42.7
54.6
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28.2
M
1
$
Nurturing individual accounts and customer relationships is important
%
85
ABM leader, Global marketing organisation, PwC
Rhiannon Blackwell
We’re now exploring one-to-few ABM and different clustering approaches. We’re not interested in programmatic or one-to-many ABM. That works better for product-focused companies targeting thousands of accounts.
ABM marketing director, Thomson Reuters
Adam May
ABM means a lot of different things to a lot of people. I know that there are ABM purists who say: ‘If you’re not doing one-to-one ABM, then you’re not doing ABM. It’s just demand generation.’
Co-founder
Evidenza AI
Jon Lombardo
Your whole marketing strategy can’t be to service 20 accounts. Where’s the future growth going to come from?
8. Embracing the new ABM age
One of the hallmarks of B2B account-based marketing (ABM) is evolving in an age of gen AI and remains as important to businesses as ever.
From deepening existing client relationships to account nurturing and delivering new business pipeline, there is no single accepted definition of account-based marketing. However their business approaches it, B2B marketers are considering how account-based marketing can drive their strategic impact.
Some see ABM as a way to unite sales and marketing, collaborating to nurture high value accounts. Others point to the resource intensive nature of ABM, as well as the dangers of letting such approaches become the entire marketing strategy. The argument is, focusing on ABM can perpetuate the stereotype that marketing is subservient to sales and solely focused on servicing existing accounts, rather than reaching new audiences.
For many brands, the key to unlocking the power of ABM comes from identifying the value proposition for each account and then aligning the messaging to the target company’s specific strategy.
Some businesses prefer to dial up to ‘one-to-few’ programmes and then drop back down to ‘one-to-one’ campaigns depending on the market and wider business objectives, working to deliver different levels of personalisation.
• Marketers should not, however, fall into the trap of making ABM their entire strategy, which can fuel perceptions marketing is subservient to sales and unable to reach new audiences.
• Rather than taking a rigid approach, ABM can flex from ‘one-to-one’ to ‘one-to-few’ or even ‘one-to-many’ approaches depending on the market and business objectives.
• Marketers are advised that the time, energy and brainpower they invest in ABM should be proportionate to the opportunity. There is no point sinking lots of resource into building a relationship with limited potential.
• While some in the industry regard ABM as a time and resource drain delivering varying levels of return, the data shows account-based strategies are still a high priority for B2B brands.
3.9
%
40.2
%
Nurturing individual accounts and customer relationships is unimportant
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The marketing department is under pressure to deliver marketing qualified leads (MQLs) regardless of quality
Lessons
%
Delivering MQLs is the only metric of success marketing is measured on
%
Senior leadership fail to understand the potential of marketing beyond
lead generation
%
Senior leadership do not understand the length or complexity of the sales cycle
• While gen AI will have a major impact on ABM in terms of generating personalised content, human-led messaging remains crucial.
Marketers on the future of ABM