The New Dawn of Account Based Marketing

Buyer Intent Data

Article | October 7, 2022

Is ABM just Another Bullshit in Marketing* or a path to success? After some exciting years of establishing and experiencing ABM, I think, there is clearly a potential for both: a chance for a significant contribution to success, or just another bullshit. There are many paths in both directions (succeed or bullshit) - below are some thoughts and personal observations - and I leave the decision with you! ABM and the Relationship with Sales:There is no chance for ABM if you are not working in lockstep and partnership with sales. Anything else is just bullshit. The Right Balance to Scale ABM,1:1 ABM vs. ABM at Scale:Both approaches have their reasons and value. As ABM at scale is often discussed, the key question is: what makes the approach account based? Applying ABM methods in a scaled environment is an enormous chance to put more customers into the center, especially if 1: few is seen as a scaled 1:1 (and not as a small 1: many). Account insights are used for better planning, personalization, messaging, and content development – the right balance is the key. The chance of scaling ABM to death is relatively high - then just don't call it ABM. From Pipeline Only to Customer Loyalty:What is the expected outcome? This quarter’s pipeline? Or a long-term successful relationship with a loyal customer? How will you measure success in such a customer relationship? There are extensive lists of KPIs for ABM. Leads are normally not part of it - for a reason. My view is: Finally, ABM has to contribute to the business, especially in the long-term. It is relatively easy to realize short-term success, but will your accounts be loyal customers over the years? Will they grow over time or only for a quarter? Defining joint goals for sales and ABM and committing as peers to customer lifecycle-related goals, not just single deals, reduces the risk of delivering bullshit. Is Your Approach "Marketing for Accounts" or "Account Based"? There is value in both in marketing for accounts and in account-based marketing. If you label it “ABM,” make it account-based. Ideally, you look at your data and insights and decide: is that enough to make it an ABM approach? If so, great! If not, fix your data. My company invested an enormous effort in fixing the data and developing an innovative view of our accounts. Listen to Your Customers! That's something I do by myself, and I ask my team to do so, too. Have you ever asked your customer (humans, people, executives - not data) how your ABM was received? Do they value what you do for them, and what exactly makes the difference between all the many newsletters and emails they receive? We measure everything we do, but we do not really measure what we don't do. What do you think about it? *By the way, the "bullshit statement" was made by a sales leader in one of my first ABM presentations in front of his team. We have proven multiple times the opposite, but to be constantly successful, we have to challenge ourselves daily: Is that really ABM what I do? Can I prove it? What is the expected short-term and long-term outcome? What will my customer think about it? One has to reflect on these questions.

Buyer Intent Data

Article | September 11, 2023

Sales and marketing have transformed. Marketers have had to adapt, modify their activities and lean into more collaborative interactions with sales teams in a way they haven’t done before. As events and direct channels are on the minor list of concerns, sales teams have become a principal marketing channel to reach accounts. A quick look at Google trends shows you how Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has revolutionized the world of B2B marketing. It happened by going from non-existent to extremely popular in the last several years and hiked during the pandemic. With today’s buyer journey becoming progressively digital, B2B organizations are interested in ABM to deliver exceedingly personalized and focussed marketing campaigns. The secret behind the burgeoning popularity of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is how confident and versed marketers feel now while using it. While ABM persists as the hot MarTech topic since 2019, its influence grew during the pandemic. While it may seem all geek to new users, ABM offers rewarding opportunities for marketers. As per the ABM evangelist, Sangram Vajre of Terminus, “If marketers embrace ABM methods, they will earn desired revenue in their businesses. I want to do everything I can to help make marketers heroes.” As per The B2B Lead, ABM directly inscribed sales and marketing alignment and challenges 50% of the time when sales wasted time against unproductive targeting. ABM Drives Revenue, and Here’s the Proof: If you are putting together an ABM strategy, such numbers would be handy. This blog gathers ten powerful Account-based Marketing stats that every marketer (you) should know as we land in 2021 (the post-pandemic era). So, to show you how beneficial account-based marketing can be, here you go. 10 Account-based Marketing Stats 92% of Marketing Leaders are More Focused at New Selling Process Marketing leaders are now selling with vision to the executive level than what they did some years ago. As per a recent ITSMA report titled, “Engaging the C-Suite: 2019 Sales and Executive Engagement Survey Report”, 92% of marketing leaders mentioned that selling at the executive level is more critical to their sales strategy. In today’s time, marketers are relying on ABM capabilities to capitalize on new market prospects. In addition, B2B businesses are designing and deepening their relationships around ABM to engage C-level executives more effectively. 90% Role of Marketers in ABM Today is Strategic The role of marketers doing ABM is more strategic on particular programs. As per Alterra Group’s report, marketers need to demonstrate deep account and industry-specific expertise to create seamless ABM campaigns. To create account-relevant marketing messages, companies are bestowing more resources and snowballing the expenditure on ABM. Such expenditure is predicted to exceed that on other marketing technologies rapidly. A Sturdy ICP has a 68% Higher Account... Organizations with a strong ICP have 68% higher account marketing win rates. Modern marketing teams are now being measured on pipeline and revenue, not leads. This way, they are staying more focused on productive revenue growth at every stage of the funnel. A Total Economic Impact report by Forrester found that prospects see an average 313% ROI by bringing go-to-market teams practicing account-based marketing tactics together to make marketing efforts efficacious. 69% of Top-Performing Account-Based Organizations have Dedicated Leaders 69% of top-performing account-based organizations now have a dedicated account-based leader. The Account-based marketing stats reflect that 70% of marketers who started their account-based initiatives in the past six months have dedicated leaders who are entirely dedicated to the market, having particular and focused accounts instead of a sea of buyers. 60% of Users Reported an Increase in Revenue When ABM picked its pace in at least a year, 60% of its users reported a revenue surge of at least 10% & 19%, termed an impact of 30% or greater. In companies with a stout ROI from ABM, 75% measure pipeline generated and revenue, 67.5% measure meetings and target account pipeline are set, and 63% measure marketing qualified leads are gained. As a result of this, approximately 70% of B2B marketers will pilot or launch full-sized account-based software and programs to target and engross groups of buyers in selected accounts. 62% of Marketers are Being Optimistic They can easily measure the positive impact of account-based marketing tactics since adopting ABM. This has been the most efficient benefit of ABM observed up until now. Forrester envisages that by 2025, the term "ABM" will evaporate as account-centric becomes the distinct way for B2B organizations to identify, plan, manage, and measure buying and post-sale motions for prospects. 80% ABM Budgets are Intensifying After B2B companies saw the success of early programs, budgets devoted to ABM amplified by 40% year over year, from 20% in 2019 to 28% in 2020. This surge in investment reflects a confident attitude in return on ABM initiatives. 42% B2B Companies Favor Keeping Accounts in ABM Strategy between 50 and 500 As per the Demand Gen Report, 18% of B2B companies try to keep their accounts list under 50, 19% target a broad set of accounts, ranging between 1,000 and 5,000. For a focused ABM approach, the report found that 42% of B2B companies try to keep their account list between 101 to 500. However, as this quantity varies depending on the size and scope of individual company deal sizes, these results will vary based on industry and product. Companies Executing ABM Amplified ACV by 171% B2B companies that have implemented ABM perceived a 171% rise in their Annual Contract Value (ACV) more significant than the pre-ABM ACV. In addition, ABM offers a boost to the pipeline rate, thus, enabling marketers to target prospects belonging to new revenue goals. 75% of B2B Buyers and 84% of C-level Executives Use Social Media B2B buyers and C-level executives progressively rely on social media to harvest more information about products and services before making purchase-based decisions. 80% of buyers who had not yet used social media to research purchases are willing to use the right platforms. As online mediums have become a progressive information preference of buyers, companies create profitable account-based campaigns to ignite the initiative. A recent Social Buying Study from International Data Corporation (IDC) concludes that B2B buyers are the most active in using social media to support the buying process by having 84% superior budgets that made 61% more purchase decisions. This significantly influenced a greater span of purchase decisions than those buyers who did not use social media for their purchase process. A Note About the Account-based Marketing Stats and COVID-19 April 2020, was just when all businesses were beginning to feel the effects of the pandemic. As a result, the COVID-19 impact has altered several perspectives, including budget, headcount, and prioritization. Yet, ABM programs have shown results with significant improvements in pipeline growth. “If economic obscurity continues, these programs should persist as a core element of the Marketing strategy.” – Todd Berkowitz, Practice Vice President, Gartner While COVID-19 is changing B2B organizations’ ability to stimulate sustained growth, it’s hoped that an account-based approach will significantly benefit your organization in the following ways: Focus on your limited resources (budget, time, and personnel) on those companies to do business. Target the accounts you already know. This will enable you to spend less money on demand-gen campaigns to generate new names. Make the most of your team’s efficiency by scoring sales and marketing campaigns that work together to create the best buyer experience. Frequently Asked Questions How are account-based marketing stats measured? Marketers use close rates when required to measure ABM efforts. Typically, the stats are gainedby measuring the reachability of target accounts or specific contacts at those accounts. This gives you a percentage or a conversion rate by account, which further estimates how successful ABM efforts have been to date. What are good ABM metrics? The good ABM metrics are: Marketing-qualified accounts Real engagement of account Velocity of Pipeline Average selling price Customer engagement rate Why should we measure account-based marketing stats? It is because ABM delivers ROI. For example, when there is a greater emphasis on defining Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), a properly structured approach to selecting account and value is aligned with what a prospect’s business needs. 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Buyer Intent Data

Article | August 23, 2022

Inbound Marketing Businesses put effort into designing their inbound marketing strategies to seek growth opportunities. In inbound marketing strategies, target audiences are attracted, engaged, and delighted by businesses by using valuable content. They also communicate with the customers regularly through inbound sales calls and keep the customers happy through timely and prompt assistance. Businesses use an inbound marketing strategy that they have trusted for years, while some still struggle to grasp the power of inbound marketing. In both cases, if the strategy doesn’t show the expected results, it becomes a matter of immediate concern. Why Should You Conduct an Inbound Marketing Audit? In an interview with Media 7, Daniel Englebretson, Founder of Khronos, talked about rise of AI in ABM and the success of marketing programs. “The best programs, and the best marketers, have built their success on the back of rapid iteration and a long history of testing, learning, and continuously improving.” Continuous improvement in marketing can happen only when you carry out regular assessments or audits of your marketing strategy, inbound, and outbound. A marketing audit looks at the business environment, strategy implementation, systems, organization, productivity, and function of the strategy. It is undertaken when there is a change in leadership, the business is lagging compared to competitors, has rapid growth or is terribly stuck, or when a design overhaul is planned. Here is why you should conduct an inbound marketing audit: Identifying Weaknesses If an inbound marketing strategy suddenly stops working, you need to find its weaknesses and remedy them in time to get the best results. This is called “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” (SWOT) analysis. An audit will help you analyze the effectiveness of the channels and the tactics you use as compared to industry standards and find out the reasons behind ineffective lead generation. An effective audit also rigorously checks the marketing tools your team uses. You can make adjustments and improvements to the strategy based on the audit. You can look into channels like websites, paid search, email marketing, social media, and organic search to assess the performance of your strategy. Spotting Growth Opportunities When expanding the business, introducing a new product or service, conducting an audit can add great value to your plan. You can evaluate your business position, rate your customer satisfaction and engagement, know how well you are exploiting your existing opportunities, and if you are using the right channels and messaging to get in touch with your target audience. If you find anything amiss, you can promptly deploy resources to course-correct your team and work towards a better ROI through the inbound marketing strategy. Reaffirming Goals Reaffirm your marketing and business goals by assessing important data-driven perspective metrics like keyword ranking, post engagement, customer acquisition cost (CAC), email click-through rate, and lead quality. For example, if your website is not optimized for SERP and doesn’t grab the attention of your users, it could be the reason behind ineffective lead generation. In such a case, you can re-evaluate your content strategy. Things like text-to-image ratio on web pages, irrelevant images, and weirdly placed call-to-action (CTA) buttons can affect the user’s journey. If some pages are unresponsive on mobiles or tablets, then the audit will help you find those and implement appropriate solutions. Knowing what is working and what isn’t helps you know what you need to do next to get optimum results from your inbound marketing strategy. Keeping Your Team Motivated Every team is a defined stakeholder in the company's success. Right from the sales team, customer experience, IT architects, c-suite, product developers, to your marketing team, everyone will know their strengths and weaknesses through the audit. A regularly conducted marketing audit will keep your teams motivated to perform their duties well. Boosts ROI Boost your ROI by ditching things that do not work. Allocating resources to your business strengths instead of your marketing weaknesses will help you get the ROI you expect. You can also focus on introducing new plans to revive the part of the strategy that is no longer working. It can be anything from redesigning a few website pages to hiring a new SEO expert. What Does a Strong Inbound Marketing Audit Look Like? A strong marketing audit yields results that enhance your strategy, improve your ROI, and help you step up your game so you don’t fall behind in the race with your competitors. These are the characteristics a strong inbound marketing audit will have: Autonomy An effective audit should be autonomously conducted by a third-party auditor so you do not skip the hard parts and the management completely cooperates in the process. The more stringent the audit, the better the understanding of potential growth opportunities, managerial snags, and resource allotments. Perfect Structure The audit has to be systematically structured to cover all bases, like contact channels, business environment, customer experience, design, engagement, SEO, SMM, and sales management, so no crucial elements are missed. Conducted Regularly Conduct the audit at regular intervals of time, at least once a year. It should be a part of your marketing calendar or your strategic marketing plan. Business-specific The audit should factor in the technology, expertise, and experience of your business. It should consider factors like political, legal, and socio-cultural issues that arise from the location of your business. Competitors, best practices, and conditions should also be considered. How Eclipse Software Saw a 370% Increase in Organic Traffic in a Year Manchester-based software company Eclipse Software hit a snag when their online presence wasn’t translating into revenue, leads, or ROI. They hired Noisy Little Monkey, a service-based digital marketing agency in the UK, to help them boost their online presence. Noisy Little Monkey ran a marketing audit for them and found issues like page speeds and content offerings, and they ran campaigns using gated content. As a result of such campaigns and website improvements, Eclipse Software saw a 370% rise in their organic traffic in a year, with a conversion rate of 3.7%. Key Takeaways An inbound marketing audit is crucial for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing strategy. It can tell you which areas need improvement, how to allocate your resources better, and how to increase your growth opportunities and ROI through data-driven perspectives and more to achieve better results. FAQ At what time interval should you conduct an inbound marketing audit? Every business should conduct an audit once every six to twelve months. What are the characteristics of an inbound marketing audit? An inbound marketing audit should be autonomous, periodically carried out, systematic and business-specific.

Article | April 20, 2020

Account-based marketing (ABM) has been around for long enough now that most companies have either rolled out strategies or are actively exploring their options. Looking at the ABM adoption model produced by the ITSMA, an industry association for technology-based marketing and services, many companies are in the experimentation stage and looking to further refine their initial pilot programs. As you begin to experiment and expand your ABM programs, there are many complexities that you can introduce like content personalization, website personalization, scaling accounts and channels, and additional technology and automation, to name a few.