TL;DR:
Engage every account on a list they couldn’t afford to miss
A finite list of 18 enterprise accounts in a market that had heard every compliance pitch going. We engaged all 18, booked meetings at 150% of target, and opened the door to the next regulatory cycle.
18 of 18 named accounts engaged
6 discovery meetings, 150% of target
$268k pipeline from the first opportunity
3 accounts now in active expansion
Challenges
In this market, change is the only constant. New regulator protocols, shifting compliance rules, tighter expectations, all of it landing on the same teams year after year. The client’s platform absorbed that change, so customers didn’t have to rebuild their systems every time the rules moved.
The problem was never the offer. It was that the whole category was making noise about compliance, and the accounts that mattered were a tiny, finite group. Get it wrong with one of them and there wasn’t another fifty waiting behind it.
We had one shot.
We needed net-new conversations inside a named list of large enterprise accounts. Not leads. Conversations with the right people, about a problem they already had, with a countdown to when compliance was due.
A handful of accounts, no room for waste
The addressable market was small and known. Every account counted, so spray-and-pray was off the table from day one.
Real regulation and compliance fatigue
These buyers had heard every compliance pitch going. Standing out meant saying something sharper than “we’ll keep you compliant,” which is what everyone says.
The pain was buried inside core systems
Every change meant touching critical systems: costly rework, tied-up capital, skilled people stuck on maintenance instead of the work that moves the business. That was the nerve we needed to hit.
Our Approach
This is where our services earn their keep. The Plan works out who to chase and why. The Pursuit goes and chases them. Same team builds the strategy and runs it, so nothing falls through the gaps.
1.
A tight, named account list
With a small addressable market, account selection was everything. We built the list with the client, scored it, and tiered it. No filler.
2.
Buying committee mapping
We mapped the committee inside each account and went wide, up to twelve contacts per account across IT leadership, market operations, finance and procurement. These decisions touch a lot of people, so we planned to reach a lot of people.
3.
Messaging built on the real pain
We skipped the tired compliance line. The campaign led with what actually hurts: the cost and risk of embedding every market change inside core systems, and the people it ties up. The theme framed the client as the way to stay ready for whatever’s coming, instead of scrambling each time the rules change.
4.
A direct mail piece they couldn’t ignore
Top accounts got a direct mail piece built around staying a step ahead. Not a logo mug. Something unexpected enough to open, talk about and remember, and it gave the SDR an opening that wasn’t “just following up.”
5.
Every account saw its own world reflected back
Every account got a personalised industry report and a dedicated landing page, backed by deep research into what each account was struggling with. LinkedIn and display ads warmed accounts in the background, promoting blog assets and downloads specific to the use case. By the time someone engaged, nothing about our outreach felt generic.
6.
We stopped pitching the product, and meetings went up
We aimed outreach at IT leadership and operations, not the C-suite who tend to stall at this stage. The receptive buyer sat a level down, closest to the pain, so that’s where we pointed the effort across email, phone, LinkedIn and SMS. And we led with the market, not the platform: what was changing, what it meant, what good looked like, with the product coming up only once the problem was on the table. SMS was the channel that broke through the strongest.
The Results
A small, named list is the hardest test in ABM. Nowhere to hide, no volume to average out a weak effort. We set out to engage all 18 accounts. We did.
Every named account engaged. Most went deep, real conversations with our SDR rather than a single opened email, and across the 18 accounts we opened 41 genuine conversations with the people who have a stake in fixing the problem. Meetings landed at 150% of target.
We’ll be straight about the commercial picture, because this is an enterprise regulatory sale and those move on their own clock. One opportunity was directly attributed to the campaign, worth $268k. But the bigger outcome is position: the client grew its footprint inside these accounts and is now in active conversations with three of them about the next regulatory change coming down the line. On a finite list this valuable, that’s what winning looks like, you don’t need fifty deals, you need to be the one they call when the rules move again.
18 out of 18
every named account engaged
6 meetings
discovery booked (150% of target)
3 accounts
now in active expansion
+$268k
pipeline from the first opportunity
An enterprise software provider with a compliance and market-operations solution that helps utilities keep pace with constant regulatory change without rebuilding their core systems.
Industry:
Enterprise Software
Regulation & Compliance
Target Accounts:
Large enterprise utilities
