π΅π»ββοΈ ABM case studies
We share ABM case studies with the key steps that you can easily replicate for your pilot ABM program
I mentioned in one of the previous newsletters that we never have seen a higher demand for ABM (account-based marketing) then now.
One of the core reasons - hitting revenue plateau and understanding that itβs not possible to fix it with the siloed teams.
The problem though is that a lot of GTM teams donβt have a prior background of executing proper ABM and make a bunch of typical mistakes that kill their programs.
Today I want to share with you several ABM case studies that can inspire you and show how simple, but aligned with the buyer journey programs, can generate pipeline and revenue.
Iβll also add use cases so you understand better how to apply these playbooks.
*All programs were orchestrated accordingly to our pilot program framework.
Before weβll dive in, a quick announcement.
Join our webinar Develop Your 2025 ABM Program in Two Weeks
During the webinar we'll show you how to plan a pilot ABM program in 2 weeks.
We'll show:
The step-by-step process you need to plan your pilot ABM program and the data you'll need to collect
Team, stack and reports to run a successful program
Examples of our account development playbooks (warm-up, nurturing and activation)
ABM Case Study #1
Use case: Running a program in a new market/vertical where you donβt have brand awareness.
Iβll begin with the case study that led to Fullfunnel.io's creation.
Our first internal ABM program generated 2 clients and 6 sales opportunities in 3 months.
Here is a step-by-step overview.
1. PROGRAM ICP.
Our ICP: Belgium B2B scale ups (Hardware / SaaS)
The reason for selecting that market was because before starting Fullfunnel.io we executed with Vladimir a successful ABM group program for 32 scale-ups from Blegium during the first lockdown.
ARR - $5mln - $10mln
ACV > $50k
Sales cycles: >180 days
Their GTM goal: expanding outside the Benelux (mainly, in North America)
2. SELECTING ACCOUNTS.
We decided to execute a campaign for the audience that was already aware of us.
We used Dealfront and Encharge (our marketing automation) to identify people who subscribed to our newsletter and were checking our "Work with us" page (high-intent page).
We also looked at accounts whose employees were following our company's page on LinkedIn and were our 1st degree connections.
3. ACCOUNT RESEARCH.
During the research, we focused on learning more about the goals and needs of target buyers by analyzing press releases, social updates, and interviews of execs.
Check this post where we show examples of practical account research:
4. WARM-UP.
At that time, we had limited knowledge about GTM challenges of our ICP and didn't know demand for ABM.
For this reason, we decided to launch a podcast and interview CEOs/CROs from target accounts about GTM challenges, root reasons behind them, and marketing and sales alignment.
Our goals were:
Connect and discuss with strategic decision-makers the challenges they face in growing B2B tech companies + what works for them.
Create unique content for LinkedIn and guest posts
Validated our ABM consulting offering by asking if a service like this makes sense to them and might be valuable.
Get connected via CEOs with senior marketing and sales leaders to discuss their GTM challenges further.
Mention the case studies we have to create a demand.
From the 21 accounts, we got a response from 16 (76%), and 9 accounts agreed to an interview (46%).
5. PERSONALIZED DIRECT MAILS.
The interviews allowed us to understand our target accounts' priorities and challenges, and identify the accounts that were a good fit with an existing need.
We decided to activate these accounts using a 1-1 personalized outreach via direct mail.
Our swag included:
100% personalized proposal with a clear plan on how to tackle their challenges with ABM including resources, budget and target metrics
QR code that redirects to a content hub with relevant case studies
Personalized gift
Results: 2 clients, 6 sales opportunities, enough funding to launch our company :)
Key takeway:
ABM doesn't require a big budget and expensive stack. Nor your pilot program should be complex and sophisticated.
ABM is about:
strategically selecting accounts that are likely to buy your product
building relationship with the buying committee group and creating internal champions
understanding the needs of your target buyers
defining accounts that are in the market or can be in the market soon
generating sales opportunities through personalized offers
GET ACCESS TO A NEW FULL-FUNNEL ABM 2.0 COURSE
What's included with the course access:Β
12 modules covering step-by-step ABM strategy development: goal decomposition, ICP, account list building, ABM team, warm-up and activation playbooks, reporting, scaling ABM and building a cohesive ABM & demand gen function.
Short explanation videos and "how to" examples. We believe it's better one time to see a practical example then listen to the theory hundreds of times.
5 orchestrated and ready-to-use ABM playbooks and a detailed explanation
Report dashboard for 4 types of ABM programs: new revenue, pipeline acceleration, expansion and churn prevention
Live case studies and examples of the campaigns we implemented with the clients of Fullfunnel.io in the past few years
17 templates to simplify your ABM strategy launch: ICP, revenue analysis, intent data tracking, account warm-up cadence, customer research, account scoring and prioritization, ABM budget planning and forecasting, account planning, reports, personalized offers, and many more.
Planning & Presenting a Pilot ABM Program to Execs and Sales Framework
Minimal viable stack recommendation and guidelines on how to use it to avoid ramping up budget and being pressured to show ROI for the purchased $50k software
ABM Case Study #2
Use case: Leveraging major industry event to engage target accounts.
We generated $375k from a pilot ABM program on LinkedIn with a client in 3 months. Here is a breakdown.
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New sales opportunities: 5
Re-engaged sales opportunity: 1
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Market and vertical: Video streaming, US
ABM team: head of product marketing + AE.
ACV (ARR): $80k
Sales cycle: 6 months
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1/ Run customer research and buyer journey exercises to identify content that matches buying committee challenges and jobs to be done.
2/ Update LinkedIn profiles of the ABM team with new "About" copy, cover, and links using a cluster value proposition.
3/ Extract, qualify, and score all accounts that fit ICP from:
*Albacross (intent data)
Accounts that signed up for one of the webinars in the past 3 month
Existing pipeline
4/ Split the buying committee engagement between Head of product -> Champions, AE -> Decision-makers.
5/ Block one hour a day for:
Posting (2x week)
Answering comments
Distributing manually the produced content
Maintain engagement workflow and connect with the target accounts
Targeting accounts with the cluster content ads
6/ When connected, ask if they plan to attend a major industry conference and book a meeting.
With the accounts that were not attending the event, run a mini-research about their video streaming trends, technologies, and challenges.
7/ Following up with accounts that were not active on LinkedIn via email and in a niche Slack community.
8/ Deliver research results through a webinar
9/ Sending a webinar recording through a content hub and sending personalized follow-ups with accounts that consumed product content in the hub.
10/ Set up personalized cluster retargeting
The program was implemented in parallel to other companyβs activities, but even with a small-time and resource investment, produced fantastic results.
The keys are:
Narrowing down focus to a specific ICP
Run customer research to identify buyer journeys and content that nurtures accounts on different journey stages
Dedicated pilot team (one marketer + one sales)
Consistent implementation of account engagement and account development playbook
ABM Case Study #3
Use case: Launching pilot ABM in the region with the strong brand presence and experienced sales team.
Our best ABM new pipeline program generated opportunities with 54% of the accounts (7 of 13).
Here are 3 pillars that made it successful.
1. Thorough account selection.
While many B2B companies create a wish list of accounts they want to generate business with, we focused on nailing down account qualification criteria.
Once we had a draft list, we sorted it by:
a) Account engagement.
What kind of engagement did every company demonstrate?
How much time did they spend on our website?
Did they check high-intent pages?
Did they sign up for our newsletter or any of the product webinars?
Did they attend our offline events?
b) Relationship with the account.
We prioritized companies where we had a great connection at any level that is close enough to the buying committee.
These connections later supported us with insider information about key initiatives and helped with introductions to decision-makers.
c) Clear key initiatives.
We proceeded with filtering accounts by analyzing public press releases, news, and interviews of stakeholders about the key initiatives related to our product (in that case, migration to cloud).
The initial list of 200 accounts was narrowed down to 13 companies.
2. Value proposition matching.
We analyzed all the key initiatives and came up with personalized solutions, not generic elevator pitches.
The "solution pitches" were also supported with case studies and documents to address all possible concerns and questions, including:
Migration process and approximate timeline
Resources need from the prospect's side
FAQ
Approximate budget
3. Creative outreach.
Instead of emailing or sending messages on LinkedIn, we sent direct mail swags including:
Printed "Solution pitch" in the format of an old newsletter
Docs I've mentioned above
QR code to the digital version which was a nice way to connect the dots with cloud migration
Warm socks with cloud print
The socks were a perfect gift because the campaign was executed in mid-fall in the Baltics region, where it was getting very cold at that time.
One important point:
Not all the opportunities were generated immediately, but in the time span of 6-9 months after the outreach.
We had great support from sales who continued nurturing the relationship and consistently stay in touch with target accounts.
Other ABM case studies
We have interviewed and documented in more detail case studies with several clients. Below are the links.
Case Study: Converting Skeptical IT Buyers with ABM (22 enterprise sales opportunities in 6 months)
Case Study: Breaking Marketing and sales silos with a pilot ABM at Cardata
ABM campaign that generated $300k in revenue: step by step case study
Account-based demand generation: a 7-figure pipeline, 9 enterprise leads, 10x ACV
Account-based marketing tactics: warm-up program with 70% reply rate
ABM case study: 5 closed won and 34 sales opportunities from a virtual summit
To your successful ABM!
Andrei & Vlad
P.S. If you need help with developing ABM strategy, getting buy-in from sales and leadership, and help with execution, book a call with us below.
Drive pipeline THIS quarter with a full-funnel ABM programs.
If any of these challenges sound familiar:
You are aligned in theory with sales but donβt do anything in practice aside from receiving wish lists from sales and sharing with them your marketing plan. In reality, you work in silos and miss the revenue targets and are being pressured by your executives.Β
You understand that your marketing and sales playbook is broken (mqls, gated content) but despite many attempts you donβt know how to fix it
Your outbound, paid ads and organic pipeline drastically decreased while CAC increased mostly because most of your market is problem unaware and not buying.
You lack brand awareness among target accounts and sales canβt get even a reply.Β
You clearly see that you're already behind your revenue targets
We can help.Β
We'll develop a custom full-funnel ABM strategy aligned with your resources, budget and stack and execute it together to drive results THIS quarter.