New Insights on Real-World ABM Strategies and Practices

SiriusDecisions recently published an e-book that describes some of the major findings from its 2019 State of Account-Based Marketing Study. The 2019 study involved 120 "ABM leaders" drawn from several industries. Forty-two percent of the study respondents had been running "full" ABM programs for more than a year, while 58% were still running pilot programs.

The SiriusDecisions study provides several useful insights about real-world ABM strategies and practices. I found three of the study findings to be particularly interesting, and here are the "headline" versions of those findings:

• "Named-account ABM" was the most popular model of ABM used by participants in the 2019 study.
• The average budget for ABM pilot programs was about $200,000 (excluding personnel costs), while the average budget for mature ABM programs was about $620.000.
• Study participants identified executive briefings, in-person sales interactions, company-hosted events, and industry events as the most widely-used and effective delivery mechanisms for ABM content.

Let's look a little closer at these findings.

Varieties of ABM

SiriusDecisions recognizes three types of ABM:

• Large-account ABM - "A very small number of large existing or targeted accounts"
• Named-account ABM - "A moderate or larger number of defined existing or targeted accounts"
• Industry/segment ABM - "A moderate or larger number of new or existing accounts in the same vertical or other specific segment"

The most popular variety of ABM used by participants in the 2019 study was named-account ABM (60% of participants). Fifty-six percent of the study participants said they are using industry/segment ABM, and 54% reported using large-account ABM.

These results closely resemble the findings of the 2018 ABM Benchmark Study by ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance (the "ITSMA study"). ITSMA also recognizes three forms of ABM, and although the ITSMA model doesn't match up exactly with the SiriusDecisions framework, it is similar.

In the ITSMA study, 60% of the participants reported using one-to-few ABM, which is similar to named-account and industry/segment ABM in the SiriusDecisions framework. Fifty-six percent of the participants said they were using one-to-one ABM, which is virtually identical to large-account ABM in the SiriusDecisions model.

The SiriusDecisions e-book states that many companies are using more than one type of ABM, and the ITSMA study confirms that many businesses are using a blended ABM strategy. Forty-six percent of the participants in the ITSMA study reported using more than one variety of ABM.

Successful ABM Requires a Significant Investment

Both the SiriusDecisions study and the ITSMA study found that successful ABM programs require a substantial financial commitment. As noted earlier, the SiriusDecisions study found that the average annual budget for mature ABM programs is about $620,000.

The ITSMA study reported similar levels of financial investment, although it used a somewhat different approach.

• One-to-one ABM - The median number of accounts in the program was 14, and the average spend per account was $36,000, which results in a total average program investment of $504,000.
• One-to-few ABM - The median number of accounts in the program was 80 (4 clusters of 20), and the average spend per account as $2,750 ($55,000 per cluster), which results in a total average program investment of $220,000.

It's important to keep in mind that these budgetary numbers are averages. As SiriusDecisions wrote in the e-book, "ABM budgets vary widely depending on organization size, from small organizations running ABM pilots on less than $100,000 . . . to multibillion-dollar enterprises with ABM budgets up to several million dollars."

The Human Touch Matters in ABM

One of the most interesting findings in the SiriusDecisions study relates to the importance of the human touch in successful ABM. SiriusDecisions asked study participants what types of content they are using with ABM accounts, how that content is delivered, and how effective each type of content and each method of delivery is.

Study respondents identified four content delivery mechanisms that are above average in both usage and effectiveness. All four of these mechanisms - executive briefings, in-person sales interactions, company-hosted events, and industry events - are human-based mechanisms.

This finding shouldn't be surprising. Despite all of the advances in communication technologies, human-to-human interactions still provide the best way to achieve rich communication and understanding. At its core, ABM is a marketing strategy that focuses primarily on a relatively small number of high-value customers and prospects. So it's understandable that ABM leaders rely on human-to-human interactions and believe they are highly effective.

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The Benefits and Limitations of Look-Alike Modeling

Demand Gen Report recently published a white paper describing the benefits of using look-alike modeling powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to improve lead generation performance. The white paper argues that B2B marketers can use "AI-fueled" look-alike modeling to get more qualified leads that convert at higher rates.

The principles underlying look-alike modeling aren't new. For years, astute B2B marketers have been identifying important attributes of their best existing customers and using those attributes to create a profile of their "ideal prospect." Then, they would use this ideal prospect profile to identify target audiences for outbound lead generation programs and otherwise guide lead generation efforts.

The current incarnation of look-alike modeling does essentially the same thing, but in a more sophisticated way using AI-powered data analytics.

Several technology providers now offer solutions that include or support look-alike modeling, and most of these solutions take similar approaches to the look-alike modeling process.

• They extract data regarding a company's existing customers from the company's internal technology systems including, but not necessarily limited to, the CRM and marketing automation solutions.
• Most solution providers have developed or obtained access to extensive databases regarding business organizations. The modeling solution will combine the company's internal customer data with any additional data regarding these customers in the provider's database. This enables the solution to create a more detailed picture of the attributes of the company's existing customers.
• The modeling solution then uses an algorithm to analyze the combination of internal and external customer data to identify the attributes that the company's existing customers have in common. The result of this analysis is usually called a customer data model.
• The solution then runs the company's customer data model against the provider's database of businesses to identify companies that resemble the model.

The major advantage of AI-powered look-alike modeling is that it incorporates far more data points than humans can realistically use when the process is done manually. Therefore, AI-powered modeling enables marketers to build a richer and deeper customer data model, and it does a better job of identifying companies that are likely to be good prospects.

Look-alike modeling can be an effective tool for improving B2B demand generation performance, but like any business tool or methodology, it has some limitations.

First, for look-alike modeling to be effective, a company needs to have enough existing customers to build a customer data model that's reliably predictive. One provider of look-alike modeling has indicated that a company needs at least 500 existing customers to build a reliable model. While 500 may not the the absolute minimum, effective look-alike modeling does require a company to have a substantial number of existing customers, and a start-up or young business may not be able to meet this requirement.

Second, look-alike modeling can be less effective when a company is marketing new products or services. If a new product or service appeals to a different type of customer than the company's other products or services, a customer data model based on the company's existing customers may not identify the right prospects for the new product or service.

The important point here is that look-alike modeling is a powerful tool for improving demand generation performance, particularly when it's enhanced with artificial intelligence. But B2B marketers should also remember that like any business methodology, look-alike modeling has a few important limitations.

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ABM Supports (But Doesn't Create) Better Sales-Marketing Alignment

Some pundits contend that account-based marketing will create better alignment between marketing and sales. In reality, ABM can be a catalyst for improving sales-marketing alignment, but it won't cause such improved alignment to magically materialize. The adoption of ABM will quickly uncover weaknesses in the relationship between your marketing and sales teams, and that's a good thing. Here's why.

One of the key requirements for successful account-based marketing is coordinated efforts by business functions that have historically operated more or less independently. The need for teamwork routinely involves marketing, business development, and sales, and when ABM is used to expand relationships with existing customers, it will also extend to the customer success/customer service functions.

To reap the maximum benefits from ABM, marketing, business development, and sales must jointly develop an engagement plan for each target account. This account plan will usually span several weeks to several months, and will likely include activities by all three functions that must be closely coordinated. In addition, these business functions must be ready to make on-the-fly adjustments to the account plan based on actual buyer responses and changing business conditions at each account.

Therefore, successful ABM requires multiple business functions to work collaboratively on an ongoing basis. This level of coordination is challenging for many companies because it represents a major change in how they have traditionally engaged and managed sales leads.

In many B2B companies, the demand generation process involves a series of "hand-offs" from one business function to another. In essence, the process assumes that marketing, business development, and sales will engage potential buyers sequentially. The metaphor often used is a relay race in which each member of the relay team runs for a specified distance, and then passes the baton to the next runner.

The relay race approach has never been the best way to manage demand generation, and it is particularly problematic when used with ABM. The adoption of ABM has an effect that is similar to reducing the work-in-process inventories in a manufacturing process.

ABM "Lowers the Water Level"

In the discipline of lean manufacturing, inventory is one of the seven primary sources of waste, and most lean practitioners are always looking for ways to reduce inventory levels. To explain one role that inventories play, lean experts use a "rocks in the river" analogy.

In this analogy, inventory is like the water level in a river. As long as the water level is high enough, boats on the river will easily float over any rocks in the stream bed. The high water level makes the rocks invisible and also eliminates the danger they would otherwise pose for boats navigating the river. But if the water level is lowered, the rocks become visible, and the danger they pose becomes clear.

Lean experts say that inventory in a manufacturing system often conceals problems in the manufacturing process. High inventory levels also alleviate the immediate pain caused by the problems, but at a high cost. When inventory levels are lowered, the real problems become visible, and the ramifications of those problems become apparent. So in lean manufacturing, reducing inventories ("lowering the water level") not only eliminates waste, it also points company managers to the real problems that need to be solved.

The adoption of account-based marketing works in a similar way. Because successful ABM demands an unprecedented level of collaboration and coordination across multiple business functions, any lack of collaboration or coordination will quickly become visible. And this will enable company leaders to address the specific problems that are holding back the success of their ABM program.

The bottom line is, ABM can be a catalyst for improving the relationship between marketing, sales, and other business functions because it will make weaknesses in those relationships visible and addressable.

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Where Account-Based Marketing Stands in 2018

Account-based marketing was one of the most significant trends in B2B marketing in 2018. It has been the primary focus of numerous conferences and webinars, and the subject of dozens of articles and blog posts. ABM was also addressed in several research studies during 2018, and with less than two  months remaining in the year, I think it's appropriate to look at where ABM stands, as revealed by the 2018 research findings.

ABM Adoption

With a few exceptions, the research findings show that ABM has been adopted by a majority of B2B companies. For example:

• In the 2018 ABM Benchmark Survey by Demand Gen Report, 85% of respondents said they are using ABM.
• In the ABM Outlook Survey 2018 by Engagio, 69% of respondents reported having an ABM program in place.
• In the State of Pipeline Marketing 2018 survey by Bizible (and others), 70% of the respondents said they are using ABM.
• But in The 6th Annual B2B Marketing Data Report by Dun & Bradstreet, only 38% of survey respondents said that ABM is part of their go-to-market strategy.

ABM Maturity

The research also shows that most companies are still in the early stages of using ABM. For example:

• In the 2018 ABM Benchmark Study by ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance, 84% of survey respondents said they have been using ABM for two years or less. Fifty-four percent said less than one year.
• Fifty-two percent of survey respondents reported using ABM for one year or less. (Demand Gen Report ABM Benchmark Survey)
• Forty-five percent of survey respondents said they had "just started" their ABM program. (Engagio ABM Outlook Survey)

ROI from ABM

The 2018 research revealed a widespread perception that ABM produces a better return on investment than other approaches to marketing. For example:

• Forty-five percent of survey respondents said the ROI from their ABM program is more than double the ROI from other marketing efforts. (ITSMA ABM Benchmark Study)
• In the Account-Based Marketing ROI Research Report by Lenati, 44% of survey respondents described the ROI from ABM (compared to other marketing initiatives) as "much higher," and another 37% said the ROI from ABM is "somewhat higher."

ABM and Traditional Demand Generation

Most companies appear to be using a combination of ABM and "traditional" demand generation marketing.

• Fifty-five percent of survey respondents said they use a mix of both ABM and traditional demand generation. (Engagio ABM Outlook Survey)
• Sixty-four percent of survey respondents said that between 25% and 75% of their total marketing is ABM. (Bizible State of Pipeline Marketing survey)

ABM Budgets

The 2018 research reveals that companies are committing significant financial resources to their ABM efforts. For example:

• Survey respondents reported that approximately 28% of their total marketing budget is or will be devoted to ABM. (Mean) (ITSMA ABM Benchmark Study)
• Survey respondents said that 29% of their total marketing budget would be dedicated to ABM in 2018. (Average) (Engagio ABM Outlook Survey)

Emerging Trends in 2018

One of the emerging trends in ABM this year appears to be that a growing number of companies are implementing more than one "variety" of account-based marketing. Most ABM thought leaders and experienced practitioners recognize three types of ABM - one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many. In the ITSMA/ABM Leadership Alliance 2018 ABM Benchmark Study, 46% of the survey respondents reported using more than one type of ABM, up from 35% in the 2017 edition of the study.

In addition, this research found that one-to-few ABM has become the most popular type of ABM. In the 2018 study, 60% of the survey respondents reported using one-to-few ABM, compared to 56% using one-to-one ABM, and 52% using one-to-many ABM.

How Will ABM Evolve in 2019?

Earlier this year, Gartner argued that the term "content marketing" will soon become obsolete. I believe something similar may happen with account-based marketing, although the process isn't likely to be completed next year.

More specifically, I think the lines between one-to-few/one-to-many ABM and "traditional" demand generation will continue to blur, and that these forms of ABM will become just "the way marketing is done" by many B2B companies. The exception - if there is one - will be companies that focus on very broad markets (such as, for example, SMBs or a combination of SMBs and consumers).

I would also suggest that one-to-one ABM will be assimilated into the larger practice of strategic account management, and that ABM marketers will function as members of account management teams that also include representatives from sales, business development, and customer success/customer service.

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Why ABM-ers Need to be Proficient at SAM

In an earlier post, I explained why most companies should look first to existing customers when selecting ABM accounts. There are two main reasons for giving priority to existing customers. First, many B2B companies have a small group of customers that produce a large percentage of total revenue and are therefore critical to the company's well-being. These customers merit the special attention that ABM provides. And second, companies have (or should have) rich "intelligence" regarding existing customers that can fuel effective ABM programs.

Account-focused business strategies are not new. Long before anyone had heard of "account-based marketing," astute business leaders recognized the importance of giving special treatment to their most valuable customers. In the late 1950's, larger B2B companies began implementing account management programs to strengthen relationships with their largest customers.

Over the past five-plus decades, the practice of strategic account management (also known as key account management) has grown and matured significantly. Many companies now have well-established account management programs that are led by dedicated key account managers. Several years ago, the Strategic Account Management Association said that about two out of three companies had SAM programs of some kind, and it's highly unlikely that this number has gone down.

When account-based marketing, particularly Strategic ABM, is introduced in a company with an established account management program, the ABM effort must be fully integrated with the existing account management system. A well-conceived account plan for a strategic customer will provide a comprehensive description of the company's strategy for growing its relationship with that customer, and it's important to have a single, unified strategy for each key customer. ABM activities provide the marketing components of the company's account management plan for each strategic customer.

To ensure that marketing activities are tightly integrated with the overall account plan, a marketer needs to be a member of each account management team. In A Practitioner's Guide to Account-Based Marketing, Bev Burgess and Dave Munn highlight this point when they write:  "The most successful ABM-ers are seen as part of the account team:  participating in its meetings, collaborating on the account plan development and execution, sharing the trials and tribulations of service or delivery issues, working flat out on major bids and celebrating success with the team."

If marketers want to be effective members of account teams, they will need to understand the fundamental principles and techniques of strategic account management. Fortunately, there is now a substantial body of knowledge regarding how to do strategic account management successfully, and there are many resources that marketers can use to learn the discipline. Here are two that I've found particularly useful.

The New Successful Large Account Management

The New Successful Large Account Management by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman with Tad Tuleja is a revised and updated version of Successful Large Account Management, which was published in 1991. The revised version - published in 2011 - can no longer be called "new," but it describes a methodology for managing strategic accounts that is just as valid today as it was six years ago.

Strategic Account Management Association

The Strategic Account Management Association is a professional association that was formed in 1964 to support and further develop account management principles, practices, and professional skills. The SAMA website contains a wealth of account management resources. Many of the resources are free for SAMA members, and some are also available to non-members at no charge.

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Look First to Existing Customers When Selecting ABM Accounts

Account-based marketing is often described as an effective way to acquire new customers. And that description is accurate. But ABM is also a powerful tool for growing relationships with existing customers you can't afford to lose.

One reason for the growing popularity of account-based marketing is the widely-held belief that it can dramatically improve the productivity of customer acquisition activities and programs. Most of the content that's currently being produced about ABM emphasizes its use for winning new customers. What often gets lost in this hype is that many companies can realize big benefits by using ABM with (some of) their existing customers.

The importance of existing customers hasn't been lost on many seasoned ABM practitioners.

• Research completed this year by ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance shows that in companies practicing Strategic ABM, 84% of the accounts in the Strategic ABM program are existing customers.
• Recent research by TOPO for the ABM Leadership Alliance found that 58% of study participants from large companies (more than $500 million in sales) focus their ABM efforts on existing customers. This research also found that 60% of companies just getting started with ABM put greater emphasis on existing customers.

Why Use ABM With Existing Customers

There's a very practical reason for focusing ABM efforts on existing customers. Most B2B companies have a core group of customers that are critical to the company's well-being. In many companies, 5% of the customers produce 50% or more of the total revenue. In my work with dozens of B2B companies over the past 30 years, I've frequently seen revenue distributions that were even more skewed toward large customers, where 4 or 5 customers accounted for more than 40% of the total revenue.

Account-based marketing is also particularly appropriate for your high-value existing customers because you potentially have several advantages with existing customers that ABM can leverage. Many of these advantages relate to the quality of the "intelligence" that you have regarding existing customers. When you have been working with a customer for a reasonable amount of time, you will have (or should have) rich and detailed information regarding:

• The specific business needs and challenges the customer is facing
• The identities, preferences, interests, and concerns of the key stakeholders who influence the relationship between the customer and your company
• How the key stakeholders currently view their relationship with your company
• The customer's organizational structure and culture

When used properly, these insights provide the foundation for valuable, relevant, and compelling customer engagement programs. And because most of these insights develop over time as a result of multiple interactions, they effectively constitute "inside" information that "outside" competitors can't easily duplicate.

At a high level, ABM for existing customers and ABM for new customer acquisition are based on the same fundamental principles. But when ABM is used with existing high-value customers, it becomes an integral component of your company's strategic account management program. In a future post, I'll discuss the critical relationship between account-based marketing and strategic account management.

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What To Do When the Status Quo is Your Friend

 A few weeks ago, I published a post that discussed how to weaken the grip of the status quo. When your objective is to acquire new customers, the status quo is often your toughest competitor because most potential buyers have an inherent preference for their existing methods and processes. In most cases, no sale can be made unless a potential buyer first becomes willing to change his or her status quo. My earlier post described one tactic for loosening the grip of the status quo.

The situation completely changes when your objective is to retain existing customers. In the customer retention contest, your company is the incumbent and part of the customer's status quo. Therefore, one key to customer retention success is to enhance or strengthen the status quo bias and use it to your advantage.

It should be obvious that customer acquisition and customer retention call for entirely different kinds of marketing content. For customer acquisition, marketing content needs to disrupt the status quo; for customer retention, marketing content needs to reinforce the status quo. Unfortunately, recent research indicates that most B2B marketers aren't making this critical distinction.

In a 2017 survey by Corporate Visions:

• Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they saw no need to use different content for customer acquisition vs. customer retention.
• Only about one-third of respondents said they were using customer retention content that is specifically designed to reinforce the status quo. Two-thirds of respondents said they use disruptive content or product-oriented cross-sell/upsell messaging for customer retention.

Other research by Corporate Visions has shown that content which focuses on reinforcing the status quo is more effective for customer retention that provocative/disruptive content or product-focused messaging.

Astute business leaders have long recognized the importance and value of building and sustaining strong relationships with existing customers, but two recent developments have made customer retention particularly important.

• As I wrote in an earlier post, the shift to subscription-based business models elevates the importance of customer retention because in a subscription-based business, customer profitability depends largely on the length of the customer relationship.
• The adoption of account-based marketing also raises the importance of customer retention. When business leaders implement ABM, they make a conscious decision to focus their marketing and sales efforts on a relatively small number of high-value prospects. Once these high-value prospects are acquired, it's obviously important to keep them for as long as possible.

In a future post, I'll discuss what causes the status quo bias and how to create content that reinforces it.

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A Blueprint for Successful Account-Based Marketing

With account-based marketing sweeping across the B2B marketing landscape like an out-of-control wildfire, it was only a matter of time until we started seeing full-length books on the topic. One of the best is A Practitioner's Guide to Account-Based Marketing by Bev Burgess with Dave Munn published earlier this year.

Bev Burgess is a Senior Vice President and the ABM Practice Lead at ITSMA, and Dave Munn is ITSMA's President and CEO. ITSMA pioneered the development of account-based marketing in the early 2000s, and for the past 10+ years, it has conducted numerous research studies and educational programs regarding the practice. So, ITSMA has been a leading source of thought leadership and research data on ABM for more than a decade, and the authors draw extensively on that data and expertise throughout the book.

A Practitioner's Guide is designed for readers at all stages of the ABM journey, from those who have just heard about ABM and want to learn more about it, to those who have an ABM program in place and want to improve it.

The book is organized in three parts. Part One covers the basics of ABM, including how to determine which accounts should be included in your ABM program. Part One also describes a proven four-step process for implementing account-based marketing. Part Two of the book explains how to plan and execute an ABM program for an individual strategic account. Part Three focuses on the attributes and skills you need to be a good account-based marketer, and it provides advice on managing a career in ABM.

Throughout the book, Burgess and Munn emphasize the importance of treating ABM as a strategic revenue growth initiative, not just as a marketing or sales support initiative. The authors repeatedly state that successful ABM requires a high level of collaboration between marketing and sales, and can require the involvement of other business functions as well.

This may be the single most significant concept contained in A Practitioner's Guide because it constitutes the foundation that makes the other processes described in the book work effectively. What we now call account-based marketing is actually a business strategy that is built around maximizing revenue growth from a select group of target accounts. In retrospect, it would have been better if ITSMA had named this approach to revenue growth account-based demand generation instead of account-based marketing.

Another strength of A Practitioner's Guide is that it paints a realistic picture of the effort that's required to build a successful ABM program. Over the past couple of years, the hype surrounding ABM has been almost deafening. While much of the "positive press" about ABM is justified, the hype has also tended to obscure or minimize the work that's necessary to do ABM well. Burgess and Munn have brought a much-needed dose of reality to the ABM conversation.

If there is anything to criticize about A Practitioner's Guide, it would be that much of the material in the book appears to be based on the use of ABM by tech companies. For example, the book contains nine informative case studies, and eight of them are about companies that provide technology-related products or services.

The orientation of the book shouldn't be surprising, given that ITSMA is the Information Technology Services Marketing Association. Some readers may wonder whether the principles discussed in the book are equally applicable for companies that operate outside the tech sector. In my experience, the ABM principles laid out in A Practitioner's Guide are valid for any company where ABM itself is appropriate.

If you're thinking about adopting ABM, or if you're involved in developing an ABM program, you need to read this book.

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Multiple Studies Reveal the Growing Adoption of ABM

Unless you've been very out of touch for the past couple of years, you're well aware that account-based marketing has become one of the hottest topics in the B2B marketing world. The hype surrounding ABM has been almost deafening, and based on the hype, it would be easy to conclude that ABM has already been widely adopted by B2B companies.

It does appear that a growing number of companies have implemented (or are at least piloting/testing) account-based marketing, so I thought it would be worthwhile to share the results of several recent research studies that provide insights regarding ABM adoption.

The 2017 Marketing Benchmark Report - North America by Marketo was based on the results of a Q4 2016 survey of contacts within the Marketo customer base (which includes both B2B and B2C companies). The survey produced 1,363 responses. Although the report doesn't provide detailed demographics for the respondents, it's likely that most were marketing leaders or practitioners. In this survey, 34% of the respondents said they were practicing ABM. Marketo also found that the ABM adoption rate was similar for companies of all sizes.

The 2017 State of B2B Digital Marketing Report by DemandWave was based on a survey of B2B marketers in the United States that was conducted in November and December of 2016. The survey produced 179 responses. In this survey, 37% of the respondents said they had tried or were currently using ABM.

In the 2016 ABM Benchmark Survey by Demand Gen Report, 23% of survey respondents said they had been using ABM "for some time," and another 24% said they had "recently launched" an ABM strategy. Demand Gen Report did not provide a description of the survey methodology or demographics for the survey respondents.

The 2016 State of Account Based Marketing (ABM) Study by SiriusDecisions provides some indirect evidence regarding ABM adoption. This study was based on a survey of 200+ B2B companies. In this research, 71% of respondents said they had staff that is fully or partially dedicated to ABM.

Collectively, these studies indicate that account-based marketing has made significant inroads among B2B companies. It's important to remember, however, that none of these surveys used a random sample of all B2B companies. I suspect that the overall ABM adoption rate is somewhat lower than these studies report. That doesn't mean that the shift to ABM isn't real. It just means that the adoption of ABM is still in its early stages.

Illustration courtesy of ccPixs.com via Flickr CC.

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