Liaison, a provider of enrollment and admissions technology for higher education institutions, has transformed its go-to-market strategy by adopting an account-based marketing (ABM) approach powered by ZoomInfo's AI-driven GTM platform. Rather than targeting individual decision-makers, the company is now engaging entire institutional buying groups, reflecting a broader shift toward data-driven, multi-stakeholder marketing in enterprise B2B sales.

As enterprise buying decisions become increasingly collaborative, B2B marketers are rethinking traditional lead generation strategies that focus on individual contacts. Liaison, an enrollment and admissions technology provider serving more than 40,000 higher education programs across 1,200 campuses, is among the latest organizations to embrace this transition by rebuilding its outreach around account-based marketing (ABM).

According to ZoomInfo, Liaison has redesigned its marketing strategy using the company's AI-powered go-to-market (GTM) platform, allowing marketing and sales teams to engage entire institutions rather than relying on communication with a single contact. The move illustrates how organizations are increasingly combining customer intelligence, buying signals, and AI-powered segmentation to improve engagement across complex buying committees.

For more than three decades, Liaison has developed admissions and enrollment technology for colleges and universities. Historically, its outreach strategy centered on identifying an individual decision-maker at a prospective institution, sending targeted communications, and waiting for engagement. While this approach reflected conventional B2B demand generation practices, it proved increasingly ineffective as purchasing decisions became distributed across multiple departments.

In higher education, technology purchasing often involves admissions leaders, academic program directors, IT departments, finance teams, and executive administrators. Reaching only one stakeholder can delay or even derail a sales opportunity if other decision-makers remain uninformed or disengaged.

Account-based marketing addresses this challenge by treating an entire organization as the target customer rather than a single prospect. Instead of optimizing campaigns for individual leads, ABM aligns marketing and sales around priority accounts, delivering personalized messaging to multiple stakeholders throughout the buying journey.

Using ZoomInfo's platform, Liaison now builds audience segments by combining firmographic, demographic, and intent-based buying signal data. These insights help identify the individuals most likely to influence purchasing decisions within each institution while uncovering new accounts that may have previously gone unnoticed.

The platform also integrates directly with HubSpot, enabling campaign audiences to evolve automatically as prospects interact with marketing content or move through the sales pipeline. This dynamic audience management reduces manual list building while helping marketing teams maintain relevant engagement throughout the customer lifecycle.

Account-based marketing is a B2B marketing strategy that focuses resources on high-value organizations instead of individual leads. It combines customer intelligence, behavioral data, and personalized outreach to engage multiple stakeholders involved in purchasing decisions, making it particularly effective for enterprise sales with long buying cycles.

Liaison reports that early results were encouraging. A low-budget brand awareness campaign launched during the company's initial implementation generated immediate form submissions, providing early validation of the new approach. Since then, the company says it has experienced stronger campaign engagement while simplifying its marketing technology stack. Regular collaboration with ZoomInfo's account management team has also provided greater visibility into campaign performance and budget optimization.

The announcement reflects broader changes occurring across enterprise marketing. Organizations are increasingly replacing volume-based lead generation with AI-supported account prioritization and buying committee engagement. Rather than measuring success by the number of individual leads collected, marketing teams are focusing on account penetration, stakeholder engagement, and revenue contribution.

According to Gartner, B2B buying groups continue to grow in size and complexity, making coordinated engagement across multiple stakeholders essential for successful enterprise sales. Forrester also identifies account-based marketing as a core strategy for aligning marketing and sales around shared revenue objectives, particularly in industries with complex purchasing processes.

Major enterprise technology vendors including Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google have similarly expanded AI-powered capabilities that support account intelligence, predictive analytics, audience segmentation, and campaign orchestration. These developments demonstrate how AI is becoming integral to modern GTM strategies rather than serving solely as a productivity enhancement.

For higher education technology providers, the shift carries particular significance. Universities increasingly evaluate software investments through cross-functional committees that assess technology, financial impact, compliance, and student outcomes. Marketing strategies capable of engaging each stakeholder throughout the decision-making process are becoming critical competitive differentiators.

Beyond higher education, Liaison's transformation reflects a larger trend shaping enterprise MarTech. Organizations are moving toward unified customer data, AI-driven segmentation, and account-centric engagement models that connect marketing, sales, and customer success teams around shared business outcomes. As buying journeys become more collaborative and data-intensive, platforms capable of delivering actionable account intelligence are expected to play an increasingly central role in enterprise growth strategies.

Market Landscape

Account-based marketing continues to gain momentum as enterprise organizations prioritize quality account engagement over high-volume lead generation. AI-powered customer intelligence, intent data, and predictive analytics are enabling marketing teams to identify buying committees, personalize outreach, and improve sales alignment.

According to Gartner, B2B purchasing decisions increasingly involve multiple stakeholders, making coordinated account engagement a strategic necessity. Forrester also reports continued enterprise investment in ABM platforms and revenue orchestration technologies as organizations seek closer alignment between marketing and sales. AI-powered GTM platforms from ZoomInfo, Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft, and Google are accelerating this evolution through automated segmentation, buyer intelligence, and campaign optimization.

Top Insights

• Liaison has shifted from individual lead targeting to account-based marketing, enabling outreach to complete institutional buying committees across more than 1,200 higher education campuses.
• ZoomInfo's AI GTM platform combines firmographic, demographic, and buying-signal data to help identify stakeholders and improve account engagement throughout the sales cycle.
• Native integration with HubSpot enables dynamic audience updates based on campaign interactions and sales pipeline activity, reducing manual segmentation efforts.
• The initiative reflects growing enterprise adoption of AI-powered account intelligence as organizations prioritize buying-group engagement over traditional lead-centric marketing.
• Higher education technology providers increasingly require ABM strategies because software purchasing decisions involve multiple departments and cross-functional leadership teams.

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