Marketers today understand that personalizing a campaign for the target audience is the best way to ensure it will generate the desired results. Of course, “personalizing” a mass email blast by only changing each recipient’s name isn’t going to do the trick.

Sending out generic messaging to many people with the goal of getting just a small number of them to take action, check out your goods or services, and become customers is not the best strategy. Thankfully, you can narrow your target audience and generate better results with an account-based marketing approach that focuses on strengthening relationships with your top customers through personalized outreach tailored to their needs.

Here, 12 members of Forbes Agency Council explore important developments and trends in ABM that marketers need to be aware of to build upon the success of their biggest accounts this year and next.

1. Targeted CTV Advertising

ABM is ideal for getting custom messages to your highest-level prospects, and over-the-top/connected TV advertising presents an attractive B2B marketing opportunity. Using critical data insights, marketers can match ads with CTV buys for targeted shows and channels your prospects watch. Surprisingly, our data shows the most popular CTV shows for B2B buyers this past June were Tiny House Nation, Heartland and Giants versus Dodgers games. – Ajay Gupta, Stirista

2. AI And ML Transforming Data Into Actionable Intelligence

A significant trend we are seeing is ABM teams using the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to transform their data into actionable intelligence. Once they have data that is healthy, accurate, verified and deeply enriched, they can look to expand their total available market, prioritize target customers based on more predictive intent triggers, and achieve greater revenue growth. – Peter Cannone, Demand Science

3. Balancing Trust, Creativity And Data

Finding that balance between trust, creativity and data is key. Each one of these pillars is extremely important to your ABM efforts. Building trust breeds not only credibility, but also conversions. And without creativity, how would you deliver your hook in a way that engages? Finally, data helps you bring it all together through measurement to ensure you are paying attention to the right indicators of success. – Christopher Tompkins, The Go! Agency

4. Driving Top- To Bottom-Of-Funnel Conversion

In your ABM efforts, focus on filling the top of your funnel to ensure the conversion takes place at the bottom of the funnel. Next, move on to focusing on the lifetime value of your customers and how to best reach and retarget them. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC

5. Focusing On Decision Makers’ Goals And Motivations

B2B marketers often focus on the benefits their platform or service offers to the company they’re targeting. However, they often miss the personal goals, motivations and responsibilities of the decision makers at that company. Pay attention to how your products or services will help the individual, not just the company. – Douglas Karr, DK New Media

6. Post-Pandemic ABM Moving Online

According to a recent study by Gartner, only 17% of B2B buyers take time to meet with potential suppliers in person. This means that ABM is slowly going online in response to the post-pandemic business environment. Marketers need to focus more on building a multichannel presence so that they can engage more leads. This will allow for some one-on-one time with their prospects, at least virtually. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

7. Taking A Multi-Touch Media Approach To ABM

Account-based marketers need to be aware of a multi-touch media approach to achieve awareness within accounts with high growth potential. Data providers are now able to connect with more ad platforms to reach users across several channels, increasing brand touchpoints. As a result, ABM can now use channels such as social and programmatic media to engage many users effectively and efficiently. – Donna Robinson, Collective Measures

8. ABM Marketers Partnering With B2B Experts

One of the rising trends is the partnership ABM marketers are seeking with B2B experts as third-party, highly visible, trusted experts. There is much to be learned here from the B2C marketers. These types of collaborations can be win-win. Marketers gain the brand association with the expert and expand their channels to reach more potential clientele, and B2B professionals monetize their expertise and reach. – Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications

9. Aligning Sales And Marketing Around ABM Goals

ABM’s true power unfolds when marketing and sales are truly aligned. Having both departments work on the same goal leads to marketing delivering more relevant content as well as sales providing better feedback to marketing and taking better account penetration chances. – Jordi Marca, Gotoclient

10. Using Analytics To Meet Account Penetration And Growth Goals

Revenue teams are using more analytics to meet account penetration and growth goals. An example of this is monitoring account-based activity such as visits, downloads and opens, then mapping these active contacts to divisions and organizational charts for better context and more personalized outreach. – Wendy Covey, TREW Marketing

11. Increasing Sophistication Of Conversational Marketing

The increasing sophistication and growth of conversational marketing is perfectly positioned to make a huge impact on ABM. As marketers become more confident in quickly building complex conversational flows, early adopters are already starting to create chat automations tailored to their biggest accounts. – Chris Martin, FlexMR

12. Direct-To-Consumer E-Commerce Capabilities

While Amazon is the gold mine for many when it comes to e-commerce, pushing traffic directly to your e-commerce site can be far more profitable and involve far less red tape. The competition on Amazon will only continue to grow. Developing your own audience that is comfortable purchasing directly from your website will lead to more sustainable growth. – Bernard May, National Positions