Marketing for Sales Managers Account Growth Training Course

Course overview

Sales managers are expected to grow strategic accounts, yet many account plans remain sales-led documents with limited customer insight, weak campaign alignment and no clear way to convert marketing activity into pipeline, retention or share-of-wallet growth. This course equips managers to use practical marketing methods within named accounts: identifying buying groups, diagnosing whitespace, shaping value propositions and coordinating targeted activity with marketing, customer success and product teams. It is designed for managers who must defend account-growth investments and create repeatable plays for their teams.

Participants learn how to segment an account portfolio by growth potential, map stakeholders and customer journeys, analyse account data, develop account-specific messaging and select the right demand-generation tactics. The course covers account-based marketing (ABM), ideal customer profile criteria, opportunity scoring, content mapping, campaign briefs, customer expansion plays and marketing-to-sales service-level agreements. Participants also learn how to set leading and lagging measures, including engagement, marketing-qualified accounts, opportunity creation, win rate, retention and expansion revenue.

Instruction combines sales-account scenarios, marketing planning workshops, CRM dashboard exercises and peer critique. Participants work with account data, build a stakeholder map and translate a commercial objective into an account-growth campaign. They leave with a completed 90-day account growth plan for a priority account or account segment, including target stakeholders, value messages, campaign actions, owners, timeline, budget assumptions and performance measures.

The course suits frontline and second-line sales managers responsible for key accounts, renewals or strategic account teams, particularly where marketing support must be focused on a small number of high-value customers.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Segment an account portfolio using revenue, growth potential, strategic fit and relationship-risk criteria
• Build a buying-group map that identifies economic buyers, champions, influencers, blockers and engagement gaps
• Diagnose account whitespace using product adoption, spend potential, renewal data and competitive position
• Create an account-specific value proposition using customer priorities, proof points and differentiated messages
• Design a 90-day account-based marketing campaign with channels, content, owners, milestones and budget assumptions
• Write a sales-and-marketing campaign brief that defines audience, offer, call to action and success measures
• Configure an account-growth scorecard using CRM pipeline, engagement, retention and expansion metrics
• Present a prioritised account growth plan with investment rationale, risks and expected commercial outcomes

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Sales Managers — who lead account executives and need repeatable growth plays for priority customers
• Key Account Managers — who must expand strategic relationships beyond renewal conversations
• Regional Sales Managers — who need to focus marketing support across a territory account portfolio
• Business Development Managers — who coordinate targeted outreach into named enterprise accounts
• Customer Success Managers — who identify adoption, renewal and cross-sell opportunities within existing customers
• Sales Operations Managers — who support account prioritisation, CRM reporting and marketing-to-sales handoffs

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience managing, selling to or supporting business accounts and should understand basic sales terms such as pipeline, opportunity, forecast, renewal and customer segment. Familiarity with their organisation's CRM, ideally Salesforce or HubSpot, is helpful because exercises use account, contact and opportunity data; participants do not need administrator-level access or technical configuration skills. No formal marketing qualification, campaign management experience, design software or advanced analytics knowledge is required. Complete beginners in marketing can attend, but should be ready to work with a real account scenario and interpret straightforward commercial data in spreadsheets and dashboards.

Training methodology

The programme uses instructor-led teaching to introduce account-growth frameworks, followed by hands-on application to realistic B2B account scenarios. Participants examine CRM extracts, account plans, campaign examples and customer signals to make prioritisation decisions. Small groups build buying-group maps, challenge value propositions and review campaign briefs as a sales-and-marketing steering team. Individual work develops a 90-day plan for a live or representative account. The final session uses structured peer review and instructor feedback to test commercial logic, ownership, measures and implementation risks.

Course outline

Day 1: Account growth strategy and prioritisation

• The sales manager's role in account-based growth
• Revenue retention, expansion and share-of-wallet growth models
• Ideal customer profile and strategic account selection criteria
• Account portfolio segmentation matrices
• Growth potential versus relationship-risk scoring
• Using CRM account, opportunity and renewal data
• Selecting priority accounts and defining growth hypotheses

Workshop: Participants score a sample account portfolio and produce a ranked list of priority accounts with a documented growth rationale.

Day 2: Customer insight, buying groups and whitespace

• Buying-group roles in complex B2B accounts
• Stakeholder influence and relationship-strength mapping
• Customer journey stages for acquisition, adoption, renewal and expansion
• Voice-of-customer signals from meetings, service data and surveys
• Whitespace analysis by product, business unit and geography
• Competitive position and incumbent-risk assessment
• Account insight statements and evidence-based growth hypotheses

Workshop: Participants create a buying-group map and whitespace diagnosis for a strategic account, identifying three validated engagement gaps.

Day 3: Value propositions and account-based campaign design

• Account-specific value proposition design
• Message hierarchy: business outcomes, capabilities and proof
• Persona-based content mapping
• Account-based marketing campaign architecture
• Channel selection across email, events, LinkedIn and sales outreach
• Offer design and call-to-action selection
• Campaign briefs for sales, marketing and customer success teams

Workshop: Participants write an account-based campaign brief with a target audience, message, offer, channel mix and sales follow-up action.

Day 4: Execution governance and performance measurement

• Sales-and-marketing service-level agreements
• Lead, account and opportunity handoff rules
• Campaign workflow, ownership and approval checkpoints
• CRM account fields, campaign attribution and activity capture
• Leading indicators: engagement, meetings and buying-group coverage
• Lagging indicators: pipeline, win rate, retention and expansion revenue
• Account-growth scorecards and review cadences

Workshop: Participants build an account-growth scorecard and operating cadence that assigns owners, data sources and decision thresholds.

Day 5: 90-day account growth planning and leadership

• Translating account strategy into 30-60-90 day actions
• Campaign budget assumptions and resource planning
• Risk registers for account engagement and campaign delivery
• Internal stakeholder alignment and executive sponsorship
• Coaching account executives on marketing-led growth plays
• Presenting investment cases to sales and marketing leadership
• Continuous improvement from campaign and account-review data

Workshop: Participants present a completed 90-day account growth plan and receive peer and instructor feedback on commercial impact, feasibility and measurement.

Tools & standards covered

Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Excel, LinkedIn Sales Navigator

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions