An analysis of stakeholder engagement : communicating sustainability through account-based marketing

Communicating sustainability initiatives effectively is a way to inspire transparency, trust, and credibility among stakeholders. This is a well-documented fact. Traditional tools, such as reports and events, often fail to capture stakeholders’ attention. This paper examines new communication techniques for marketing sustainability, focusing on how Account-Based Marketing (ABM) can enhance stakeholder engagement with sustainability initiatives. Based on a four-month experiment involving one core company and 23 managers from its five main stakeholders, our study reveals that ABM can significantly improve information completeness, communication effectiveness, and stakeholder awareness about sustainability. Nevertheless, our findings also highlight several challenges, including the need to adapt communication strategies to account for gender differences and audiences with less experience. Moreover, ABM works best in building solid relationships by supplementing sustainability messages with both effective communication and involvement in other initiatives, such as resilience-based projects.