Personal Profiles in Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

From Connection Request to Pipeline: How Personal Profiles Accelerate ABM

When we talk about Account-Based Marketing (ABM) on LinkedIn, we often focus on identifying the right decision-makers, crafting the perfect advertising strategy.

When we talk about the organic person-to-person approach, we consider the outreach message, choose between free vs. premium LinkedIn features, and post your content so your target audience sees it.

But what happens once someone actually accepts your request to connect? How do you move that relationship from “cold contact” to a meaningful pipeline?

At Pitch121, we call the personal profile strategy, Profile-Based Marketing (PBM). By capitalising on personal profiles rather than purely relying on a corporate page, you can more seamlessly nurture prospects and guide them into the next stage of the buying journey.

This article will delve into how you can optimise that post-connection experience—turning LinkedIn acceptance into genuine opportunities for your ABM programme.

Why Focus on Personal Profiles?

Traditional ABM campaigns sometimes revolve around marketing automation, adverts, and targeted landing pages. While these tactics help with broader awareness, we’ve seen personal LinkedIn profiles play a pivotal role in accelerating deals. Why?

  • Humanising Your Brand
    Prospects want to interact with real people, not just brand logos. Your personal profile offers a direct window into who you are, what you do, what you’ve achieved, what people say about you in your recommendations, the mutual connections you have, and the topics you are talking about in your posts.
  • Flexible Storytelling
    A corporate page often needs a certain tone and official messaging. But on your personal profile, you can tailor your posts, highlight individual customer stories, and demonstrate your own expertise, which resonates on a more individual level.

  • Stronger Network Effects
    A personal profile can introduce a prospect to many other team members who might be relevant. This multi-profile approach (sometimes called “multi-threading”) is how you amplify your message and support your sales. We’ll look at how effective that is in our Q2 research report. We already know this helps build trust across an organisation quickly.
Connection Request LinkedIn

From Acceptance to Pipeline: The Core Stages

Let’s break down the key stages that typically occur once a prospect has clicked “Accept” on your connection request.

Immediate Introduction or Conversation Starter

Once they accept, the window is open. We wouldn’t jump into a sales pitch; instead, send a brief “thanks for connecting” message that references any recent conversation triggers (e.g., their post on industry trends or a mutual contact).

  • Keep it human. You’ve just begun a relationship so treat it like meeting someone at a networking event, not a transaction.
 

Ongoing Micro-Engagement

Over the next few weeks, comment on their new posts or like a status update they share. This consistent but light-touch approach keeps you on their radar without being intrusive.

  • Personalise your engagement: If they post about a big milestone (like a product launch or recent funding), congratulate them. It’s a small gesture that can pay off in building rapport.

Sharing Insightful Content

Once you’ve established a bit of familiarity, share articles, case studies, or insights that genuinely solve challenges they might face. This helps transition from a casual connection to a value-driven conversation. However, this technique has been so heavily used that it can seem like a ‘canned’ message sequence, so keep it light and get permission. Content shares can be another form of spam.

Taking It Off LinkedIn

Ultimately, you want to move promising conversations into a more direct setting, be that email, a phone call, or a video call. LinkedIn is the catalyst, but the real pipeline acceleration typically happens once you can delve deeper into their pain points and propose solutions.

Why This Matters for ABM

Account-Based Marketing typically involves multiple touchpoints across the buying committee. Each one can stall or expedite a deal. Using your personal profile to nurture connections means:

  • Higher Response Rates: Warm, human interactions lead to more replies when you finally suggest a meeting or demo.
  • Faster Buy-In: By engaging multiple decision-makers at the same account from personal profiles, you speed up consensus-building.
  • More Accurate Targeting: You can quickly see who actually engages with your content, giving you intel on where genuine interest lies.

Cross-Channel Payoff

Because of the goodwill your senior sales or marketing leaders create on LinkedIn, an SDR’s subsequent phone call or email to the same contact typically sees a higher success rate. When the prospect already recognises your brand and even sees multiple team members sharing consistent messaging, the next step in your ABM funnel (like scheduling a discovery call) becomes far easier.

Anecdotes from the Field

We’re still gathering new data for the LinkedIn Outreach Handbook, but here are some observations we’ve made at Pitch121 from past campaigns:

  • Multi-Stakeholder Visibility: When a prospect sees that different team members have meaningfully engaged with them, it cuts down the time needed to introduce your broader organisation. We’ve seen pipeline velocity increase from this approach.
  • Personal Messaging vs. Mass Outreach: Rather than hooking them into an automated campaign straight after connecting, a quick LinkedIn note referencing something specific outperforms the blanket approach. We consider a balance of quality over quantity by having a more specific list so the template messaging is more relevant.
  • Seamless Transition to Other Channels: One of our clients reported that once a senior exec had created goodwill with a prospect on LinkedIn, the SDR found it much easier to book an appointment by phone or email. The conversation was already “warm,” so the SDR didn’t feel like they were calling from scratch.

Alignment with Free vs. Premium Approaches

You might be wondering how Sales Navigator (discussed in our previous article) fits into this post-connection landscape. If you have a premium plan, you can set alerts for the prospect’s activity, making it easier to engage them at the right moment. However, even on a free account, if you’re diligent about regularly checking your feed or visiting their profile to see what they’ve posted, you can stay in the loop. The critical difference is whether you’re consistently leveraging personal outreach to build momentum.

Where You Come In: Participate in Our Q1 Polls

Our Q1 polls and website pop-up focus on exactly these micro-engagement strategies:

  • Do you personalise (or personalize) your initial messages?
  • How do you feel if you receive a personalised vs. blank message on LinkedIn?

 

All of these insights will funnel into our research for the LinkedIn Outreach Handbook, where we’ll analyse what truly accelerates or slows down the path from connection to pipeline.

Help us shape the LinkedIn Outreach Handbook

Practical Tips to Accelerate the Post-Acceptance Phase

Set a ‘Welcome’ Message:

Draft a friendly, short note you can personalise for each new connection. Keep it genuine, referencing one relevant detail about them. Video messages will make you stand out in the inbox.

Schedule Regular Engagement:

Block out 15 minutes a day to see if your new contacts have posted anything you can comment on.

Offer Value Early:

If you’ve got a relevant case study or quick insight, offer to share it in a personal message.

Nurture Before And After You Connect:

Build rapport and create goodwill so when you finally suggest a call, it feels like the logical next step rather than a sales ambush.

Moving a connection from acceptance to tangible pipeline opportunities on LinkedIn is not about hard-selling or over-automating your follow-ups. It’s about leveraging personal profiles to make deeper, more authentic connections, exactly what ABM strives to achieve.

If you’ve got your own stories or tips about how you turn new connections into pipeline opportunities, we’d love to hear from you. Join our Q1 polls to share your thoughts. Your experiences will help shape the final findings in our LinkedIn Outreach Handbook, launching in Q2.

Until then, keep focusing on the human side of LinkedIn. Every new connection is a chance to build genuine trust and, ultimately, accelerate your ABM pipeline.

Accelerate Your ABM Pipeline with Us

Building real connections on LinkedIn takes more than just outreach—it requires strategy, engagement, and the right approach. We can help you turn every new connection into a genuine opportunity.

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Help Us Move from Anecdote to Evidence

We’re collecting real data on LinkedIn outreach—what works, what doesn’t, and why. 
Your input will shape our LinkedIn Outreach Handbook.