In this installment of our Level Up webinar series, we’re moving from conceptual ABM strategies to a real-world success story.
6sense’s Director of Digital Marketing Kyle Dugan was joined by a panel to talk about Flexential’s collaborative ABM effort that yielded impressive results.
- Ashley Hirschbek, Director of Demand Generation at Flexential
- Kim Johnston, VP, Revenue Marketing at Flexential
- Hope Waggoner, Associate Team Director, Media Strategy at ROI·DNA
- Surj Gish, Managing Director at ROI·DNA
Let’s get right to the good stuff.
Setting the Stage: Flexential’s ABM Challenge
Flexential’s goal was to sell a particular combination of products from their portfolio to a previously untapped market segment. This wasn’t just a slight pivot; it required a complete reimagining of their marketing approach:
- Understanding the new target audience: How big was this new market? What were their specific pain points and triggers?
- Identifying the buying team: While similar to their typical ICP, there were significant nuances that needed to be understood and leveraged.
- Using existing success: Flexential had customers who had already purchased this product combination, providing valuable insights to build upon.
- Incorporating partner ecosystems: The sales cycle often involved third-party partners, adding another layer of complexity to the marketing strategy.
- Racing against time: With a longer sales cycle anticipated, the team needed to move quickly to see results within the fiscal year.
This scenario served as an opportunity to implement a robust ABM strategy to engage these accounts, requiring close collaboration between marketing, sales, and partners. Recognizing the complexity of this challenge, Flexential partnered with ROI·DNA — a B2B marketing agency specializing in digital strategies and ABM execution — and used 6sense’s powerful ABM platform to drive their campaign.
We previously introduced our five-step ABM formula; now we’ll see firsthand how to put it into practice.
Step 1: Selecting the Best Accounts
Flexential used 6sense to create an initial broad list of potential accounts, starting with a solid foundation based on firmographics and technographics. They applied filters and criteria to refine the list. Ashley said, “We made sure that we had internal conversations about which former customers and the criteria within that cohort that would be viable for this particular product set and offering.”
The team also ensured an even distribution of accounts across sales territories, proportional to each territory’s pipeline goals. This strategic allocation helped to maintain alignment between marketing efforts and sales objectives.
Once the final list was curated, it was loaded into 6sense. “That’s when the magic happens,” Ashley said. “6sense’s predictive model can take that final list and categorize it by buying journey stage — and that allows us to do all of our great campaign work.”
Step 2: Knowing About the Accounts
With target accounts selected, Flexential needed to dive deeper into the behaviors and journeys of those accounts.
Ashley said, “We spent weeks and multiple collaborative sessions internally looking at the buying cycle and persona maps of these accounts, looking at patterns, key pain points, and triggers.”
The team used comprehensive intent data from 6sense to gain insights into:
- What accounts were researching
- What messaging resonated with them, and
- Where they were in their buying journey
“There are a range of variables at play for a cohort and a product area: know how they buy, how long it typically takes them to buy those solutions, how they research, who they play with, who they buy from, etc.,” Ashley said. “And that’s going to help you meet the prospects where they are in their journey.”
Step 3: Engaging Accounts the Right Way
Game time. The engagement phase focused on creating highly personalized, high-value experiences for target accounts across multiple channels.
Hope said, “This is where Flexential really looked to ROI·DNA and we started to partner on how to create that high-value experiences to make sure that all of the work we did for understanding our key accounts and their buying stages wouldn’t fall flat once we hit them in the market.”
The team developed a multi-faceted approach to engagement, which entailed:
- Updating the website and UX strategy to speak directly to two key audience segments.
- Developing an elaborate content strategy with creative and copywriting tailored specifically to this campaign.
- Using conversational marketing for real-time, personalized interactions with target accounts.
- Implementing an email nurture program tailored to specific buying stages and channels.
- Ensuring content was optimized for search to increase visibility to target accounts actively researching solutions.
- Using 6sense intent data to develop a sophisticated paid media strategy across multiple channels.
Flexential and ROI-DNA aligned engagement strategies with 6sense’s buying stages, from target through purchase.
“We’ve been able to have a really strong partnership with content syndication partners to pull in 6sense buying stage information so we can make everything dynamic, and everything moves quickly,” Hope said. “If an account is moving from awareness all the way to decision, we’re updating our accounts in real time to make sure we’re hitting that account at the time that it’s needed.”

Step 4: Collaborating with Sales
Tight alignment between Flexential’s marketing and sales teams made sure that the ABM campaign’s momentum translated into tangible business results.
Kim said, “We kept the love alive. On a monthly basis, we hosted a session with all the sales leaders and their people in regional pockets across the U.S.”
These regular touchpoints served multiple purposes:
- Campaign progress updates: The team shared the latest developments and results from the ABM campaign.
- Account insights: Using 6sense data, marketing provided sales teams with up-to-date information on target accounts’ engagement and buying stage progression.
- Content briefings: Sales teams were kept informed about new content assets they could use in their outreach efforts.
Kim and her team also provided regular 6sense email digests to help sales executives hone their target activities that week.
Open communication has yielded positive results for the ABM initiative. Ashley said, “Our sales teams have been extremely excited about early and longer-term results and the trajectory that we’re on. It certainly pays to have partners and advocates in the sales org who share excitement for these programs.”
Step 5: Tracking Real Stuff
The final step in the ABM formula is to measure campaign effectiveness. Flexential takes a comprehensive approach to tracking results.
Hope explained, “We’re measuring that ABM impact by marrying the awesome data that 6sense has with what we’re seeing in [Google Analytics], Salesforce, and Marketo for that full story.”
There were three key areas of focus for measurement:
- Buyer Journey Progression: Tracking how accounts moved through the 6sense buying stages.
- Marketing Engagement: Measuring how target accounts interacted with various marketing touchpoints.
- Down Funnel Impact: Analyzing how ABM efforts translated into pipeline and revenue.
Hope shared the remarkable results achieved from the three-month campaign:
- 77% of accounts moved out of the target phase and progressed forward
- 72% account click-through rate
- 23% increase in pipeline
- 101% increase in closed-won from this account list
Surj credits these numbers to the work done upfront — and says it’s a bit of a waiting game. “You can see how Ashley and Kim are working with their internal teams to get the foundation in place,” he said. “When you get it right, then you need to have patience to let it grow a little bit.”
Evaluating the data didn’t only demonstrate the success of Flexential’s campaign but also provided valuable insights for continuous improvement and optimization of its ABM strategy.
Conclusion
Flexential’s ABM success story showcases the power of a well-executed, data-driven strategy in driving significant business results. Their experience serves as a blueprint for organizations looking to harness the potential of ABM and drive meaningful growth.