LAST UPDATED: JULY 2026

OVERVIEWPART 1 · GET FOUND

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MSP Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

This page is about which accounts to prioritize and how to coordinate marketing and sales around them. For the tactical execution of the outreach itself, see Outbound Prospecting.

What This Is

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) means concentrating marketing and sales effort on a specific, named list of high-value target accounts rather than a broad audience. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping to catch good leads, you pick the companies you most want as clients and build effort around reaching the decision-makers at each one.

Why It Matters for MSPs

Marketing and sales are both part of growing an MSP, but ABM sits closer to sales than marketing. It is a coordinated, account-by-account effort aimed at named companies, not a campaign aimed at an audience.

The guide teaches marketing in full. It does not teach sales process, because that is a distinct discipline with its own dedicated resource, linked below.

Getting Started

The Marketing and Sales Hand-off

Where marketing hands off to that sales process: your Jackdaw Report's competitive analysis and battle cards are the marketing deliverable built to feed directly into ABM conversations.

They arm a rep with the specific competitive facts a targeted campaign needs to speak directly to one account's situation.

Resources for the Sales Process

For the complete sales process this feeds into, see Fox & Crow Group's MSP Sales Process system map.

For the account-research and qualification process ABM depends on, see the MSP Sales Discovery Masterclass.

Workbook: Try This Now

Build a named target account list before coordinating any outreach

ABM is about concentrating marketing effort on specific, named companies rather than broad audiences. The starting point is having a real, written list of target accounts — not a general profile of the type of company you want.

How many specific, named target accounts are on your active list today?10 or more named accounts with a plan for each5–9 named accounts I'm actively trackingA few names in my head but nothing written downNo active target account list at all

What personalization materials do you have (or would you have) for outreach to a specific target account?Industry-specific case studies or client outcomes in their verticalCompliance or regulatory facts specific to their industryKnowledge of who their current IT provider is and where that provider is weakA specific business trigger event for that company (growth, move, compliance deadline)Nothing specific — outreach would be generic

How aligned are your marketing and sales activities around the same target account list?Tightly aligned — marketing and sales are targeting the same named accountsLoosely aligned — roughly same direction but not account by accountNot really aligned — marketing and sales are targeting different audiencesNot relevant — it's just me doing both

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Related Lessons

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