B2B marketers have a lot on their plates these days. With marketing budgets continuing to tighten, everyone’s keeping a close eye on ROI. And at the same time, buyers are navigating less linear journeys, buying committees have more people, sales cycles are getting longer, and expectations for personalized, more human B2B experiences keep growing.
All in all, you need to be more laser focused than ever. But how can you do more with less and still deliver results?
If you want to be more relevant and empathetic to your customers while cutting waste in marketing spend and collaboratively solving your business challenges, account-based marketing (ABM) is the way to go.
But seeing ABM in isolation only reinforces the silos it’s meant to break down. So, we’re challenging B2B to change that.
At MOI, ABM is more than just a campaign model. It’s the way to build meaningful relationships across the full journey, not just the last mile.
What makes ABM programs a success? It comes down to three key principles:
ABM principle 1: Build relationships across the full journey
Too many ABM programs still focus only on in-market accounts when, in reality, buyers spend most of their time out of market—and 78% of shortlists are set before research begins and 71% go with their first choice.
Your goal should be making sure there’s always a branded environment around your target accounts, so that when they do move in-market, your brand is the first they think of.
This means balancing brand motions, including thought leadership and trust-building, with demand motions, through signals and targeted, personalized content.
Doing smarter business
By building insight-driven programs, you’ll make smarter decisions across your marketing. An account-based approach will give you a good understanding of how your content performs, what intent your prospects are showing, which competitors they’re looking at, and what works for your audience. Without one, you’ll likely waste sales time on unproductive prospecting.
ABM principle 2: Make ABM a culture, not a project
You can’t embrace and integrate ABM tactics without first aligning your marketing, strategy, and sales efforts, where strategy and data inform your campaign messaging.
In other words, it’s a whole cultural shift—one where top-level endorsement drives integration across teams.
Will nailing cross-departmental integration take some work? Yes. Only 20% of B2B organizations say their ABM program is fully embedded in business operations.
But is it worth it? Absolutely! 87% of sales and marketing executives agree that team coordination is a vital part of business success.
Getting account-based marketing right will see your teams working closer together and having a clearer understanding of strategy, marketing, and creative processes.
When your organization gets fully aligned—think shared KPIs and incentives, cross-functional collaboration, and executive buy-in for ABM—you can achieve faster revenue growth, higher retention, and more sustainable customer relationships.
ABM principle 3: Put humanity back into ABM
Behind every B2B organization, you’ll find people. And they want to be spoken to on a human level by brands that understand them and can help them find solutions to their biggest problems.
They increasingly want this through B2C-style engagement, with personalized content and experiences. In fact, 77% of people would recommend, buy from, or even pay more when brands offer them personalized experiences.
That’s the core sentiment of ABM.
But while generative AI has made scaled personalization possible, it risks turning ABM into “precision manufacturing” of content.
What still moves buyers is resonance—empathy, timing, relevance, and creativity. That’s why modern ABM requires blending data and automation with instinct and imagination.
Giving people what they want
By zeroing in on specific personas and their challenges, you’ll avoid a wasteful, “spray and pray” approach. You’ll go beyond just spreading awareness, to building credibility, driving demand, and strengthening relationships. Individualizing your audience through content, comms, and experiences allows for purpose-built campaigns that last.
Taking ABM to the next level
At MOI, we’ve taken account-based marketing a step further with our Marketing Intelligence Unit. We inform strategy and develop messaging in a creative way by gathering data through a variety of approaches that include:
- social listening
- target account dossiers
- account list prioritization
- bespoke audience surveys
- target contact personality insights
And then we use our Turning Heads™ methodology to understand what we know, talk about what we think, and formulate big ideas based on the insights we find—keeping different stakeholders within your business informed and connected to leadership and your organization’s overall vision.
How will ABM work in your business?
Wherever your brand is on its ABM journey, whether you’re new to it all, or you already have a program in place, we can help you get to where you need to be with a bespoke ABM solution.
If you’re thinking about ABM for your organization, MOI can help you identify a bespoke solution. Just answer the five questions on this form, and we’ll send you some fresh perspectives on how you can create a winning ABM strategy.
Final thought
ABM is no longer a niche tactic. It‘s the strategic core of how modern B2B businesses grow. So, treat it as a cultural shift, with a focus on relationships, empathy, and whole-journey engagement, and you’ll thrive in 2026 and beyond.
