august 2018 based marketing 2018 · account-based marketing (abm) is growing in significance in b2b...

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August 2018

STATE OF ACCOUNT- BASED MARKETING 2018

IntroductionAccount-Based Marketing (ABM) is growing in significance in B2B marketing. The pressures on revenue growth increasingly require that sales and marketing teams work together with a common goal. ABM provides a platform to do just that.

This study aims to understand the state of ABM today, the challenges faced by practitioners and what they see as the road ahead for them. To arrive at our findings, we surveyed senior executives responsible for ABM operations in mid to large sized corporations across regions.

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03State of Account-Based Marketing 2018

Industry Break up

Revenue Break up

Level Break up

Employee Break up

Department Break up

Telecommunications

Information Technology & Services

Computer Software & Internet

Others

7%

8%

62%

23%

> $1B

$500M - 1B

$250 - 500M

$100 - 250M

$50 - 100M

< $50M

C-Suite

Vice Presidents

Directors

Managers

Others

24%

10%

16%

9%

7%

38%

16%

39%

8%

4%

29%

> 10,000

5,001-10,000

1,001-5,000

501-1,000

201-500

< 200

Sales

Product

Marketing

Others

16%

2%

9%

2%

27%

91%

23%

5%

16%

9%

Profile of Respondents

Key insights from the study

• Only a little over half the respondents we spoke with said they have an ABM strategy in place currently.

• Increasing revenue is the primary goal sought by marketers from their ABM efforts.

• Email is the preferred channel for communication.

• Aligning sales and marketing initiatives is the biggest challenge faced by marketers in implementing ABM.

• Average deal size, closure rate and level of engagement see an upside in ABM accounts.

• Account profiling is the most preferred investment area in ABM.

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In terms of adoption and level of maturity, ABM is an emerging practice 57 percent of respondents said they have an ABM strategy in place, while 43% admitted to not having one.

Of those who have implemented ABM, 54% have done so less than a year ago; while 46% have been practicing it for between 1 and 5 years.

Do you have an ABM strategy in place?

How would you describe your level of ABM maturity?

57% Yes

43% No

46% We have been using ABM for between 1 and 5 years now

54% We have been using

ABM for less than a year now


Increasing revenue is the primary goal of an ABM strategy74 percent of respondents chose ‘increase revenue’ as their primary goal for using an ABM strategy. Next to follow were ‘increase pipeline acceleration’ (62%) and ‘align sales & marketing goals’ (50%).

Given the pressure for revenue growth being felt by both sales and marketing, ABM is perhaps a good platform to get them working together to achieve a common goal.

What are your primary goals for using an ABM strategy?

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Maximize ROI on marketing spend

Generate more leads

Align sales & marketing goals

Increase pipeline acceleration

Increase revenue

36%

42%

50%

62%

74%

A little over half the respondents we surveyed find ABM to be only ‘somewhat effective’ in achieving their goalsWhen asked how effective has ABM been in achieving their goals, 51% of respondents rated it as being only ‘somewhat effective’ while as high as 41% found it as being ‘somewhat ineffective’ in achieving their goals.

This perhaps is a reflection of the fact that a majority of them have been practicing ABM for less than a year.

How effective has ABM been in achieving the goals?

41% Somewhat ineffective: achieved 25-49% of the set goals

51% Somewhat effective:achieved 50-99% of

the set goals

2% Very effective: achieved

100% of the set goals6% Very ineffective: achieved 5-25% of the set goals


In-house teams mostly run ABM programs 82 percent of respondents said that their ABM programs were run by ‘in-house resources.’

These initiatives were mostly handled by ‘corporate marketing’ (48%), or they were ‘co-owned by sales and marketing teams’ (30%).

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Who runs the ABM program for your organization?

82% We have in-house resources

16% We use a combination of in-house andoutsourced resources

2% We have outsourced it to specialists

Which department/departments owns ABM efforts in your organization?

4% Sales

14% Digital marketing

4% Product marketing

48% Corporate marketing 30%

Co-owned by sales and marketing


Firmographic data is the key identifier of target accounts, and email is the most preferred channel for communication A majority (53%) of respondents said that they segregate their target accounts for ABM based on firmographic data obtained from their CRM tool.

89 percent of respondents chose email as their primary mode of reaching out to the target audience from their target accounts. ‘Calling each target audience individually’ (71%), ‘social media’ (64%) and ‘display ads’ (51%) also seem to have gained good traction.

How do you discover and define your target accounts?

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53% Segregate the accounts from CRM based onfirmographic data18%

Use intent based predictiveanalytics tools to identify the

surging accounts

16% Source company

data from adatabase company

13% Other

How do you reach out to the target audience from your target accounts?

Mobile ads

Web personalization

Search engines

Display ads

Set up calling teams to call each of them individually

Social media

Emails

27%

29%

38%

51%

71%

64%

89%


Aligning sales and marketing initiatives emerged as the top ABM implementation challenge When asked about the challenges they faced while implementing ABM, 60% of respondents mentioned ‘aligning sales and marketing initiatives’ as their biggest challenge, followed by ‘attributing ABM efforts to revenue’ (53%).

What is/are the challenges you face while implementing ABM?

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Creating content by account segment

Obtaining and enriching the account data

Scoring and targeting ideal accounts

Mapping account plans and insights

Attributing ABM efforts to revenue

Aligning sales and marketing initiatives

29%

31%

42%

44%

53%

60%

ABM yet to attract large budget allocations78 percent of respondents said they have less than 25% of their marketing budget allocated for ABM. Moreover, 38% of respondents have less than 10% of the allocation.

What percentage of your marketing budget do you allocate for ABM?


22% allocate 26-50% of marketing

budget to ABM

40% allocate11-25% of marketing budget to ABM

38% allocate 1-10% of marketingbudget to ABM

While ABM programs are gaining acceptance among marketers, almost half of them are still in trial mode55 percent of respondents were running a fully formalized ABM program as compared to 45% who said that they were running a pilot program with a more cautious approach and limited investment.

Are you running ABM pilot programs or are they full programs?

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55% Full Programs, formal and established effort

45% Pilot Programs,

cautious approach and limitedinvestment

Deal closure and average deal size, both improve with ABM64 percent of respondents said they closed more deals from qualified opportunities in their ABM accounts as against their non-ABM accounts.

53 percent of respondents said their average deal size was more in ABM accounts than it was in non-ABM accounts.

What is the percentage difference in the deal closure from qualified opportunities in ABM accounts vs. non-ABM accounts?

More than 50% in ABM accounts

26-50% more in ABM accounts



No Change

Lower in ABM accounts

5%

16%

23%

21%

32%

5%


What is the percentage difference in average deal size in ABM accounts vs. non-ABM accounts?

More than 100% in ABM accounts

More than 51% – 100% in ABM accounts




No impact on average deal size

Average deal size for ABM is smaller than thatof Non-ABM accounts for other accounts

10%

5%

13%

13%

13%

45%

3%

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ABM increases the engagement level of target accounts88 percent of survey respondents confirmed that their engagement level with target accounts had increased with the help of ABM.

Since ABM enables marketers to personalize their communication to individuals within their target accounts, it is but natural that engagement levels go up.

Did target account engagement increase with ABM? (For example: Increase in clicks & open rates, marketing qualified leads, opportunities and pipelines created and revenue won)

12% NO88%

Yes


Analyst reports and articles rank as the most effective content assets in ABMMajority of respondents said that ‘analyst reports’ (50%) and ‘articles/publications’ (50%) have been the most effective content assets for their ABM campaigns. ‘Videos’ (40%) came in third place.

‘Podcast’ (10%) was rated as the least effective asset.

What assets have you found to be most effective for ABM campaigns?

Podcasts

Blog posts

Infographics

E-books

Videos

Articles/publications

Analyst reports

10%

24%

31%

36%

41%

50%

50%

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Which ABM tools are you using currently?

A wide range of ABM tools are currently in play Of the various ABM tools in use today, TechTarget (18%) and Demandbase (18%) were the most popular. This was followed by Triblio (16%), Engagio (15%), and Terminus (13%).

6sense

Lattice Engines

MRP

RollWorks

ZenIQ

Madison Logic

Radius

Terminus

Engagio

Triblio

Demandbase

TechTarget

Others

3%

5%

5%

5%

5%

10%

10%

13%

15%

16%

18%

18%

40%


Account profiling is the most preferred investment area in ABMWhen asked about the technologies they plan to invest more in the next 12 months, 48% of respondents chose ‘account profiling.’ Next on the list were ‘account-based advertising’ (43%) and ‘web personalization’ (38%).

‘Predictive analytics’ (36%), in spite of the buzz surrounding it, ranked fourth.

Where do you plan to invest more in the next 12 months in the ABM space?

Intent Monitoring

Web Personalization

Account-Based Advertising

Account Profiling

Predictive Analytics

19%

36%

38%

43%

48%

20

We deal with only small accounts which do not require ABM

We have not found it to be effective in the past

Other

We don’t have good knowledge of ABM to implement it

It’s difficult to align marketing and sales for an ABM strategy

5%

5%

21%

27%

42%

Why do you not have an ABM strategy in place?

Difficulty in aligning marketing and sales is the main reason for not having an ABM strategy 42 percent of those who did not have an ABM strategy in place said the reason for that was they found it difficult to align their marketing and sales teams. Not having good knowledge of ABM to implement it seems to be the other major reason (26%).

What’s disappointing to learn was that out of the people who admitted to not having an ABM strategy in place, 68% said that they don’t plan to implement it next year either.


Are you planning to implement ABM next year?

68% No

32% Yes

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Final thoughts

While ABM has received much attention in the recent past, our research seems to point out that its adoption and maturity level are still at an early stage. Consider this — only a little over half the respondents we spoke with admitted to having an ABM strategy in place in their organization. Further, 54% of those who did have a strategy in place, were into it for less than a year into implementing it.

So for those who are still on the fence, it’s not yet too late to get in because the benefits of ABM are for real. As per our study, those who have implemented ABM have seen the benefits of it in terms of average deal size, closure rate and the level of engagement they have had with customers. You could start with a pilot program.

Aligning sales and marketing is perhaps one of the biggest challenges you would face in implementing an ABM strategy. It is important that both teams get on the same page, agree on goals and key metrics for the program, bury their differences and work together for the benefit of the customer.

Data and analytics are key drivers of an ABM strategy. The emergence of AI in ABM has opened up a flood of opportunities. Account profiling tools and predictive analytics have led to the focused targeting of accounts, personalization of content and hyper-targeting campaigns. While in-house resources might be a way to begin the journey, we believe that along the way you would do well by seeking help from external experts who are more conversant with best practices in the ABM discipline.


About the Analysts

Nimish Vohra SVP, Principal Analyst

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimishvohra https://twitter.com/VohraNimish

Nimish works with CMOs and senior marketing professionals. His research focuses on customer success management, predictive analytics, mobile enablement and other emerging trends that help customers leverage technology as an enabler of marketing and business outcomes.

Arunh KrishnanSenior Analyst

Arunh started his career with consumer product marketing, moved to brand management, and been involved in new product launches. In his various roles, he has had deep involvement with consumer and product research. Arunh is currently involved in studying emerging trends and understanding consumer behavior in the digital space.

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About Regalix ResearchRegalix Research supports organizations across the globe augment their marketing, customer satisfaction, and retention initiatives through timely insights. Headquartered in Mountain View, the heart of the Silicon Valley, the organization boasts of an extensive network of top executives and practitioners across the globe who help identify, and answer the ‘when’ and ‘why’ of disruptive trends.

About RegalixRegalix is a Customer Acquisition and Customer Success company that re-imagines digital experiences across hi-tech, ad-tech, and retail domains. The company has partnered with some of the largest global B2B organizations in their efforts at customer acquisition, growth and retention. Regalix works with businesses, supporting their customers’ through the entire journey, to deliver reliable products and services in today’s subscription-based economy.

Regalix has a long history of creating award-winning ventures with enterprises through co-innovation and idea-driven frameworks that inspire companies to think different. Headquartered in the Silicon Valley—Mountain View, California—Regalix has offices in Europe and Asia.

august 2018 based marketing 2018 · account-based marketing (abm) is growing in significance in b2b...

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