Bringing B2B Best Practices to Government Marketing

A year ago, I transitioned from the commercial B2B world to join Fortune 500 mission integrator SAIC on a journey to make ABM a reality in a brand-new marketing function. I started from scratch, and you can too. 

If you’re in that same place—ready to build an ABM program where none existed—this article is your guide.

While ABM is well established in commercial B2B, it’s still emerging in the government space. This means it can be a real differentiator, since few are doing it at scale.

Yes, this is a sector with traditionally longer lead times, heavy regulations, and complex buying committees, but the fundamentals don’t change. ABM works because it is principle-driven, not sector-driven. It’s about understanding the customer deeply, aligning your strengths to their challenges, and telling a compelling, solution-oriented story that resonates.

Build a (flexible) foundation

I was fortunate to come into an organization whose leadership was supportive of ABM and willing to invest in the foundation building when it came to people, process, and tools. That support made it possible to build momentum quickly.

But leadership buy-in isn’t enough to drive results—you need buy-in at the account level. Those are the people who are at the front lines with the customer. And that takes time. Do all you can to get smart on the business needs and adapt to where they are. Early flexibility builds trust and helps you get quick wins. 

Picking the right accounts is critical. Focus on those with growth opportunities and where marketing can influence outcomes. Look for accounts where there are opportunities to expand work both by deepening engagement with current customers you have regular access to and positioning your organization to new prospects.

Even then, the most important element is stakeholder partners who will engage openly, share information, and be willing to try new marketing tactics they’ve never used before. Without that openness and collaboration, even the most strategic account won’t see ABM success.

Metrics matter—not just to prove ABM’s value, but to keep you on track. Start with a small set of key metrics and build from there. Analysis paralysis is real, and when you’re building something new, chasing every possible data point will only slow you down. Trust me, I’m a data lover—that kind of restraint is a skill worth practicing.

Be ready to support the mindset shift

If your organization is new to having ABM (or even a formal marketing function, in my case!), you might not have basics like CRM tracking of customer journeys in place. You may have to demonstrate the value of having that data and how it helps the larger enterprise, not just marketing.

Teams may not be used to working with marketing strategically, and ABM can often be the first time account teams see marketing as a growth partner versus a “support shop.” In my case, past marketing activities leaned more transactional, so shifting to ongoing conversations around customer perceptions, goals, and challenges was a true culture shift.

Don’t be surprised if you hit some resistance when introducing new tactics. Trust with an account team doesn’t come immediately, but that doesn’t mean waiting. Make it super easy to partner with you and show them that their goals are your goals.

In our case, during a special government celebration week, one of my ABM leads suggested sending customers a brief note recognizing their service. To us in marketing, it seemed like an obvious win, but the account team hesitated because they hadn’t done anything like that before. But as heartfelt responses from the customers started to roll in, we won the team over just a bit more.

Partner to help all the boats rise

Just as partnership is critical for success with our customers, partnership is also critical for success in ABM—so find your champions. Every organization will have early advocates within the business, BD/sales, and program teams. Help them shine, and they’ll also help you. Ask them to send a testimonial or co-present with them–it’s far more powerful for teams to hear from their peers that ABM works than just from you. 

ABM is customer-centric; in fact, at SAIC, our ABM capability is actually called customer-centric marketing, and that mindset benefits the whole enterprise. Look for ways to scale its impact. For example, we partnered with BD to expand our customer relationship metric from a 3-point to a 7-point scale—giving richer, more granular insight and enabling teams to more easily see their improvement. Those deeper insights are also key when modeling future account growth—especially as we layer in AI.

Show, don’t just tell 

People need to see it to believe it, especially when ABM is new. I presented the vision often, but it only started clicking once I showed real examples. And once teams experience it firsthand? Then you’re really off to the races.

As a marketing function evolving beyond brand, we had to ‘market marketing’, helping teams understand how ABM differs from other areas of marketing and communications and how it can help them. It wasn’t about stopping what we were doing before; it was about thinking differently and augmenting our approach.

This has been especially important as travel budgets have tightened and tradeshow attendance dropped—something that has been happening not just in government, but across industries. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket (or channel). When you do attend a tradeshow, think about how to extend its impact—can you bring insights back to customers who couldn’t attend, translating what you heard into something meaningful for them?

These are perfect instances for ABM to shine, showing up in a highly personalized way that speaks directly to customer challenges.

The journey is key to getting you to the destination

My advice for anyone building ABM in an organization, regardless of industry, is to meet the business where they are. Even if you know the destination, you have to bring others along on the journey.

And celebrate the small wins, because they add up to big progress. Our team has “glimmers” as a standing item on our weekly team agenda. It keeps morale high through the inevitable highs and lows of building something new, reminding everyone how far we’ve come and motivating us to keep going. 

After all, ABM is a state of mind, and there are always new opportunities ahead.