How Kristina McConnell Uses Precision and AI to Power Account-Based Marketing at H1

A Director of Marketing at H1, Kristina McConnell brings structure, creativity, and a test-and-learn mindset to every campaign she touches. With a small team and a niche audience in the pharma space, she has helped transform H1’s account-based marketing (ABM) approach into a tightly aligned, data-driven engine. Her team goes far beyond basic alignment with sales. They’re in the same tools, reviewing lists line by line, syncing on messaging, and closing feedback loops in real time. As for AI, it’s fully embedded in her workflow—used daily to accelerate content creation and sharpen strategy.

We caught up with Kristina to talk about what effective ABM looks like on a lean team, how she is tailoring content across vastly different audiences, and why she treats AI like a creative collaborator.

Q: Let’s start with your ABM efforts. What does alignment with sales look like in practice?

Kristina McConnell

Every time we kick off a new campaign or even a new year, we sit down with the sales team and look at our account list together, line by line. We live in Salesforce just as much as they do, so we are pulling reports, asking questions, and making sure the people we are targeting are the ones they are actively pursuing. We highlight duplicates, flag accounts that are already in play, and update the list together. From there, we stay tightly aligned on messaging. Sales is on the front lines, so we pull in their insights to shape how we talk about pain points and value. It is truly collaborative. And our BDR team is an extension of marketing—they are brought into campaigns early to make sure every touchpoint feels connected.

Q: Can you share an example of a campaign that made a big impact?

Kristina McConnell

We market to two very different audiences: medical and clinical. Our medical audience was always easy to engage on LinkedIn, but clinical was a different story. We were spending on campaigns and barely seeing results. So we paused and did a full reset with sales and leadership. We redefined who we were really trying to reach, what their roles were, and what pain points mattered most. From there, we created content tailored to each segment, refined our targeting, and launched again.

That shift completely changed our results. Instead of getting five leads, we got more than 100—high-quality, highly relevant leads from the exact accounts we wanted. It was a wake-up call: messaging and targeting cannot be one-size-fits-all, especially when your audience behaviors are so different.

Q: You mentioned AI is a big part of your content process. How are you using it?

Kristina McConnell

I rely on AI as my content creator, almost like a writing partner I am coaching. The process starts with a lot of training. I feed it everything from product positioning to interview transcripts to examples of pages or formats I like. I treat it the same way I would onboard a new writer. The better the context, the better the draft.

Once I have that first version, I do not just edit it top to bottom. I go chunk by chunk, giving feedback in real time to get it closer to where it needs to be. Honestly, my process has not changed that much—it is just faster. AI has not replaced content strategy or voice, but it is helping us get to the first draft in half the time.

Q: How do you approach messaging across your very different audience segments?

Kristina McConnell

It is all about testing. You can think you know what will resonate, but until the content is live, you are guessing. We ran ad variations with eight different value props and learned a ton—some of the messages we were most confident in did not land at all. That kind of insight only comes from putting more ideas out there.

We also learned that medical professionals prefer bite-sized, visual content, while clinical audiences engage more with in-depth white papers and peer-style formats. We have even tested fun, visual graphics, like an arrow hitting a target, to illustrate core ideas. They performed way better than standard report covers. Now we are building more visual-first campaigns that quickly convey value, even without reading the headline.

Q: What’s your best advice for marketers working with small teams or niche audiences?

Kristina McConnell

Do not try to do it all. Focus on the channels that are actually working, and go deep. We were spread too thin at one point, and once we trimmed back and focused on what was driving results, everything got sharper. It is better to do fewer things really well than to try to be everywhere and miss the mark.

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