Reimagining
account-based
marketing

Building real relationships, culture, and
connections for lasting B2B outcomes

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B growth strategy where each account is treated as its own distinct market. Exact, surgical and consistent, ABM often looks a lot like precision manufacturing.

But there’s a big problem with that approach: people aren’t machines. Traditional methods of ABM often forget that selling is ultimately a deeply human experience.

Being Human

An engineered, tried-and-tested formula sounds reassuring, but the best ABM outcomes occur when brands can connect with their audience’s unique behaviours, needs and experiences.

88%

of B2B buyers trust a brand more when they receive valuable content from that vendor.1

Being Human

An engineered, tried-and-tested formula sounds reassuring, but the best ABM outcomes occur when brands can connect with their audience’s unique behaviours, needs and experiences.

88%

of B2B buyers trust a brand more when they receive valuable content from that vendor.1

81%

of buyers feel they need to trust the brands they buy from.2

71%

of buyers go with their first choice.3

Relationship marketing for the modern age

At MOI, we’ve seen that the strongest customer connections are forged across the entire buyer journey. So, brands that only focus on the last mile miss the bigger picture.

Effective ABM comes down to building relationships with buyers, by embedding ABM as a company-wide culture, not just a one-off project.

You do that by putting these three human elements at the heart of everything you do:

Empathy

Creativity

Resonance

Want faster revenue from ABM? Having direct conversations with account contacts, rather than just relying on data proxies, significantly enhances campaign impact.

88%

of B2B marketers consider their ABM program to be a fully embedded driver of growth.4

6-12

months

is how long most ABM programs need to deliver significant results. Long sales cycles can extend this further.5

87%

of sales and marketing executives say collaboration between the two functions enables critical business growth.6

It’s complicated: targeting buying groups and networks

Relationships can get messy in B2B, where buyers tend to come in groups and a growing number of people are involved in making purchase decisions. Your ABM approach also needs to consider the relationships between them, the needs of individuals in the group, and how you can get them all on the same page to make the same decision.

quote

You’ve got to do a better job of connecting those individual [customer] stakeholders together, because there’s disconnects among those stakeholders that prevent you from closing that deal.

Brent Adamson, Distinguished Vice
President, Gartner 7

10+

average number of people in an organization directly involved in the purchasing decision process.8

There’s also a wider buying network to consider, which includes any external parties people go to for support and advice, such as influencers, other customers, and even AI agents. Think about ways you can connect buyers to influencers, create customer advocates, or ensure people are accessing accurate information.

Getting started
with ABM

1. Decide your target and focus

15-20%

increase in marketing ROI when making data-driven decisions.9

30%

higher conversion rates for companies using AI-powered lead scoring in ABM, with up to 50% less time spent on lead qualification.10

Identify what accounts and verticals to engage across the full buyer’s journey. Think about:

  • Lead score modelling: Optimize your lead score model to determine which accounts are engaged and when.
  • TAL prioritization: Incorporate your lead score modelling data, as well as deal size potential, into a target account list that sales and marketing teams build together.
  • Industry/accounts intelligence: Determine which key stakeholders you need to reach out to and the industry trends/insights you can share that they’d find valuable.
  • An ABM roadmap: Drive alignment for ABM by bringing sales and marketing teams together to define a plan and vision, and understand who your buyers are and what their business challenges actually are—get a head start by joining one of our ABM workshops.

2. Build your mindshare

70%

of ABM programs see a significant boost in account engagement when events, especially invite-only or intimate gatherings, are included.11

60%

increase in revenue per account using a multi-channel ABM approach.12

2/3

of marketers obtain superior ROI for ABM-based content syndication compared to traditional methods.13

Grow your relationship with your buyers and build an ABM culture internally.
Think about:

  • ABM tactical initiatives: Look at your deal progression and define individual tactics that help speed up your pipeline to deal closure.
  • Content: Personalize content to focus on solving a particular buyer’s business problem, using language that resonates with them.
  • Media: Build full-funnel campaigns that target the same buyers multiple times, encouraging recall and shifting their sentiments.
  • Events: Put on events that are built around people and relevance rather than agendas, to leave a lasting impression on C-suite members.

3. Drive business growth

50%

more sales-ready leads are generated using ABM.14

75%

higher conversion rates for target accounts when implementing an ABM approach.15

When there’s trust between marketing and sales teams, you can move into full ABM. That trust is vital for driving greater business outcomes. Think about:

  • ABM intelligence: Learn more about your buyers’ business problems and the most relevant messaging or solutions to communicate about.
  • ABM sales: Work with the sales team to design a tailored sales plan that’s supported by key materials for helping them close the deal.
  • ABM business review: Look at your current pipeline progress with the sales team to see what’s working and what needs additional support.

Ready to build B2B relationships
that last a lifetime?

Relationships can get messy in B2B, where buyers tend to come in groups and a growing number of people are involved in making purchase decisions. Your ABM approach also needs to consider the relationships between them, the needs of individuals in the group, and how you can get them all on the same page to make the same decision.

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