ABM Strategy: How to Build One in 7 Steps
Short answer. An ABM strategy is a written plan for winning a named set of accounts. Build one in seven steps: confirm your business suits ABM, assemble a cross-functional team, choose target accounts against an ideal customer profile, create content for each account, engage across channels, measure against goals, and pick technology last, never first.
Updated 15 Oct 2026.
What is an ABM strategy?
An ABM strategy is the plan that decides which accounts you pursue, who works them and how success is measured. It is the first move in account-based marketing, and it comes before any tool, because buying a platform does not make an organisation ready for account-based work. ABM concentrates effort from several departments, product, marketing, sales and customer success, on a small number of accounts. That concentration is expensive, and if the plan is wrong the organisation has spent heavily on very few accounts with nothing to show for it.
Two rules reduce that risk: write the full strategy before any campaign begins, and run the account-centric approach as an addition to your existing pipeline work rather than a replacement for it.
What are the 7 steps of an ABM strategy?
- Check readiness. Confirm your business model actually suits ABM.
- Assemble the team. Sales, marketing and customer success, with shared goals.
- Choose target accounts. Against a documented ideal customer profile.
- Create account content. Written for each account's situation, not the whole industry.
- Engage across channels. Email, social, advertising and direct outreach.
- Measure and optimise. Against the goals set in step two.
- Select technology. Last, to support the plan you have already written.
The sections below work through the steps in order.
Is your business ready for ABM?
ABM fits companies with a longer sales cycle, high-value products or services and a clear understanding of their target audience. You are ready to consider it if at least one of these is true:
- The sales cycle is long and complex, with multiple stakeholders involved because of the cost or commitment required.
- Your highest-value customers share distinct characteristics, or you have identified accounts with those characteristics and clear revenue potential.
- Your goals include expanding into a new segment, territory or vertical, or going after a competitor's customers.
- You offer several products or services and want to grow customer lifetime value through upselling and cross-selling.
Who should be on the team, and how do you choose target accounts?
Before the first campaign, assemble a core team and treat ABM as a strategic initiative. The team is cross-functional: sales, marketing and customer success, with leaders of sales and marketing involved at a minimum. Define goals together before anything ships, so every later decision can be measured against them.
Then select target accounts. Start from a documented ideal customer profile; if you do not have one, build it from factors such as company size, industry, past interactions and revenue potential. Define buyer personas as well, because every account is still made up of individuals with different roles and priorities. Sales and marketing should pick the list together, using both teams' knowledge of which accounts are most likely to convert.
What content does an ABM strategy need?
Content personalised to the account, and usually less new content than you think. Audit what you have before creating anything original: list each piece, who it was written for and which buying stage it serves. The audit shows what can be repurposed for a specific account or persona and where the real gaps are.
Then personalise by buying stage. Awareness content builds credibility with educational posts and industry reports; consideration content goes deeper with case studies, product videos and webinars aimed at the account's specific challenges; decision content persuades with testimonials, trials and demonstrations. Vary the format too, because different stakeholders inside the same account consume content differently: some read, some watch, some want something interactive. And involve sales before you write, since salespeople know which content actually helps close.
How do you engage, measure and choose technology?
No single channel carries ABM. The contacts inside an account do not all live in one place, so engage across email, social media, paid advertising and direct outreach, weighted to where your target accounts are actually active.
Measurement starts with the goals the team set at the beginning, then tracks movement towards them: engagement in target accounts, pipeline generated and deals closed. Measure content the same way, at the account level rather than by traffic. Review what is working and cut what is not.
Technology is the final step, not the first. A CRM, marketing automation and an ABM platform keep the teams in sync and make the strategy executable at scale; choose tools that integrate cleanly and support the plan you have already written.
Why this works better on named accounts
Every step above assumes one thing: a list of named accounts that sales and marketing both believe in. That is the real difference between an ABM strategy and a campaign with better targeting. When the list is named, readiness is a question you can answer, content has a specific reader, channels aim at known people and measurement counts accounts moved rather than clicks collected. Once the basics hold, the same foundation runs the proven plays: timing outreach on intent signals, expanding existing customers, winning back accounts that went quiet and turning your happiest accounts into advocates.
Frequently asked questions
What are the seven steps of an ABM strategy?
Assess whether your business model is ready for ABM, assemble a cross-functional team, identify target accounts against an ideal customer profile, create content personalised to those accounts, engage them across channels, measure and optimise against the goals you set, and select technology last to support the plan.
Do I need an ABM platform before starting ABM?
No. Buying technology before developing the strategy is the most common way to go down the wrong path. Write the strategy, agree the team and the account list first, then choose a platform that supports what you have already decided and keeps sales and marketing in sync.
What is ABM content?
ABM content is marketing content created for a specific target account or a small set of similar accounts, addressed to the stakeholders and decision-makers inside them. Most of it can be repurposed from material you already have; relevance to one named company matters more than reach across a market.
Should ABM replace our existing lead generation?
No. The account-centric approach works best as an addition to your existing pipeline sources, not a replacement. ABM deals take longer to close, so keep other forms of demand running while the named-account work matures, then shift weight as results arrive.
Keep reading
- ABM agency vs in-house team vs platform
- What is ABM in marketing? A plain-English definition
- Target Account Selection Scorecard
Want this run on your key accounts? Intandemly is an account-based selling company: the ABX platform and a consultant who work your named accounts with you. Talk to us