Every marketer today knows the pressure: hit hyper-growth targets while doing more with less.

Pipeline anxiety is real. Revenue teams are searching for the tactic or channel that will restore 2020-level growth, when digital sales surged and projections looked strong.

Hyper-growth may not be realistic this year. Focus instead on efficient growth.

Account-based marketing (ABX) supports efficient growth through higher conversion rates, larger contract values, and stronger customer lifetime value.

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How to build an efficient ABX program that drives real pipeline

ABX marketers own account data.

Your account data shows you exactly which accounts to target and why. Here's how to use historical data to build an ABX program that converts.

1. Take stock of your current customer base

Consider these questions:

• Where did these customers come from? (channels)

• Who were those champions of the deal closing? (personas)

• Who are the power users? (champions)

• What industry are they in? (firmographics)

• What commonality do they have across their entire tech stack? (technographics)

• Are there mutual partners across these accounts? Another extension of your sales team — companies often cut sales teams first in an economic downturn. Lean into these partners and weigh these partner channels as having a heavy impact on how to tier up your accounts. These could be solution implementors, consultants, or even technology partners (Think Gong + Snowflake’s partnership as an example). These are important to factor in as you tier your accounts.

Analyze this intent data—including team feedback—to identify your best-fit accounts.

2. Niche down to identify repeat winning opportunities

Now find the white space and replicate that success. Now, you need to find that white space and replicate the success.

A central question for this step is: How can you replicate what you’ve done well for sustainable future growth?

Narrow in on your champions.

B2B buyers want authentic relationships, not generic outreach. That's why tracking your champions matters.

Enable your team to reach prospects with context and relevance, not cold templates.

Track the champions you've already built relationships with.

Identify the champions who closed deals with you—they're your strongest buyer signal.

Past champions are 3x more likely to buy again than new prospects still evaluating fit.

On average, 20% or more of your customers (aka your raving fans) change jobs yearly.

The best way to win new business is by tapping into your relationships with current and past customers. Your brand equity follows them through each promotion and each new organization they enter.

Your impact with champions extends beyond the initial deal.

My ABM playbook for identifying past customers when they move to new jobs has made my path to closing best-fit customers one of our biggest ABX wins.

We know what success looks like for our best-fit customers. UserGems tracks when these champions move to new companies in our target accounts.

UserGems surfaces this automatically, no manual research required.

3. Align roles & responsibilities

Once you've aligned with your GTM team on target accounts, build programs to hit your revenue goals.

To function as an extension of the deal team, define clear roles and expectations upfront.

By leading with data, you’re already laying the groundwork for successful sales buy-in, which is typically one of the most challenging obstacles to overcome to get these strategies off the ground for long-lasting success.

ABX drives the process by identifying target accounts. Now get sales aligned on that list.

Align sales on which accounts get tier-one programs versus tier-two.

Two areas ensure accountability:

1. Service level agreements by departments

This can be as simple as creating SLAs (Service Level Agreements) between these departments on key metrics like:

of outbound touchpoints with key personas at account per week

• Speed to respond to inbound inquiries across target accounts

• Content creation per account, persona, etc.

2. Shared dashboards & reporting

Make account-level and contact-level data visible and accessible to everyone.

Work as a unit to pivot your strategy as needed.

Share what you learn regularly. Markets shift fast, even with solid planning.

When things don't work, say so. Transparency builds trust with your GTM partners.

4. Bonus tip

Partner channels matter. Brands that invested in partner marketing grew revenue 29% annually over the past two years.

Partnership channels operate on mutual benefit – i.e., you bring me warm accounts, and I bring you some. It’s important to make sure that both your sales organization, as well as your partner channel organizations are educated on the following:

• Your product & how it benefits your partner channel personas and best-fit accounts

• How and when is it most appropriate to bring in partners with insights or introductions to their accounts

• Ensuring partners receive credit for when and where they made an impact in your deals in your source-of-truth

Partnership channels succeed most when you treat them as mutually beneficial agreements. Make sure you’re giving them just as many warm accounts with detailed information as you are getting.

Partners prioritize vendors who deliver value consistently.

Marketers, here’s where you step in with partnerships. You can also hold them accountable to your joint marketing programs (i.e., webinars, live events, digital collateral) as this is one of the unique channels that can yield mutually beneficial goals.

Attribution for these programs can be challenging. Ensure your CRM recognizes these programs' impact and that this channel is yielding the ROI you anticipated.

During these economic headwinds, it’s important to recognize that your partners continue to see value in the partnership when reduced commissions threaten their income. Make it easy for them to work with you by partnering on thought-leadership collateral that is mutually beneficial to both audiences and easily accessible for both.

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Final thoughts: Ensure your tools can help you produce more with less

Intent data only matters if you can find it, understand it, and act on it. Your technology should make data easy to understand and act on, showing you which programs drive pipeline.