Thomson Reuters is a leading global provider of professional information services and software, delivering news, legal, tax, and financial solutions to enterprise clients. By 2024, the company faced increasing pressure to deepen engagement within its highest-value accounts. Long sales cycles and rising competition meant that traditional broad marketing wasn’t enough to drive growth or protect its customer base.
To accelerate enterprise pipeline and reduce churn, Thomson Reuters turned to a structured Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy, aligning marketing and sales on key accounts. ABM promised to focus resources on the 500 strategic accounts most critical to retention and expansion, creating personalised, always-on campaigns to strengthen relationships and win new opportunities.
Challenge
Thomson Reuters’ marketing team was tasked with boosting retention, expansion, and deal velocity among its top-tier clients. Two major challenges stood out:
- Many existing enterprise customers were not fully engaged post-sale, increasing the risk of churn or missed upsell opportunities. The company needed to build trust and stay top-of-mind with these key accounts to safeguard recurring revenue.
- Winning new business in high-value accounts was slow and difficult – sales cycles stretched across many months, and breaking through to C-level decision-makers was a constant uphill battle. Marketing efforts weren’t sufficiently personalised or coordinated with sales, resulting in wasted effort on low-priority leads and fragmented messaging.
In short, Thomson Reuters lacked a scalable way to consistently engage the right stakeholders at the right accounts. The imperative became clear: adopt an ABM approach to focus on quality over quantity, delivering highly relevant touchpoints to accelerate pipeline and reduce churn in its most important accounts.
Solution
Segmentation & tiered focus: Thomson Reuters launched a comprehensive ABM program by first segmenting 500 target accounts into three tiers based on strategic importance, deal size, and sales cycle stage. This tiered model ensured marketing efforts were proportional to account value. For the broad base of Tier 3 accounts (high-fit prospects with longer-term opportunities), the team deployed “always-on” digital campaigns – for example, highly personalised programmatic ads that continuously kept Thomson Reuters’ solutions in front of stakeholders at those companies Mid-tier (Tier 2) accounts – active renewals or large prospects needing an extra push – received additional high-touch tactics on top of the digital baseline. Thomson Reuters sent creative “door opener” direct mail kits to grab the attention of disengaged contacts, offered free trial incentives for certain products, and hosted exclusive networking events to connect Tier 2 decision-makers with industry peers in memorable settings. These tactics provided air cover and warm introductions, helping re-energize stalled deals.
High-touch personalisation: For the top Tier 1 accounts – the company’s largest, most strategic customers and prospects – Thomson Reuters invested in true one-to-one marketing. Each Tier 1 account was treated to a bespoke campaign managed by a dedicated marketing manager. The ABM team collaborated closely with sales on these accounts, tailoring content and outreach specifically to each client. Initiatives included on-site VIP product demos and workshops (in some cases literally bringing events into the client’s offices complete with catered lunches and baristas) to showcase solutions in a personalised context. The marketing team also crafted custom content – such as industry research or case studies featuring the target company’s context – and even arranged executive-level thought leadership opportunities for clients. For example, top customers were invited to co-host webinars, speak on event panels, or be profiled in Thomson Reuters blogs. This not only delivered value to those clients (elevating their stature in the industry) but also reinforced their relationship with Thomson Reuters.
Event-centric engagement: Across all tiers, event marketing became a cornerstone of the ABM strategy. In fact, Thomson Reuters hosted roughly 700 in-person and virtual events across North America as part of its ABM outreach. These ranged from educational seminars and roundtables for new prospects to high-profile entertainment outings for customers. One prong of the strategy focused on inviting key stakeholders from target prospect accounts (especially those with notoriously long sales cycles) to industry talks and workshops, providing valuable insights and networking opportunities that subtly positioned Thomson Reuters as a trusted partner.
Another prong zeroed in on re-engaging recent customers who had gone quiet after their initial purchase – Thomson Reuters treated them to VIP experiences like exclusive dinners, sporting event suites, and luxury hotel stays during user conferences. These surprise-and-delight moments helped revive dialogue around expansion opportunities. Meanwhile, long-term high-value clients were not forgotten: they too were invited to select VIP events and given platforms to showcase their success (for example, being featured as guest speakers or panelists) as a way to deepen loyalty. By integrating digital touches with personalized real-world experiences, Thomson Reuters created a surround-sound effect in its ABM program – target accounts continually encountered the company’s value proposition whether online, in their inboxes, or in person at events.
Technology & alignment: Underpinning this ABM programme was a tight sales and marketing alignment and use of enabling technology. The marketing team integrated their ABM platform with Salesforce CRM and marketing automation, ensuring that intent signals and campaign engagement data flowed to account reps in real time. Regular interlock meetings were held with sales to adjust target lists and coordinate follow-ups. This alignment meant marketing activities (ads, events, content sends) were always synchronised with sales outreach – a critical factor in converting engagement into opportunities. Thomson Reuters even formed a specialised “Marketing Incubation & Testing” team to pilot these ABM tactics at small scale, prove their impact, and then roll them out more broadly. That agile approach allowed for experimentation (e.g. trying an automated gifting campaign via an ABM direct mail platform) and quickly scaling what worked across the organisation.
Results
The adoption of ABM proved transformational. Thomson Reuters saw an extraordinary 95% win rate across the accounts targeted in its tiered ABM programme. In other words, the vast majority of deals and renewals they pursued with ABM support ultimately closed in the company’s favour – a strong testament to the power of focused, relationship-centric marketing. Equally impressive, the company reported a 72% reduction in sales cycle length for these accounts.
By nurturing stakeholders with relevant content and touchpoints (and engaging them earlier in the buying process through events and education), deals progressed much faster than before – a sales cycle that used to take, say, 9 months could now close in around 2–3 months. This acceleration translated into quicker revenue recognition and a more efficient funnel. Anecdotally, the ABM initiative helped surface hidden opportunities as well. In one pilot, an initial ABM test with just 20 strategic accounts quickly yielded a healthier pipeline in Q4 and Q1 – even leading to the closure of a previously stalled six-figure deal that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks.
Such wins built internal confidence and executive buy-in for ABM. Thomson Reuters has since planned to scale up the program to 1,700 accounts across various business lines, extending the same personalized treatment that proved so effective in the initial rollout. By 2024, the company not only safeguarded its key customer relationships but also re-energised its new business development, all through the lens of coordinated account-based engagement.
Key takeaways for B2B marketers
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Tier your accounts for focus: Not all accounts are equal. Thomson Reuters succeeded by tiering its target list and tailoring the level of effort to each tier’s potential. High-value accounts got white-glove treatment while lower-tier accounts were still nurtured at scale via automated programs. This tiered strategy ensured resources were spent where they could drive the most impact – a practice any B2B team can adopt to maximize win rates.
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Leverage multi-channel experiences: ABM is most powerful when it goes beyond digital ads. Thomson Reuters’ use of in-person events, VIP experiences, and direct mail alongside email and advertising showed that engaging prospects through multiple channels deepens impact. Especially for long sales cycles, mixing workshops, dinners, and gifts into your outreach can build trust faster than emails alone.
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ABM for retention (not just acquisition):A key insight from this case is that ABM isn’t only about landing new logos – it’s equally effective for expanding and retaining existing clients. Thomson Reuters targeted current customers with the same vigor as new prospects, resulting in dramatically improved renewal outcomes (95%+ retention). B2B marketers should align with account managers to identify at-risk or under-engaged customers and use ABM plays (exclusive events, executive check-ins, educational content) to keep these accounts warm and loyal.
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Personalisation at scale is achievable: Even with hundreds of accounts in play, Thomson Reuters managed to deliver personalised messaging and content by combining automation with human touch. They used programmatic ads and scalable content for broad reach, while reserving one-to-one tactics for top accounts. The lesson: segmentation and clever use of technology can let you scale personalisation – you don’t have to choose between volume and relevance.
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Tight sales-marketing alignment: ABM will fall flat without close collaboration between marketing and sales. Thomson Reuters’ program worked because marketing consulted sales on account tiering, coordinated event invites and follow-ups, and shared data in real time. This alignment directly contributed to faster deal cycles (72% shorter) and better conversion, since both teams were orchestrating moves in unison. For any ABM initiative, establish joint KPIs, regular check-ins, and clear roles to ensure a seamless hand-off from engagement to sales conversations.
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Turn customers into advocates: Part of Thomson Reuters’ strategy was making its best customers feel like partners. By giving clients speaking slots and spotlight in content, they nurtured goodwill and created evangelists for the brand. In your ABM plan, consider how you can involve happy customers – invite them to your events, quote them in case studies, or build peer communities. Elevating your customers’ voices not only strengthens those relationships but also adds credible influence when you’re wooing new accounts.
By following a similar playbook – segmenting strategically, personalising deeply, and aligning with sales – B2B marketers can replicate Thomson Reuters’ ABM success. The payoff can be game-changing: higher conversion rates, faster deal cycles, and stronger customer lifetime value, all achieved by treating key accounts not as mere leads, but as long-term partnerships to cultivate.
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