Written by Miriam Kidane

Senior Account Director

 

Selecting the right accounts, targeting them with relevant, effective content, and aligning sales to marketing – these are the underlying principles of Account Based Marketing that continue to ring true.

But now in 2023, we’re in the era of Artificial Intelligence – and although not new technology (chatbots were first introduced in the ‘60s!), generative AI is starting to shake things up for us in ABM. Its benefits (and challenges) for marketers can’t be ignored.

And with this, the recurring theme of this year’s Global ABM Conference in London was how we can better leverage AI to elevate how we work. Because ignoring AI is a bigger risk than investing in its potential.

Here are my top 3 learnings from the day:

1. Apply AI early. 

Curating effective personalised content and automating lead nurture journeys is not where AI’s role begins and ends. It’s important to integrate AI early – into campaign planning, research, account selection and targeting, all the way through to reporting and benchmarking. With AI, what would traditionally be resource intensive, now has the potential to be much more streamlined.

 Key takeaway:

“AI will not replace you; a person using it will”

 

2. Personalise at your peril.

With AI comes more opportunities for personalisation. But an overreliance on personalisation at the top of the funnel limits opportunities for big ideas and brand building. Instead, use AI to personalise where and when it matters – further down the funnel with relevant information closer to the purchase decision.

Key takeaway:

“What’s more important, marketing to the mass or to the few that truly matter?”

 

3. And finally: the marketing to sales handoff should no longer exist.

This, of course, is not a new message. But it is relevant now more than ever, in an AI-enabled, digitally-driven world. Integrating teams and touchpoints becomes essential, considering the customer journey as a holistic sales and marketing experience.

Key takeaway:

“Think of your marketing and sales function as football team, working together to score a goal,
everyone has a part to play. It’s truly a team sport.”

 

The B2B customer journey is never linear, often complex, with long buying-cycles. But with improvements in practical AI applications, “AI-BM” can turn a complicated strategy into something much simpler – at scale.

This intelligence was not artificial. We make the complicated simple.