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Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter - read by 37,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,000 other members at exitfive.com.
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⏳ Marketing’s Biggest Time Sink (And How to Fix It)
Marketing is the most communication-heavy function in the org… yet we’re losing over 12 hours/week to busywork and misalignment.
Grammarly’s new AI & Marketing Report reveals a pretty big gap: while 86% of marketers use AI, just 5% are fluent – making it the least advanced team when it comes to using AI strategically.
The report breaks down how top teams are moving beyond basic use cases to:
- Cut down on comms overload
- Speed up content creation (without losing quality)
- Stay on-brand across every touchpoint
If you're leading a team, this shows where AI can actually make an impact—starting now.
📝 The 4D Framework for Account Based Marketing
ABM is one of those things that everyone thinks, “Oh, yeah, I could totally do that.”
…until they’re actually in it.
Which is exactly why Mason Cosby started Scrappy ABM. And after years of experience, he has developed a framework that he uses for every single program he runs.
It’s called the 4D Framework. And it will give you a clear roadmap for building a successful ABM strategy that aligns sales and marketing from day 1.
1. Data: The Foundation of Your ABM Strategy
The first component of the framework focuses on three critical questions: who are you going after, why are you reaching out, and how will you message them appropriately?
Example: When targeting partners that use SAP, your "why" might be that your SAP integration just went live and has shown massive benefits for similar companies. Your messaging would then paint a picture of the future and how you could help them.
Effective data-driven targeting requires:
- Clear identification of your target accounts
- A compelling reason for outreach
- Messaging that resonates with their specific situation
2. Distribution: Multi-Channel Engagement
How do you get information in front of our target accounts? Your distribution mix might include:
- Email campaigns
- Organic social
- LinkedIn ads
- Search ads
- Sales sequences
- LinkedIn DMs
- Webinars
- Speaking at industry events
Cosby recommends validating your messaging through unpaid channels first (email, organic social, communities) before scaling through paid channels to manage costs effectively.
3. Destination: Content Aligned to the Buyer's Journey
Where is the prospect in their journey? Your destination strategy is directly connected to the concept of an account progression model.
This progression typically includes stages like:
- Awareness: Do they know you exist?
- Initial engagement: Are they becoming problem/solution aware?
- Meaningful engagement: Are they considering you as a viable solution? Ex:
Visiting product pages, case studies, pricing page, schedule a call pages (this
is where sales should typically get involved) - Marketing qualified account
- Re-engagement
- Qualification
- Opportunity
The content you share should align with where accounts are in this progression.
Example: If a prospect was reading a blog about all the ways that community is the future of marketing, the next step content could be around how to build a community.
As they progress, you'll serve different content assets that match their current understanding and needs.
4. Direction: Tracking Progress and Success
How are you going to track and measure your ABM efforts? This is where tools like RB2B become valuable for de-anonymizing website traffic and understanding account engagement.
Direction allows you to see signals that accounts are progressing.
Once a target account has visited your site, you know they're aware of your company, so you can move on to the next stage in your account progression model.
Keep in mind this is never going to be perfect. You're looking for little signals along the way.
The takeaway: The 4D Framework is a practical roadmap for turning ABM from an overwhelming concept into a revenue driver. Start small, focus on signals rather than perfect attribution, and clearly define your Data, Distribution, Destination and Direction.
📺 UPCOMING EVENTS
🧪 [May 1st] 18 Months of B2B Marketing Experiments: What Worked, What Didn’t, And Why
Most marketing experiments don’t work. But some do—and when they hit, they hit big.
In this Exit Five Live session, Dave Gerhardt will sit down with Pranav Piyush, Co-founder of Paramark, to dig into a series of real (anonymized) campaign experiments that drove actual results across paid channels, creative, out-of-home, and more.
We’re not talking about high-level strategy or vague frameworks. We’re talking actual test hypotheses, what was tried, what worked, what didn’t – and what you can learn from it.
You’ll even get to vote on the outcomes and see how your instincts stack up.
We’ll cover:
- Real campaign experiments from the last 18 months
- What separates a good test from a random act of marketing
- How top B2B teams are using structured experimentation to drive growth
- Why most tests fail, and how to improve your odds
We’ll keep it casual, interactive, and packed with practical takeaways. Plus, we’ll save time at the end for live Q&A so you can ask your toughest questions on measurement, channels, and testing strategy.
Join Live or Get the Recording
🏢 OPEN ROLES
Who's hiring right now?
🔥 HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: Valence is hiring a Product Marketing Manager to own how they position and communicate about Nadia, an AI-powered leadership coach, across the entire buyer and user journey. The ideal candidate has 5+ years in product marketing or content-led GTM (ideally B2B SaaS), with sharp storytelling skills, a strong content portfolio, and deep empathy for enterprise buyers.
Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:
- Walnut is hiring a Senior Content and Brand Strategist
- Buddy Punch is hiring a Head of Marketing
- New North is hiring a Growth Marketing Strategist
- Clearscope is hiring a Partnerships Marketing Manager
- Overjet is hiring a Head of Growth Marketing
- Ten Speed is hiring a Senior Designer
- ATSG is hiring a Manager, Content & Brand
- Overjet is hiring a Head of Product Marketing
- Neara is hiring a Demand Generation Manager
- Great Question is hiring a Senior Demand Generation Specialist
Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it?
Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 25k+ marketers.
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