As the last few weeks have unfolded, marketers have had to react rapidly to a changing environment. Both channel and messaging has had to be changed in a short time.

I was speaking with a former managing consultant last night. She pointed out that two things often happen in times of crisis. First, a greater emphasis is placed on tactics and second, there is an openness to change and doing things differently.

Research is up across the Internet with browsing up 50% according to Vodafone. We have also seen an immediate change in consumption of our whitepapers, with our account based advertising whitepaper the top download these past few weeks.

But in conversation, there has been an elephant in the room. How can we reach companies using IP addresses when they work from home?

Our clients tend to target enterprise companies who connect via a VPN to their office networks. This allows us to continue to both identify the company and the persona of the person and thus place advertising in front of them.

Smaller companies are less likely to use a VPN. However it is very clear when we are not able to reach them. Currently this seems to be about 10% of the companies we target.

When I look at the campaign data, we continue to see companies both engaging with ads and coming to our client’s websites.

Knowing which companies are engaging is allowing our clients to start conversations in a way that is impossible right now from cold.

Today, marketers are having to both change their messaging and reprioritise their target markets. Account based advertising can reach specific companies with tailored messaging allowing marketers to increase awareness within new markets and identify which companies are thinking about the solution you provide.