Nobody can deny the fact that aligning with sales isn’t just helpful; it’s essential. But what if we flipped the script completely and treated sales as our first customer?

That’s the approach of Kelly Maloney Schermerhorn, Senior ABM & Communications Manager at Pega Systems and a one-to-one ABM expert in the healthcare space.

With over 15 years in marketing and comms, Kelly’s seen firsthand how messy B2B can get when it’s all about “me, me, me.” So she made a shift, one that centered both sales and clients in every strategy.

Kelly didn’t fall into ABM by accident. After years in healthcare marketing, she was drawn to account-based strategies because they kept the customer at the heart of everything; something traditional B2B campaigns often forget.

“I’m not a doctor, but I like to think I help people by connecting them with the right solution.”

Here’s how Kelly approaches ABM, from aligning with sales to crafting content that lands.

👆 Catch the full conversation with Kelly Here.

Sales and Marketing Alignment: It’s Not Optional

Most ABM programs fail before they even start, not because of bad creative or poor execution, but because there’s no real partnership with sales.

And it’s not just about looping sales in. The real issue is that many sellers don’t even understand what ABM is or worse, they assume it’s more fluff marketing that doesn’t help close deals.

This misalignment leads to confusion, distrust, and a lack of momentum. Marketing keeps building campaigns that sales doesn’t use, while sales keeps having conversations that marketing didn’t even know were happening.

Kelly starts with education. Before any campaigns, she runs intro sessions with account teams to explain what ABM actually is and more importantly, what it isn’t. She focuses on how it's designed to support their goals, not hijack their deals.

“I attend weekly account team meetings. Not just to share but to listen, learn, and build empathy.”

This boots-on-the-ground approach builds trust and surfaces real-time client insights. It's also how Kelly ensures marketing isn't “going rogue,” as she puts it, something sales deeply appreciates.

Setting ABM Objectives (That Sales Actually Cares About)

One of the biggest reasons ABM pilots underdeliver is that the goals are either too vague or entirely misaligned with business impact. Marketing teams get excited about launching something shiny, but end up measuring awareness while sales is thinking about revenue.

The disconnect shows up fast.

Another trap is setting goals that are impossible to track at the account level, or confusing activity with progress.

Kelly tailors her objectives by program maturity. For newer programs, it's about coverage; are we actually reaching the right accounts and creating new contacts?

For mature one-to-one programs, it’s all about engagement and influence:

“An incoming email is a huge indicator. That tells us we’ve sparked something real.”

She also looks for face-to-face meetings and stakeholder interactions; anything that signals genuine relationship movement. These engagement signals are directly tied to pipeline influence and acceleration.

This simple shift could change how you approach ABM, for good. — Meet Kelly Schermerhorn, Sales-aligned, customer-obsessed, and never just doing ABM by the book.

Target Account Selection: Fit + Sales Readiness = Success

ABM starts with the account list, so if you get that wrong, everything that follows is built on shaky ground. And yet, too many ABM teams build target lists based only on firmographics or deal size, ignoring whether the sales team is even ready to engage.

But that’s only part of the problem.

Even if a target account is a good fit on paper, it can still flop if the sales team isn’t engaged or ready to collaborate. And ABM without sales engagement is just advertising with extra steps.

Kelly blends data with judgment. She uses factors like current contract value, total opportunity, solution fit, and 80/20 impact modeling (hint: focus on the top 20% of clients driving 80% of your revenue).

But she also evaluates sales readiness:

“Does the team have a strategic account plan? Are they active collaborators? Have they partnered well with marketing before?”

Because no matter how great the data is, if sales isn’t engaged, ABM won’t work. Simple as that.

Account Research: From Overload to Insight

Once you’ve got your target accounts, the next hurdle is research. And for enterprise companies, the problem usually isn’t a lack of information; it’s too much.

Between investor reports, industry trends, and endless stakeholder LinkedIn posts, it’s easy to get lost.

Worse, teams often surface facts that sound impressive but aren’t actually relevant to campaign execution, or miss the language the account is using internally, which leads to copy that doesn’t resonate.

Kelly keeps it focused:

Start broad: Industry trends and client strategy from investor and annual reports
Go deep: Stakeholder content, executive comms, LinkedIn posts
Speak their language: Match how they describe problems, not how you do

“LinkedIn is underrated. It gives a real-time pulse, while annual reports are just the foundation.”

She also contributes research into a shared strategic account planning framework; a cross-functional doc used to align marketing, sales, and solution teams.

Top 3 Engagement Channels That Actually Work

Most ABM engagement strategies still lean too heavily on generic ads, cold email sequences, or cookie-cutter webinars. These channels might get clicks, but rarely drive real relationship-building, especially with enterprise clients.

Figuring out how to show up where your buyer already is and do it in a way that feels natural, useful, and relevant is the real challenge.

Her top 3 engagement plays:

Through the client’s own internal channels
“If they have an internal newsletter, I want to be in it.”
She collaborates directly with accounts to embed content where it’s most likely to be seen and trusted.
Face-to-face events (onsite or offsite)
These only work if a senior account stakeholder is involved in driving attendance but when done right, they outperform everything else.
Third-party event activations + sponsored content
Think: personalized podcasts or exec interviews featuring their people, not yours. It’s all about building them up.

“When peers hear from peers, it’s powerful. That drives engagement better than anything else.”

Content Creation: Start With the Client, Not the Calendar

If you start your content creation in B2B with, “What do we want to say?”. That's backward.

The best ABM content starts with, “What’s the client trying to solve?”

Kelly’s process starts with understanding the client’s goals, and only then looking at how to curate or adapt existing assets.

“If a client wants to retain their own customers better, I find the content we already have on that. Then I tailor it: industry first, client second.”

She’s also a big believer in using GenAI as a helper, not a replacement. AI helps scale and speed up content curation, but humans still bring the strategic clarity.

Evolving ABM & Demand Gen: It’s Not Either/Or

Some companies see ABM and demand gen as opposing strategies, one for brand awareness and one for deep engagement. But that either/or mindset slows down growth and creates silos inside marketing teams.

Kelly sees them as complementary. Demand gen creates visibility and surfaces contacts. ABM picks up where demand leaves off and deepens those relationships.

“ABM and demand gen can and should work together. The bridge is the content.”

Demand gen builds the trunk assets; ABM turns them into personalized plays.

If She Could Build One Tool…

It would be something to proactively support sales without waiting on a marketer.

“Let’s say a client’s product just went live. That’s the perfect moment for celebration content but sales might not know where to find it.”

Her dream tool would use natural language processing inside the CRM to detect moments like go-lives, then automatically recommend relevant enablement assets.

“Sales is my customer. So I want to make their lives easier.”

Kelly’s Question for the Next Guest

“Can you share a success story, and the real challenges you faced along the way? We need more of the honest stuff.”

Which totally makes sense. Throughout this series, we’ve heard plenty about the roadblocks ABMers face: misalignment, slow adoption, siloed teams. All real. All valid.

But now, we’re craving some wins. The kind that actually made the hard stuff worth it.

Kelly Schermerhorn shows that ABM isn’t just a campaign; it’s a team effort. It works best when it’s personal, helpful, and built around what sales and customers really need. Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn to swap ideas or keep the conversation going.