Account-based marketing has become a big priority for B2B companies. It allows businesses to better understand and target consumers by personalizing outreach to their specific needs and priorities.

While the concept of ABM is not new, today’s emerging technologies allow businesses to gather richer data to improve their customer outreach efforts. Below, a panel of Forbes Agency Council members share ways they foresee the increase in ABM impacting their work and how agencies can stay ahead of the curve.

1. More Sophisticated Competition

The rise of ABM is predicated on deep audience and account insight, which can result in significant commercial gains. The race to obtain, manage and analyze data to drive commercially valuable insights, and then crucially, to turn those insights into clear marketing and sales actions will determine the winners and losers in the agency world. – Greg Salmon, Agent3

2. More Dedicated Resources

ABM is critical for companies wanting to create truly personalized buying experiences and deeper connections with customers and clients. Personalized marketing helps build trust and greatly improves the customer journey. The need for dedicated resources for ABM is here to stay because of the impact it has on engagement. – Seth Winterer, Digital Logic

3. More Tech-Enabled Results And Complexity

ABM is not new, but there has recently been a proliferation of supporting technology that provides more insight, personalization, efficiency and, in some cases, unnecessary complexity. Establish your goals first, then research where technology can (and should) be applied. Consider conducting ABM pilots where more work is manual. Then, if successful, onboard technology to scale. – Wendy Covey, TREW Marketing

4. A More Philosophical Approach

I’d say don’t rely on it as a tool that will solve all of your problems. In fact, you might need more than one tool to make ABM work, so treat it as a philosophy. ABM is understanding who you are targeting, who those key accounts are, the personas within those accounts and what will be the most effective way to get in front of them, explain to them your value and get them to become your customers. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

5. More Personalized Content To Lead Prospects

It’s critical that your business audits your content and marketing initiatives to ensure that you have developed effective and personalized content for each stage of the buyer’s journey, including problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building, supplier selection, validation and consensus. The journey is predominantly self-service nowadays, so you must lead your prospects. – Douglas Karr, DK New Media

6. More Specialized Niches

Have a specialty and market openly for only that specialty. You can have multiple websites targeting different niches, but brands want to work with agencies that speak directly to their niche. – Kelly Samuel, Snack Toronto

7. More Investment In Data And Research

For SEO, we do a good amount of ABM already in our work. An increase would be as simple as further tailoring the services we offer to account for a more narrow field of interest, depending on the accounts in question. If agencies want to stay ahead, invest in research. Data collection is going to be more reliable than anything else, as long as you keep collecting and updating your research methods. – Dmitrii Kustov, Regex SEO

8. More Individualized Points Of Contact

ABM takes into account the long sales cycle of certain products or services. It focuses on individualized marketing for each account with the understanding that the client will reap the benefits of individualization and will see an increase in closed sales because of the increase in points of contact with consumers. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC

9. More Strategic And Data-Driven Targeting

Thanks to Covid-19 and the new norm of working remotely, marketers should use platforms such as LinkedIn to understand the composition of first-party datasets and target key decision makers, rather than a blanket, all-employee approach. Update your customer experience to collect first- and zero-party data frequently, and make sure both the marketing and sales teams keep an updated CRM to maximize potential. – Donna Robinson, Collective Measures

10. More Granular Understanding Of Customers

ABM has been around for a long time and known by many different terms. I don’t think it changes the keys to success for an agency: Know your client’s customers really well. Know your client’s business. Find ways to help them win in the marketplace. ABM is a fancy way of breaking down groups, divisions, etc. inside the client’s organization. It works, but don’t let that distract you from the core. – Michael McFadden, eAccountable

11. More Effective Audience Segmentation

With the rise of advanced targeting tools, ABM has become more popular because it focuses on the highest-value customers first. Utilizing custom audiences and building intent funnels with Facebook advertising is one of the easiest ways for businesses to begin. Build ads for each segment and bid accordingly so that your key messages are seen by your audience first. – Brian Meert, AdvertiseMint

12. More Customized Social Media Posts

ABM will change how we approach social media. What was previously posted for all types of audiences will need to be more customized for limited audiences, meeting prospects where they are in their buying journeys. This way, social media can lead to deeper conversations and successful sales conversions with a one-to-one approach, as opposed to a one-to-thousands approach. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications

13. More Effective One-To-One Marketing

ABM isn’t new. It’s what previous generations of advertisers were waiting for: one-to-one marketing. Its biggest impact will be on effectiveness. If you aren’t already, start thinking of your campaigns and sales efforts on an individual level. Harness the power of technology to connect with your ideal prospects on an individual level and have targeted conversations with them. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative

14. More Interactive Microtargeting

ABM strategies vary from prospect to prospect. The trend in marketing is microtargeting prospects as though they are your only prospect. It’s evolving rapidly and becoming the industry standard, as it offers a collaborative, cooperative and experiential approach to connecting with real people on the other end of your pipeline. It simulates real-world interactions through a sophisticated tech stack. – Terry Tateossian, Socialfix Media