How do we reach influential buyers in priority accounts?

Combine sales knowledge with marketing expertise to build a shared understanding of the priority account. Sales teams may already have account plans, meetings and established relationships, yet still struggle to reach enough influential people to advance an opportunity. Use that relationship knowledge to inform campaign planning rather than keeping it separate from marketing's creative work.

The practical starting point is a partnership: sales contributes account insights, while marketing uses those insights to shape a highly targeted campaign. The campaign should focus on the account relationship that needs progress, rather than a broad market audience. In Demand Gen Report's 2025 benchmark survey, 43% of surveyed ABM practitioners identify sales and marketing alignment as a leading programme challenge.

Map influence beyond your existing contacts to identify the buying committee and the people the campaign needs to reach. Established relationships are not necessarily enough: sales teams can have account plans and regular meetings without reaching enough of the account's most influential people. Treat familiar contacts as part of the audience, not the boundary of the campaign.

Start with the selected account and conduct stakeholder mapping before developing account insights, themes or content. The purpose is to define a specific buying audience rather than cast a wide net. A 2025 Edelman finding among hidden business-purchase influencers in the United States, across industries and company sizes, found that 71% of hidden buyers say they have relatively little interaction with sales.

Engage stakeholders with account-relevant messages that address their specific business and role-based challenges. Turn account insights into key themes, then use those themes to guide messaging and content for the buying committee. Ground the content in what the audience is actually asking, rather than what a content calendar assumes people want to hear.

Keep stakeholders engaged throughout the campaign timeline and measure account progress. The aim is not simply to deliver an asset, but to say something meaningful and build rapport beyond an individual message. A 2025 Edelman finding among hidden business-purchase influencers in the United States found that 85% of hidden buyers prioritise a prospective vendor's understanding of their business challenges.