ABM has certainly evolved in more ways than one this year. From making ABM more centralized to getting marketing and sales to break down silos, there’s certainly been a shift this year. But what’s in store for next year? Kavita Singh spoke with Anna Hutton, UK Managing Director at The Marketing Practice, and Phoebe Jackson, VP of Growth and ABM at MOI Global, about six ABM predictions going into 2024.
2023 in a nutshell: How has ABM changed?
Before jumping into what’s coming up in the world of ABM, let’s reflect on its current state in 2023. According to the Propolis Community Index, in the last year, 39% of marketers have spent more on ABM this year – and with good reason.
Phoebe said: “ABM is very much alive and kicking – being the top priority for most marketers. Those already investing, will likely continue albeit with a smarter allocation of spend thanks to their learnings. And those who don’t already have a program, will be exploring how it might work in their organization in 2024.”
Another thing that has been made crystal clear in 2023 is the importance of ABM as an overall business strategy, and not just a marketing strategy. With that in mind, we’ve seen the world’s leading ABMers put even greater emphasis on aligning their strategy with their colleagues in other departments.
Anna agreed: “If there’s going to be stakeholder engagement, there needs to be recognition from across the business. So with sales, customer success advisory – this isn’t just a marketing tactic, but actually it’s the whole business go-to-market. A focus on a smaller segment of accounts with a more personalized experience is actually just the way that they will be going to market as opposed to being isolated as a marketing thing.”
In addition, Anna mentioned that there is a lot more experience and evidence of ABM being successful as well. Organizations are now putting compelling business case studies together and therefore, getting much more of an ROI. So what’s next in ABM?
6 ABM predictions for 2024:
1. Co-creation collaboration with customers through personalization will be essential
Putting customers at the forefront next year will be critical to ABM growth. And co-creation with customers will without a doubt be a focus going into 2024. Phoebe said marketers need to really focus on articulating the value of core customers at different stages of the life cycle. And because the value changes at different stages, personalization will be key going into 2024. Not just any personalization though. She said: “Generic messages no longer cut the mustard, but personalization needs to go beyond just adding a contact name or organization into a piece of comms.”
Anna agreed: “In terms of hyper personalization, I think everyone is doing it to some degree. And, our belief is that you’ll have more success by really understanding the account from the inside out and using that to customize how you communicate as opposed to personalization at scale.”
However, Anna mentioned there is a potential risk with hyper personalization at scale as there are too many options and in theory, it could lose the essence of ABM and the ability to extract valuable data. So while personalization will be a core focus, there needs to be a clear and well-thought out strategy attached to it.
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