Account-based marketing strategy · September 2026

The ICP is set. The motion to work it isn't.

TRG already knows exactly who to target: a disciplined, hand-screened list of accounts entering their first out-of-home transition. What's still ahead is building the account-based marketing motion itself, the signal monitoring, scoring, and always-on outreach that lets TRG scale past what one founder can cover on the phone.

PREPARED FOR MICHAEL BRADY & NEAL GORENFLO · THE RESIZE GUYS
1,500Screened target accounts
~100Showing a live signal today
$125KAverage client lifetime value
JAN '27Target launch for the ABM push
Section 01 · The moment

Referrals got you Spotify and DoorDash. They won't get you the next ten.

01

Referrals worked. Referrals don't scale.

Growth has come from referrals and organic account expansion. No dedicated salesperson, no outbound infrastructure sits underneath it.

02

The list is built. Nobody's reading it.

1,500 accounts hand-screened against hard criteria and OOH-transition signals. Roughly 100 are lit up right now and nothing is reaching them.

03

The signals are known. They're tracked by hand.

New CMO hires, agency changes, funding rounds, rebrands: the criteria already exist. There's no system watching for them at scale.

04

Two accounts can't be the whole plan.

Revenue concentration has eased from roughly 80/20 to 60–70/30–40, and the direction needs an engine behind it, not just time.

The close rate isn't the problem On a quoted opportunity, TRG closes 50%. On repeat business, that jumps to 72%. The system converts when the account is right. The gap isn't sales skill, it's reaching the right 100 out of 1,500 before someone else does.
Section 02 · The campaigns

Two ICPs. One signal-driven engine.

ICP 01 · Existing 1,500-account list

In-House Brand Marketing Leaders

"The OOH-transition brand"
Primary growth engine
Why it works

Reaching them the moment a real OOH-transition signal fires means the message lands exactly when they're already thinking about the problem. This is already happening in real time: TRG has four AI-sector OOH projects launching this week alone, live proof the signal is firing today, not someday.

Who we reach
  • Titles: CMO, VP Marketing, VP Brand, Chief Creative Officer, Director of Brand Marketing
  • Companies: $100M+ revenue, independent, consumer-facing, no history of financial distress
How we run it
  • Signal monitoring across the full 1,500-account list, personalized outreach the moment one fires
  • New CMO/CCO hire or Series C+ funding as the primary trigger, agency-of-record change counted only when stacked with another signal
  • Cold email as the beachhead, warm-call follow-up on every interested reply
ICP 02 · Lookalike expansion

In-House Brand Marketing Leaders

"The next 1,500"
Primary growth engine, expansion
Why it works

These accounts were never surfaced by TRG's manual research, so the message is genuinely new to them, with zero outbound fatigue from this angle.

Who we reach
  • Titles & companies: same profile as ICP 01, modeled off the existing list by firmographic and signal similarity
How we run it
  • Lookalike modeling run against the 1,500 to size the expansion, projected to reach up to 3,000 accounts, roughly 200 timing-based at any moment instead of 100
  • Rebrand, production hiring surge, or first-time OOH signals as the trigger
  • Same signal stack applied to the new list from day one
DECLINED, NOT DEFAULTED

A third ICP, advertising and media agencies, was on the table and both of you turned it down directly: Michael called it a dilution of effort, Neal agreed. Left out of Phase I on purpose. The existing agency relationship channel keeps running as-is, it's just not something this engine chases.

Section 03 · Signals, the difference-maker

Not a colder list. A smarter one, every morning.

The account list already tells you who. The signal stack tells you when. We monitor the real-world moments an account is about to need production help, and reach out at exactly that moment, personalized, not blasted.

01
New CMO/CCO 90-Day Play
Strongest when the hire carries OOH experience and the company itself has no OOH track record, they have the belief but not the infrastructure. Reach inside their first 90 days.
02
Agency-of-Record Change
A routine rebid alone isn't a strong signal on its own. Combined with a digital-to-omnichannel shift, a new agency needing OOH production capability, it's a real one.
03
Funding-for-Growth Signal
Series C+ rounds earmarked for customer acquisition.
04
Production Hiring Surge
Job postings in media buying, production, creative production, or OOH specifically.
05
Rebrand/Refresh Signal
Name, logo, or identity changes signaling a "coming out" moment.
You choose who makes contact
  • Dream accounts: the ones where Michael or Neal already knows the CMO. We surface the signal, enrich it (mobile number included), you make the call.
  • Everyone else: the ~1,300 accounts nobody's ever spoken to. BuzzLead runs outreach end to end, you're looped in when it's time for the meeting.
Example, one-to-one outreach
EMAIL, WRITTEN FROM THE TRIGGER

"Saw the new CCO hire out of [prior agency], that's usually when a first OOH campaign gets greenlit inside 90 days. Worth a look before the media gets locked."

Signal feed · illustrative LIVE
09:14 · TODAY DTC apparel brand, Austin, hires a new CMO with an out-of-home background. New-leadership play · 90-day window
YESTERDAY Streaming platform files a brand refresh trademark. Rebrand play
YESTERDAY AI infrastructure company announces a Series C for customer acquisition. Funding play · priority
2 DAYS AGO Fintech company posts "Out-of-Home Production Manager." Hiring-surge play
Section 04 · The rollout

Ahead of the January 2027 target.

WEEKS 1–2
  • Onboarding intake & infrastructure build
  • Pipedrive CRM sync configured
  • Do-not-contact list built from Spotify, DoorDash, and the existing book
WEEKS 3–6
  • Voice-of-ICP research
  • Message/market fit testing on ICP 01 & 02
  • Signal monitoring stood up across the full universe
WEEKS 7–12
  • Optimization on live data
  • Lookalike expansion (ICP 02) scales toward 3,000 accounts
  • Signal plays fully automated
WEEK 13+
  • Scale what's converting
  • Sales-call coaching loop live on booked meetings
  • Full run rate ahead of January 2027
Section 05 · The pilot

Two ways to start. One four-month proof.

Both tiers run both ICP campaigns and both run as a four-month pilot with a 14-day out clause. Pro adds the three things that make the account-based motion actually work: warm calling, CRM integration, and active signal monitoring.

Minimum
$5,000/mo
+ $1,500 implementation
  • Full cold email infrastructure build: multi-domain deliverability, data scraping, system setup
  • Both ICP campaigns running, the existing list and the lookalike expansion
  • Weekly reporting
RECOMMENDED
Pro
$6,000/mo
+ $2,000 implementation
  • Everything in Minimum
  • Warm-call follow-up on every interested reply
  • Active intent-signal monitoring, the OOH-transition signal stack, live website monitoring
  • CRM integration, Pipedrive, one-way or bilateral sync
  • Weekly reporting
Enterprise, scale later: a dedicated cold caller hired and trained specifically for TRG, plus LinkedIn outreach, layered on top of either tier.
$10,500/mo

Four-month pilot, 14-day out clause, on every tier. If it's not working after month one, you're not locked in. Sales-call coaching (Fireflies-to-CRM review against MEDDIC/Sandler, feeding back into objection handling) is available as an add-on on any tier.

Section 06 · Next steps

Before the October check-in.

Loop in the third stakeholder Neal mentioned, this is the biggest outside commitment TRG has made, worth getting everyone the strategy before the next call
MICHAEL & NEAL
Weigh this against the other vendors in the running, including the one that flagged TRG's SEO/AEO foundation as a blocker for cold outbound
MICHAEL & NEAL
Decide fractional/internal marketing hire vs. agency partner vs. hybrid
MICHAEL & NEAL
Tentative follow-up: first week of October, Thursday, 5:00 PM ET
ALL