Hi friends - I am officially BACK from maternity leave and have room for 1 (maybe 2) new clients. Holler if you’re interested. 👋 

This week we’re kicking off the first of a four part series from the lovely and talented Corrina Owens on all things ABM (Account Based Marketing).

Corrina is a fractional ABM specialist who works with B2B SaaS companies to build and monetize ABM programs that scale. She’s one of the best marketers I know who has worked at or with some of the top brands in tech (Gong, Aptivio, Demandbase, and more).

If you haven’t heard of ABM yet…Corrina will explain it to you. And if you’ve heard of it but aren’t sure how to really ‘do it’ - she’ll cover that too.

Let’s do this.

Account Based Marketing (ABM) 101

I didn’t start my career planning to specialize in ABM. Like most marketers in B2B SaaS, I got thrown into messy handoffs, broken pipeline workflows, and eye-rolls from sales the moment I said the word “campaign.”

I quickly learned: the only way to get traction wasn’t through one-off launches or tools—it was by embedding myself in the revenue team.

→ Sitting in on territory planning

→ Joining pipeline review meetings

→ Listening to sales calls

→ Showing up in Slack like a partner, not a presenter

That’s when I stopped being “marketing” and started being part of the deal team.

So, what is ABM, really?

🚫 ABM is not a campaign.

✅ It’s a go-to-market operating model.

ABM vs traditional marketing

The real difference between traditional marketing and modern account-based marketing comes down to focus—who you’re targeting, when you’re reaching them, and why they’re relevant right now.

Traditional marketing tends to cast a wider net. Think: always-on, persona-based content distributed across multiple channels. It’s more about showing up wherever your potential buyers live, regardless of timing or readiness.

Modern ABM, on the other hand, is about precision, identifying the sliver of your total addressable market that’s not just a fit, but actively looking for a solution that you sell and then engaging them with timing, context, and intent that aligns with what they actually care about right now.

Here’s how I like to think about it:

• Total Addressable Market (TAM) = everyone who could buy from you

• Total Relevant Market (TRM) = who might likely buy from you right now

ABM = how you act on that TRM window of opportunity. 👆️ 

For example:

Say you sell a point solution for government agencies to streamline CRM workflows. Your TAM might include every federal contractor at agencies of a certain size. But if you know an agency is in the middle of implementing a new CRM (like Salesforce), that’s a signal. That’s when you can be intentional about surfacing the right content, activating the right channel, and pulling in the right reps for that particular account.

I always say: ABM is just as much about who you're targeting as it is who you are not.

When you’re working with a finite budget and finite sales capacity, it’s just as important to disqualify low-fit accounts as it is to prioritize the right ones.

When does ABM make sense?

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think ABM is just for enterprise targets. I’ve helped companies run lean, high-performing ABM motions across smaller deal sizes as well —but it does shine most when:

• You’re moving upmarket

• Your ACV is $50K+

• Your sales cycle is long or multi-threaded (ie multiple decision makers)

That’s when it makes the most sense to align tightly across Marketing, Sales, and CS—and build programs that flex as part of a full GTM motion. 

ABM is a strategy - not a tool or tech stack

There are a whole host of ABM specific software providers out there but it’s important to understand that ABM is not a tool or tech stack implementation.

It’s an operating model. It’s a strategic way of ‘going to market’.

When ABM doesn’t work, it’s almost never because of the tech you’re using (or not using), and almost always because the company:

• Doesn’t know who their ICP is (or can’t agree)

• Doesn’t have a consistent sales process

• Can’t break out of team silos

In fact, I recently had a marketing head of a $12.7 million SaaS company say:

“We’re kind of idiots when it comes to ABM… maybe don’t include that in the recording.”

And after just 30 minutes of chatting, they saw it differently:

 “This is very helpful. It’s a relief to hear someone validate ABM as a good idea.”

ABM isn’t magic. But when you align your team around the true revenue impact—not vanity metrics—and stop expecting a tool to do the strategy for you, it can become the most powerful GTM motion in your playbook.

Next week, we’ll dive into how to build your first ABM motion using what you already have—your CRM, a spreadsheet, and one or two buying signals. 😉 

See ya there!

Want to learn more about how I help startups increase their revenue by 150-590%? 👀 

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With love and gratitude,