCOUNTS YOU CAN SERVE WELL
The target list decides whether the rest works, and a weak list wastes every later step.
Begin with the customers you already have. Look at the ones who bought quickly, stayed and would recommend you, and write down what they share: industry or niche, company size and stage, the problem that made them buy, the role that championed the purchase, and the trigger that made it urgent, such as a new hire, a funding round or a change of regulation. That is your ideal customer profile. With only a few customers, say so and treat the profile as a hypothesis. Messaging alignment is the work of testing that hypothesis, and it pays to do it before ABM, not after.
Then build the list in three layers. The first is fit: does the company match the profile? Build this list from your CRM, LinkedIn Sales Navigator or a public directory. The second is a reason to act, meaning a visible trigger such as new leadership, hiring in the relevant team, a product launch or a public statement about the problem you solve. The third is access. A warm path through someone you or your network knows beats a cold one.
Intent signals beyond firmographics goes into which signals matter. You can capture many of them without paying for a data feed: pricing page visits, repeated visits from one company, replies to earlier campaigns and event attendance.
Finally, show the draft to whoever sells. They know which accounts are dead ends, which have a champion and which have a bad history with you. The review costs an hour and saves weeks. In a founder-led team the founder is often both marketer and seller, so use the review to be honest about where you have real access.
TIERS MATCH EFFORT TO VALUE
You cannot give every account the same attention. Split the list into three tiers, and let accounts move between them.
| Tier | Size | Approach |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 | A handful of accounts | Custom research, tailored message, personal outreach, possibly a custom asset |
| 1:few | Small groups with a shared problem | A message and asset built for the group, personalized in the first lines |
| 1:many | The rest of the list | Light-touch ads and content, with a path to move up a tier when engagement rises |
Promote an account when it shows interest and demote it when it does not. Expect the list to change every quarter.
A useful test for tier 1: can you say what is different about this account's message? If you cannot, the account belongs in tier 2. Keep tier 1 small enough that the founder can write each message by hand. A simple promotion rule also helps. When two or more people from one account engage within the same week, move it up a tier and tell the account owner the same day.
RESEARCHING A TIER-1 ACCOUNT IN TWENTY MINUTES
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FOUR PLAYS, AND WHICH TWO TO RUN FIRST
A play is a short, repeatable set of actions aimed at one type of account. A small team does better with a few good plays than with a full calendar.
Business purchases are decided by a group, and many stall along the way. The proposal-to-signature guide covers the Forrester research on this. It makes the buying group, not one lead, the target, so each play should reach more than one role at the account.
The first play is relevant ads to a named list. Upload your account list or build a matched audience on LinkedIn, and run a small campaign that speaks to the problem for each role. Keep spend modest and the message specific. Offer something useful, such as a short guide, a checklist or a benchmark, instead of a demo request.
The second is founder-led personal outreach, for tier 1 accounts. The founder or a senior person writes to the decision maker. The message should refer to something real: a public statement, a hire, a problem common to their sector. Follow with a useful resource and a clear, low-pressure ask.
The third is a cluster asset for a 1:few group. Build one useful asset for the shared problem: a short report, a calculator, a worked example or a recorded walkthrough. Send it to several roles, with a short note for each that explains why it matters to them.
The fourth is a warm follow-up on engagement. When a target account visits your pricing page, replies to an email or opens several messages, the account owner follows up within a day. Use first-party signals like these before you buy anything. The lead scoring pipeline shows how to automate the scoring and the alert when you are ready.
Our advice is to run two plays well before you add a third. The founder outreach and the cluster asset need the least tooling, and together they cover both ends of the list. Ads can wait until the message has been tested in conversations, because ads magnify a message and do not fix it.
Whatever you run, the same account should see one story across ads, email, social posts and calls. If the ads say one thing and the sales call says another, the buyer notices. Agree the core message and the proof points before the first play begins.
RULES MARKETING AND SALES AGREE ON
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MEASURING AT THE ACCOUNT LEVEL
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WHEN ABM IS THE WRONG MOVE
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THE FIRST NINETY DAYS
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