How do you build trust in strategic accounts before the first sales conversation?
Irina Chernova, Demand Marketing Manager EMEA & LATAM at NetApp, and Olga Bondareva, Founder of ModumUp, shared a year-long case study at our July 8 online event.
We are pleased with the response to the event: 407 registrations from 44 countries. Thank you to everyone who joined us live!
Below is a recap of the session.
Irina opened with context. NetApp sells data storage, software, and cloud services into enterprise accounts with long sales cycles and large buying committees. New roles keep joining those committees - AI teams, DevOps, cloud leaders - people who need storage resources but do not think about infrastructure the same way storage admins do. For NetApp, ABM meant identifying who really influences a deal and connecting with them through people inside the company, not only through marketing campaigns.
At NetApp, ABM is treated as customer experience and sales alignment, not a marketing program on its own. The team focused on strategic one-to-one ABM and one-to-few ABM by vertical. For the pilot, Irina worked with 10 strategic accounts across finance, oil and gas, services, and telco in one EMEA region. The plan was to reach executives, engineering leaders, and users at different levels of the same account.
Olga explained how Social Selling fits into that ABM strategy. The team already had a target account list. The next step was to find buying committee members on LinkedIn, choose the right internal profiles to reach them, and use content and events as a natural reason to start a conversation. The goal was private dialogue and relationship signals, not product pushes in the feed.
Irina outlined the rollout. The pilot started with her LinkedIn profile, then moved to exclusive content, an executive profile, and BDR profiles tied to specific accounts. In the operating model, she orchestrated strategy and content while sales leaders and BDRs built relationships on their own profiles. ModumUp supported the project with profile strategy, content systems, and ongoing coaching.
Phase 1. The first test was NetApp Insight, a major regional conference with around 600 participants on average in previous years. The goal was to expand the audience and reach people outside the usual event funnel, including non-buyers and new job roles beyond the traditional technical crowd. Before the event, the team connected with relevant people on LinkedIn and shared posts about conference preparation. During the event, Irina posted live observations and helped attendees navigate sessions. Afterward, the team followed up with participants and people who could not attend, sharing materials and continuing conversations. That year the conference drew around 1,000 participants. Social Selling helped warm up and widen the relevant audience, though that number reflected broader event influence, not a direct Social Selling KPI.
Phase 2. Next, Irina posted valuable gated content on LinkedIn, including IDC and NetApp research on digital transformation. People had to comment or send a message to receive the material. The mechanic was intentionally soft: valuable content, personal delivery, and an audience that was already warmed up. The post drew 79 responses. Forty-four came from target companies. Eight became SQLs handed to sales - an 18% conversion from targeted responses. Irina noted that people also reached out with practical questions - directions at the venue, session details, follow-ups. That human layer between marketing and sales convinced the team the model was worth scaling.
Phase 3. The team then added an executive profile - Tatiana Bocharnikova, Director UAE at NetApp - to reach senior decision-makers peer to peer. A BDR cannot open the same conversation with a CTO that another executive can. On that profile, relevant connections grew from 800 to 5,000. Average reactions per post rose from 34 to 85. Comments grew from 10 to 31 per post. Many C-level prospects from target companies never commented publicly. They went straight to DMs.
Phase 4. BDRs joined with accounts they were already responsible for and quota tied to the work. Irina said many Social Selling programs fail at this stage because sales teams struggle to stay consistent. ModumUp worked with the BDRs closely - reminders, post guidance, help starting conversations through likes and comments before direct outreach. One BDR said social media let him reach people he could not call cold: they already knew his profile and why he had reached out.
Across the full target account list, the team built at least one contact at every level of the buying committee within target accounts. The project contributed to around $20 million in deals tied to large AI deployments on the NetApp storage layer and roughly 3x lead growth compared with the previous approach.
Olga closed with a framework the team used to track progress across the funnel. Activity metrics included profiles activated, connections sent, and target accounts processed. Relationship signals included acceptance rate, replies, DM discussions, and warm reactions to content. Business signals included SQLs, sales handoffs, pipeline, and revenue influence.
The practical lessons from the collaboration: start with ABM strategy before LinkedIn mechanics, run a pilot as proof of concept, and give every role a different goal and KPI set. Use events and content as reasons to talk, measure relationship signals and account progress, and treat Social Selling as a team effort that only works when sales and executives stay committed. Irina added that tactics only work when they match strategy and when each profile speaks to a distinct segment of the buying committee.
The full recording is available here: https://youtu.be/AX51HlQ5c3E
Irina Chernova, Demand Marketing Manager EMEA & LATAM at NetApp, and Olga Bondareva, Founder of ModumUp, shared a year-long case study at our July 8 online event.
We are pleased with the response to the event: 407 registrations from 44 countries. Thank you to everyone who joined us live!
Below is a recap of the session.
Irina opened with context. NetApp sells data storage, software, and cloud services into enterprise accounts with long sales cycles and large buying committees. New roles keep joining those committees - AI teams, DevOps, cloud leaders - people who need storage resources but do not think about infrastructure the same way storage admins do. For NetApp, ABM meant identifying who really influences a deal and connecting with them through people inside the company, not only through marketing campaigns.
At NetApp, ABM is treated as customer experience and sales alignment, not a marketing program on its own. The team focused on strategic one-to-one ABM and one-to-few ABM by vertical. For the pilot, Irina worked with 10 strategic accounts across finance, oil and gas, services, and telco in one EMEA region. The plan was to reach executives, engineering leaders, and users at different levels of the same account.
Olga explained how Social Selling fits into that ABM strategy. The team already had a target account list. The next step was to find buying committee members on LinkedIn, choose the right internal profiles to reach them, and use content and events as a natural reason to start a conversation. The goal was private dialogue and relationship signals, not product pushes in the feed.
Irina outlined the rollout. The pilot started with her LinkedIn profile, then moved to exclusive content, an executive profile, and BDR profiles tied to specific accounts. In the operating model, she orchestrated strategy and content while sales leaders and BDRs built relationships on their own profiles. ModumUp supported the project with profile strategy, content systems, and ongoing coaching.
Phase 1. The first test was NetApp Insight, a major regional conference with around 600 participants on average in previous years. The goal was to expand the audience and reach people outside the usual event funnel, including non-buyers and new job roles beyond the traditional technical crowd. Before the event, the team connected with relevant people on LinkedIn and shared posts about conference preparation. During the event, Irina posted live observations and helped attendees navigate sessions. Afterward, the team followed up with participants and people who could not attend, sharing materials and continuing conversations. That year the conference drew around 1,000 participants. Social Selling helped warm up and widen the relevant audience, though that number reflected broader event influence, not a direct Social Selling KPI.
Phase 2. Next, Irina posted valuable gated content on LinkedIn, including IDC and NetApp research on digital transformation. People had to comment or send a message to receive the material. The mechanic was intentionally soft: valuable content, personal delivery, and an audience that was already warmed up. The post drew 79 responses. Forty-four came from target companies. Eight became SQLs handed to sales - an 18% conversion from targeted responses. Irina noted that people also reached out with practical questions - directions at the venue, session details, follow-ups. That human layer between marketing and sales convinced the team the model was worth scaling.
Phase 3. The team then added an executive profile - Tatiana Bocharnikova, Director UAE at NetApp - to reach senior decision-makers peer to peer. A BDR cannot open the same conversation with a CTO that another executive can. On that profile, relevant connections grew from 800 to 5,000. Average reactions per post rose from 34 to 85. Comments grew from 10 to 31 per post. Many C-level prospects from target companies never commented publicly. They went straight to DMs.
Phase 4. BDRs joined with accounts they were already responsible for and quota tied to the work. Irina said many Social Selling programs fail at this stage because sales teams struggle to stay consistent. ModumUp worked with the BDRs closely - reminders, post guidance, help starting conversations through likes and comments before direct outreach. One BDR said social media let him reach people he could not call cold: they already knew his profile and why he had reached out.
Across the full target account list, the team built at least one contact at every level of the buying committee within target accounts. The project contributed to around $20 million in deals tied to large AI deployments on the NetApp storage layer and roughly 3x lead growth compared with the previous approach.
Olga closed with a framework the team used to track progress across the funnel. Activity metrics included profiles activated, connections sent, and target accounts processed. Relationship signals included acceptance rate, replies, DM discussions, and warm reactions to content. Business signals included SQLs, sales handoffs, pipeline, and revenue influence.
The practical lessons from the collaboration: start with ABM strategy before LinkedIn mechanics, run a pilot as proof of concept, and give every role a different goal and KPI set. Use events and content as reasons to talk, measure relationship signals and account progress, and treat Social Selling as a team effort that only works when sales and executives stay committed. Irina added that tactics only work when they match strategy and when each profile speaks to a distinct segment of the buying committee.
The full recording is available here: https://youtu.be/AX51HlQ5c3E