Account-based marketing is hot in B2B sales because it works.

ABM can be a worthwhile strategy to pursue if your organization is interested in reducing costs and increasing leads. Companies have reduced marketing campaign costs by 40% using ABM, according to a Forrester Consulting analysis of ABM software company Terminus. Sales close rates increased from 10% to 12%, the same analysis also found; that's a meaningful lift for a medium-sized or large organization.

However, ABM requires some departures from traditional marketing wisdom. The right content marketing can make or break the success of an ABM campaign.

To give your ABM campaigns the best chance of success, avoid these five content marketing mistakes.

ABM Content Marketing Mistake #1: Marketing is disconnected from Sales

Sales and marketing professionals often struggle to work together effectively, which is an expected issue because of the difference in specialized skills that each brings to the job.

However, marketers have a responsibility to overcome the Sales-Marketing gap by reaching out first.

"Not involving Sales in the content ideation process early on is a mistake," Andrew Mahr, chief customer officer at Triblio, told me. "The idea isn't just to get their ideas—it's to get their buy-in that sharing your content is important and helpful. Sales is a critical channel in ABM, and if they don't have confidence in your content, it's a nonstarter."

Solve the disconnect by inviting a salesperson to the marketing content development process right at the planning stage. After all, Sales can validate your ideas by referencing customer questions. If you want your sales team to use marketing content in their account-based marketing campaigns, invite them to join the discussion early.

ABM Content Marketing Mistake #2: You hide or gate all your best content

What if one of the marketing industry's most common practices—putting valuable content behind an opt-in form—isn't the right idea?

It's shocking to contemplate. After all, without lead generation forms, how will marketing demonstrate that they produce leads and hit their marketing qualified lead (MQL) goal?

"We work so hard to produce personalized content to educate our buyers and then hide it behind a form," says Latané Conant, chief market officer of 6sense. "I know ungating content can seem scary when you're used to relying on leads and MQLs. Still, if you want to deliver a true value-add, account-based buyer experience, you have set that content free."

Putting your best content into the open means that more people can discover it, and that ease of use is why ungating content can be helpful. For example, an analyst at a target account can quickly review your new survey results and then forward a link to their manager.

Ungating content might be what you've been searching for to boost your results.

If the idea feels scary, test it for a quarter. Put half of your gated content into the public Web for buyers, salespeople, and search engines to see, and keep the other half behind opt-in forms. Talk to Sales about which approach leads to better results in follow-up, conversations, and deals.

ABM Content Marketing Mistake #3: You are missing third-party credibility

Your ABM content may be forgettable because it repeats what people have seen a thousand times elsewhere. Companies that rely solely on internal resources and ideas to create compelling content for ABM are missing out on the opportunity to boost their credibility.

Specifically, invite your customers to become part of the story.