Is ABM living up to the hype?

Account-Based Marketing / 31st January 2023 / By David Gray

As the popularity of account-based marketing continues to grow across B2B businesses, JPC’s David Gray asks if the results are living up to the hype

Before we start, consider these two questions: How much does your business spend on marketing a year? And what’s that as a proportion of your total revenue? If it’s around 7.8%, then you’ve hit the average for B2B companies, according to Hubspot. If it’s less, then the chances are your rivals are investing more than you in winning business, so your marketing strategy might need a rethink.

Of course, it all depends what you and your rivals are spending their marketing bucks on and how effective it is. No company can afford to waste money on campaigns that don’t drive business. That’s why it’s vital to measure your marketing efforts to gauge their success.

THE RISING STAR

Account-based marketing (ABM) is rapidly rising in popularity. In fact, a recent survey, Elevating ABM, found that it was the number one priority among B2B marketers, with 73% of respondents saying they planned to increase their ABM spend in 2023. This is backed up by another piece of research, the ABM and Intent Benchmark Study 2022, which reports that 87% of B2B marketers surveyed said their investment in ABM had increased during 2022, with the over a third (38%) saying their spend grew by 26-50%, while 90% expect this to increase over the next 12 months.

This all sounds great, doesn’t it? And there are other recently published studies that reveal the increasing popularity of ABM among B2B marketers. This indicates that ABM is working, but before you jump on the bandwagon and throw your marketing budget ABM’s way, it’s important to know exactly what marketers are hoping to get from ABM and what criteria they are using to measure its effectiveness.

THE ACID TEST

The top three ABM objectives of respondents to the ABM and Intent Benchmark Study 2022 were: to improve new account acquisition (69%), increase win-rates (63%), and accelerate pipeline (59%). And what’s not to love about ABM if it can achieve even just one of those aims, let alone all three. To measure the effectiveness of their ABM programmes, respondents to the same survey revealed that they used a range of metrics, from deal size (60%) and deal close rate (56%) to influenced pipeline (51%), all of which are highly compatible with the original objectives.

So, did their ABM programmes deliver?

The answer was a resounding “Yes!”, with 84% of respondents saying their ABM campaigns have been “extremely or very successful”. As a result, unsurprisingly 94% rate ABM as “extremely or very important to their overall marketing objectives”. So, it seems that whatever proportion of your revenue you decide to dedicate to marketing, ABM should at least be in the mix!

THE RIGHT APPROACH

However, to ensure your ABM programmes are as effective as these marketers found, it’s essential to implement them in the right way, and that they respond to the changing needs of your market. B2B buyers, for example, are increasingly demanding that the ABM communications they receive are creative, targeted, personalised and customised to their specific needs, according to another study, the ABM Benchmark Survey 2022.

This report also reveals that B2B marketers are bringing on board partners to help them carry out the following tasks to ensure their ABM campaigns hit the mark:

Developing content assets (35%)
Designing creative/campaign themes (34%)
Helping to set an overall ABM strategy (31%)
Assisting in account selection/prioritisation and contact list development (31%)
Overall ABM programme execution (28%)

Whatever form of marketing you’re investing in, it pays to ensure it’s as good as it can be, so that it delivers the best possible results. That, of course, also goes for ABM – and you’ve just seen how impressive those results can be!