Instead of a marketing-led initiative, Account-Based Marketing at Snowflake starts with sales objectives. The marketing team's role is to use their channels and budget to elevate the metrics sales cares most about for their top target accounts, flipping the traditional marketing-first view.
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Treating Account-Based Marketing (ABM) as a standalone strategy is a mistake. It must be integrated with broader brand awareness and lead nurturing for the 90% of the market not currently buying. Without top-of-funnel activities, even targeted sales efforts will fall short.
ABM often fails because it's treated as a siloed marketing initiative. To be effective, it must be an "Account-Based Experience" (ABX) where marketing, sales, and operations are fully integrated to create a seamless, unified journey for the entire target account.
The "Marketing" in ABM creates resistance from non-marketing teams, pigeonholing the initiative. Using broader terms like "Account-Based Strategy" or "Account-Based Engagement" repositions it as a company-wide GTM motion, dramatically improving adoption across sales, customer success, and leadership.
To eliminate friction, Snowflake's marketing team, led by CMO Denise Pearson, abandoned MQLs. Instead, they focused solely on delivering qualified meetings for the sales team, treating sales as their primary customer whose success was paramount.
Account-Based Marketing has matured from a niche tactic for large enterprise accounts to a comprehensive framework incorporating intent data and various scales (one-to-one, one-to-few, one-to-many). It now serves as the central "glue" for go-to-market strategies, unifying disparate teams across the organization.
Instead of selling "one-to-one" or "one-to-few" ABM programs, focus on the client's specific business challenge. Frame the solution around solving that problem, which resonates with the C-suite who care about outcomes, not marketing jargon.
To prevent ABM from degrading into generic "targeted demand gen," companies like Hightouch and Snowflake enforce strict limits on the number of accounts per rep (e.g., a maximum of 20). This guardrail ensures each account receives the intimate, personalized attention that defines a true ABM strategy.
Many firms reduce Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to tactics like direct mail or targeted ads. True success requires treating ABM as a comprehensive go-to-market operating model. This means aligning the core sales process and strategy first, before implementing any technology or specific campaigns.
To overcome the perception that ABM is just a marketing initiative, leadership considered renaming it "Account-Based Selling." This simple change in terminology helps position the strategy as a sales-centric approach, emphasizing that the AE is in the driver's seat, not just receiving leads.
ABM cannot be a siloed marketing project; it must be a top-down, company-wide strategic shift. The most effective transitions occur when the CEO publicly champions the change, repositioning it as the new GTM motion for the entire business, which ensures alignment across sales, marketing, and customer success.