How to Coordinate Sales and Marketing for Key Accounts

In the world of Australian B2B, landing a 'whale'—that one massive contract from a company like Rio Tinto, Woolworths, or a major government department—can change your business forever. But these big fish don't bite at standard Facebook ads; they require a unified front where your sales and marketing teams act as one single unit.

This guide will show you how to stop the 'us vs. them' mentality between your departments and start a coordinated Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy. By the end, you'll have a repeatable process for identifying, courting, and closing your most valuable prospects.

Why this matters

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Prerequisites: What you’ll need

• A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool: Whether it’s HubSpot, Salesforce, or even a well-organised Pipedrive setup. If you're still using an Excel sheet for high-value leads, it’s time for an upgrade.
• Access to LinkedIn: Ideally, at least one person in the team should have Sales Navigator.
• A clear understanding of your margins: You need to know which clients are actually worth this extra effort.
• Buy-in from leadership: This won't work if the Sales Manager and Marketing Manager aren't on speaking terms.

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Step 1: Define what a 'Key Account' looks like (The ICP)

You can’t target everyone. The first mistake most Brisbane businesses make is being too broad. You need to define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Get your sales and marketing heads in a room (or a Zoom call) and look at your best three clients from the last two years.

• What industry are they in?
• What is their annual turnover?
• How many employees do they have?
• Where are they located? (e.g., are they headquartered in the CBD or out in an industrial hub like Pinkenba?)

Step 2: Build your 'Target Account List' (TAL)

Once you know what the 'dream' client looks like, it's time to name names. Marketing often wants to target 'Construction Companies,' but Sales wants to target 'Hutchinson Builders.' For this to work, you need a specific list of 10, 20, or 50 companies.

• Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to filter for companies that match your ICP.
• Cross-reference this with your CRM to see if you have any 'stale' leads from these companies.
• The Reality Check: Most people get stuck here trying to find 500 names. Don't. Start with 20. It is much better to do a brilliant job on 20 accounts than a mediocre job on 200.

Step 3: Identify the 'Buying Committee'

In big Australian firms, one person rarely makes a decision alone. You usually need to convince three types of people:

• The User: The person who will actually use your product/service.
• The Influencer: The person who cares about the technical specs or the ROI.
• The Economic Buyer: The person who signs the cheque (often the CFO or MD).

Step 4: Map your content to the 'Buyer’s Journey'

This is where marketing takes the lead, but sales provides the intel. Sales knows the common objections (e.g., "Your price is higher than the mob in Melbourne" or "We're worried about the implementation time").

Marketing should create specific assets for these objections:

• Top of Funnel: An educational blog post about industry trends in QLD.
• Middle of Funnel: A case study showing how you helped a similar Australian business save 20% on costs.
• Bottom of Funnel: A custom 'Comparison Guide' that shows your value versus competitors.

Step 5: Set up your 'Coordinated Plays'

This is the secret sauce. A 'play' is a series of timed actions from both teams. Here is a classic 2-week play:

• Day 1: Marketing runs a targeted LinkedIn Ad only to employees of 'Company X'.
• Day 3: Sales sends a personalised (not automated!) connection request to the Lead Engineer.
• Day 6: Marketing sends a physical 'lumpy mail' package (like a high-quality printed report or even a box of local Brisbane coffee) to the office.
• Day 8: Sales calls to follow up on the package.

Step 6: Create a 'Shared Dashboard'

If Sales is looking at one set of numbers and Marketing is looking at another, you'll never align. You need one dashboard that shows:

• How many target accounts have visited the website this week?
• How many 'Buying Committee' members have engaged with our LinkedIn posts?
• What is the total 'Pipeline Value' of the Target Account List?

(Don't worry if this feels technical. Most CRMs like HubSpot have a 'Target Accounts' feature built-in that does the heavy lifting for you.)

Step 7: The Weekly 'Smarketing' Sync

This is the most important 20 minutes of your week. Sit down and talk.

• Sales: "I spoke to the Procurement Manager at BHP, and they are really worried about the new carbon tax legislation."
• Marketing: "Great, I’ll write a brief PDF on how our service helps with that compliance by Friday."

Step 8: Tailor the Final Proposal

When you get to the pointy end of the deal, don't send a generic PDF proposal. Marketing should help Sales 'brand' the proposal for the client. Use the client's logo, reference their specific goals mentioned in the discovery call, and use their industry language.

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Troubleshooting Common Issues

• "Marketing is sending too many emails!"

• "Sales isn't following up on the engagement!"

• "We can't find the right email addresses."

Pro Tips for the Australian Market

• The 'Coffee Culture' Advantage: In Brisbane, we love a chat. If a target account is local, marketing's job is to get the 'hand-raiser,' and Sales' job is to get the coffee invite. Don't try to close a $100k deal over Zoom if you can drive to Milton or Fortitude Valley to meet in person.
• Check the ABN: Before adding a company to your list, check the ABN Lookup. It sounds boring, but you’ll often find that a 'local' company is actually a subsidiary of a massive global entity, which might change your strategy entirely.
• Respect the 'Gatekeeper': In many Australian firms, the Executive Assistant (EA) is the most powerful person in the room. Marketing content shouldn't just target the CEO; it should also provide value to the person managing the CEO's calendar.

Warning: What to avoid

• Don't automate the 'Human' parts: If you use a bot to send LinkedIn messages to a C-suite executive at a major bank, they will spot it instantly and you'll be blacklisted.
• Don't give up too early: Key accounts in Australia can take 6 to 18 months to close. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

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Next Steps

• Audit your current leads: Identify 5 companies you'd love to work with.
• Hold your first 'Smarketing' meeting: Discuss those 5 companies with your sales lead.
• Review your CRM: Ensure you have a way to 'tag' these companies as Key Accounts.

Need help setting up the technical side of your ABM tracking or creating the high-level content needed to impress these big fish? We do this every day for Brisbane businesses.