We fielded a series of questions relating to the ABM strategy itself in order to establish the favoured approach, goals and financial impacts in our latest ABM report.
ABM is relatively new for most organisations, and it is always about new business
ABM adoption is well established for some companies, with 25% of organisations reporting to have an ABM strategy older than one year. Just 10% of the companies surveyed were professional services organisations. The other early adopters probably include a significant number of technology vendors that also have an important services organisation, or which are providing their technology as a service.
For the other three quarters of companies, ABM is clearly a work-in-progress. 27% of companies have been deploying ABM operationally for less than six months, while 36% are still just considering/preparing their programmes. No company plans to cancel their ABM activities in the next 12 months, while a resounding 88% have planned an increase in effort.
When asked to rank the main aim of their ABM programme, every respondent selected ‘To win new accounts’ as their number one. Following this, more minor rankings were awarded to: ‘accelerate the sales cycle’, ‘grow existing accounts’ and ‘improve retention’.
For some, the approach to ABM has become mixed up
The survey asked about ABM approaches based upon the concept of one-to-one/few/many, and even a mix of those options. This year’s survey results show a clear difference compared to the same question in 2019. Last year, 37% of the respondents named one-to-few as their favoured approach, while 32% said one-to-one, and 17% replied one-to-many. The rest all stated that they had not yet started their ABM deployment, and nobody selected any of the hybrid options, neither in 2019 nor in 2018.
This year is quite different: one-third of the respondents chose one of the hybrid approaches. This blending of ABM approaches suggests that some companies do not have a clear strategy and/or are possibly just deploying an ABM technology with little focus.
But it could even be a strategic decision, anecdotal evidence shows that more experienced ABM teams do tend to blend their ABM approaches to increase their coverage across a target account. They could be testing alternative approaches.
The emphasis this year also shifted back to one-to-one, with 20% selecting that approach and 17% now naming one-to-few. The preference for each approach has changed slightly year-on-year, with one-to-one slipping from the top spot of popularity last year compared to 2018. In many cases, the cost of running one-to-one ABM is prohibitive to running on all but a few accounts, and having just a few accounts equates to a lower chance of return. While one-to-one is more manageable to operate in terms of data collection, one-to-few does allow marketers to spread the cost and risk across a larger pool of accounts.
Agencies? No thanks
Many marketing agencies have now built up significant competencies around data analytics to support both sales enablement and ABM initiatives, recognising that many marketing organisations do not have the necessary internal resources, or perhaps skills, to operate these relatively new methods. So, we asked about the involvement of agencies in ABM. Just 23% of the respondents stated that they worked with agencies in their ABM deployment (this was 29% last year, so it is going down if anything), and over half (54%) replied that they are not working with one and are not even considering it.
ABM financial impact so far is modest
Finally, in this section of the survey, we asked about the anticipated and realised ROI. The 2019 survey found that marketing organisations spent an average of £11,600 to set up their ABM programmes, and 41% of last year’s respondents also reported that their programme had delivered ROI.
However, expectations seem to have changed, or more money has been invested in the meantime (probably both). The positive response in this year’s survey was a frightening 21%, while a resounding 51% replied a definite ‘no’ on their ROI, while the rest were unsure. Of the just 28 respondents who did report a positive ROI, 32% said that this was achieved within six months and 50% said between 7 and 12 months, which is a similar distribution to last year.
Overall ABM maturity level is at stage two out of five
The respondents were asked to record their overall status on ABM with five possible stages of maturity explained. Just over one-third placed themselves in the first stage (‘considering’). Another one-third placed themselves in the second stage (‘preparing’), while a quarter claimed to be delivering their ABM programme.
Key insights on ABM strategy
- The adoption of ABM is still in its early stages across many companies. Some technology is being acquired and the suitable skills are still being recruited. As the numbers show, most are in stage two out of five.
- As in 2019, the number one expectation from an ABM programme is to win new accounts. This seems to be paradoxical, especially if you are doing one-to-one or even one-to-few ABM. This is all about maximising your impact on a few selected accounts by collecting relevant information about that account’s business and business needs; identifying and learning about all members of the buying centre well enough to target them with relevant and useful content; and preparing sellers for those all important account meetings.
- Although one-to-one ABM leads the game this year, the significant share of hybrid approaches is concerning, and suggests a dilution of objectives. The suspicion prevails that some ABM vendors are able to distract some marketers from their good ABM intentions and channel that energy into retargeting and programmatic advertising, with the ultimate promise of helping marketing to deliver new MQLs to the sales force. This is nothing more than basic lead generation, albeit in new markets or territories, and perhaps more impressive because it is account-focused. But is this ABM?
- The response on ROI demonstrates a lack of insight into why they are doing ABM at all. Later in this report, we will discuss the criteria used to measure ABM success and we will see that over one-third of companies do not even measure ROI or ROMI at all.
