Content that moves deals

Account-based marketing fails when it becomes a targeting tactic with a content afterthought. The accounts are named. The ads are live. The “content” is a generic thought-leadership post with the company logo swapped in.

Deals move when someone inside the account can forward a piece of work that reduces uncertainty for the next person in the chain. That is a different bar from “engagement.” A post that earns likes from peers is not the same as a note a champion can drop into a Slack thread with “this is what I meant.”

In platform marketing across emerging markets, the practical version looks like this: map the jobs the committee is trying to do (justify budget, compare risk, imagine rollout), then build a small set of assets that answer those jobs in the places those people already spend attention — TikTok and Reels for pattern recognition, LinkedIn for internal forwarding, Reddit and X for unvarnished category talk, events for live proof.

Working rules I use with brands and partners: (1) One account list, one narrative spine — every touch should make the same thesis clearer, not introduce a new slogan. (2) Write the “forwardable” artifact first (a tight teardown, a checklist, a stage clip with a real claim), then adapt it to formats. (3) Measure usefulness the way a sales cycle feels it — replies that name a next step, inbound that references a specific piece, partners who reuse your language — not vanity metrics alone.

If your content cannot survive being forwarded without you in the room, it is not deal content yet. It is brand decoration. EK Notes exists to practice the former: specific, checkable, and useful to the people who actually close.