Think you’re too small for ABM? Think again
Forget the Traditional Inbound Playbook – ABM *Can* Be Your First Move
Most B2B companies follow a predictable playbook: start with inbound marketing to generate some early leads, then gradually layer in account-based marketing (ABM) over time.
And when she first joined UserGems as employee #5, Trinity Nguyen tried to do the same – but she realized pretty quickly following the HubSpot inbound marketing playbook wasn’t gonna work.
So she turned to ABM.
And 6 years later, she’s CMO and her team has it down to a science. Here’s exactly how they use ABM to scale:
Strategic Account Selection
UserGems has a total ICP of about 15,000 companies. Their deals are typically in the $25-30K range. And every quarter, they choose 500-600 accounts to target based on buying signals like:
- Past champions joining new companies
- Recent funding rounds
- Hiring patterns, etc.
Each company gets a score in Salesforce based on signals and fit and the team grabs the first 500 to tackle that quarter. Then, they get into creative.
Personalized Creative
Once they’ve chosen their target accounts, the team creates multiple versions of creative for each one – a mix of highly personalized messaging and templatized approaches with company logos:
- They create different versions based on what they think will resonate with each account
- Some creative is completely tailored to the specific company
- Others follow a one to many template but incorporate the company’s logo, for example
How exactly do they do this for 500 accounts? Canva, baby. Yep. It’s all made by real people.
Marketing-Led ADR Outreach
Unlike most companies where SDRs sit under sales, User Gems takes a different approach—ADRs (Account Development Reps) report directly to marketing.
Trinity believed so strongly in this structure that she negotiated it into her contract before joining as Head of Marketing. The goal? Full alignment between outbound efforts and demand generation.
Here’s how it works in practice:
- The team used to have regular “prospecting hours” every Friday
- ADRs would review their account list and select specific prospects
- They’d look for the same buying signals that marketing used to prioritize accounts
- Then build personalized sequences for each target
Since September, they’ve streamlined this process with AI, automating account research, prospect selection, and even email drafting. This allowed them to double ADR capacity, grow pipeline by 26%, and decrease spend by 27%—all while half the team was out on parental leave.
By keeping ADRs under marketing, UserGems eliminates the usual friction between sales and marketing, ensuring a more strategic, data-driven approach to outbound.
Multi-Channel Execution
UserGems doesn’t rely on a single channel to reach target accounts – they coordinate campaigns across multiple touchpoints:
- Personalized email outreach
- Direct calls to key decision makers
- LinkedIn outreach and targeted LinkedIn ads
- Digital ads that specifically name the prospect’s company
- Retargeting throughout the entire sales process
The Takeaway: ABM doesn’t have to be the “advanced” strategy you layer in later – it can be your core marketing motion from day one.
The key is having a systematic approach to account selection, creative development, and coordinated outreach across channels.
P.S. What do you think of SDRs/BDRs/ADRs reporting to marketing? Agree with Trinity? Thinking of writing an article on this soon and would love your take.
