Account-based marketing is no longer just a buzzword — the practice has seen considerable growth and practitioners are reaping the benefits of more targeted engagement with buyers. After years of hype, marketing teams are now looking at ABM through a new lens to continue to optimize their strategies and scale their efforts across the organization.
The 2019 B2B Marketing Exchange will spotlight progressive practitioners and the latest trends and tactics in account-based marketing during its ABM In Action Live! track February 26 and 27 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Attendees will learn how to balance creative approaches with metrics-based strategies that drive results, as well as hear case studies from key ABM players, including Masha Finkelstein of Google, Sonjoy Ganguly of Madison Logic, Justin Gray of LeadMD, Matt Senatore of SiriusDecisions, Kelvin Gee of Oracle and many more.
Read on to get a sneak peek of the ABM In Action Live! track at #B2BMX 2019 and learn:
- Why ABM requires a greater shift in marketing focus;
- Preliminary findings from new research conducted by Demand Gen Report and Madison Logic;
- New, creative ways companies like GumGum are tackling ABM; and
- Three key fields of reporting to focus on when kicking off an ABM program.
Better ABM Requires Drastic Shift In Marketing Focus
Preliminary findings from a study conducted by Madison Logic and Demand Gen Report shows that roughly half (51%) of B2B companies say that adopting a successful and aligned ABM strategy is a top strategic initiative that will impact their marketing and sales teams over the next two years. However, another 51% said that a lack of alignment in goals and responsibilities is one of their biggest challenges, while 50% said that their processes are broken and/or flawed.
According to Sonjoy Ganguly, Chief Product Officer at Madison Logic, a shift in marketing expectations requires B2B businesses to reassess their strategic initiatives. During his session, titled: The ABM Formula: Strategies To Support Account-Based Initiatives, Ganguly plans to share how changes in expectations for marketing teams are causing them to focus more on influencing pipeline, generating revenue and building customer relationships that lead to better retention.
“Marketing has been going through an evolution, buying committees are changing, legacy metrics are evolving, marketers are leveraging more marketing channels, and the need to make sales more effective is further increasing the responsibilities of today’s marketers,” said Ganguly. “Marketers can no longer be myopically focused on generating demand, to share the revenue responsibilities with sales, marketers must continue to provide sales with solutions to not only influence demand, but accelerate opportunities, and ultimately revenue.”
As the revenue responsibility is shared, the multiple disciplinary alignment is even more critical than ever before, according Ganguly.
“In a matrix culture, if objectives are not aligned, how can the results be aligned? More importantly, how can successful results be aligned, if objectives are not? These are not changes that occur at the tactical level, they require strategic management, and most importantly a shift in culture,” said Ganguly. “Traditionally marketing and sales have had a culture of blame, but shared responsibilities, objectives and strategies is the only way to drive successful results, especially in this ultra-competitive market.
Content Is King, But Creativity Is Key To Success
More than half (55%) of marketers are implementing or have plans to implement ABM in 2019. As ABM adoption rises and the competition to capture buyer attention grows fiercer than ever, marketers must infuse their campaigns with creativity in order to stand out.
“The magic ingredient [to marketing] is people,” said Justin Gray, Founder and CEO of LeadMD. “That’s the element you can’t get from a framework. Marketers are extremely creative and we’re really seeing a rebirth of creativity, as you truly have to stand out these days to acquire mindshare.”
Gray will explore the need for creative approaches to ABM in more depth at B2BMX, while moderating the Optimizing ABM Execution To Outperform Organizational Expectations panel.
Som Puangladda of GumGum, Eric Martin of SalesLoft and Adam Goyette of G2 Crowd will join him on stage to discuss the innovative ways their companies have executed ABM across everything from digital channels to direct mail.
“My key advice to give to marketers is about moving away from traditional marketing tactics and coming up with a unique approach that may not have to do with solution selling at all,” said Puangladda. “[For example], we came up with an Art.ificial project, where we demonstrated how close artificial intelligence can come to the human creative process. With this, we were featured on CNBC, CNN and various press articles globally.”
Connecting The Dots Between ABM And ROI
Before taking a leap of faith and investing your budget in out-of-the-box campaigns, marketers must first lay the groundwork to measure success.
“Evolving a marketers KPIs and leveraging data-driven optimization are all key components to the new marketing evolution,” said Ganguly. “There is a model here that is emerging, and marketers are on the precipice of a seismic shift in the industry, and they have the opportunity to get in front of it now or get left behind like prehistoric dinosaurs.”
This is especially true when rolling out an ABM program. New marketing tactics necessitate new metrics, and ABM forces marketers to rethink their traditional rulers for measuring lead generation, engagement, revenue and more.
Speakers on the Optimizing ABM Execution panel will dive in deep into the new metrics and reporting that can help gauge the impact of account-based strategies. In particular, Gray recommends marketers in their first year of ABM focus on three main fields of reporting:
- Coverage: how much of your ICP is represented in the database with accurate, relevant and up-to-date information?
- Engagement: how well are you capturing the attention of the entire buying committee within those organizations?
- Penetration: are you stimulating early stage conversations within these accounts and gathering the necessary information to position yourself as a value source for them?
“I’m really excited to share hard numbers and results,” said Gray. “I think we’ve all had enough of the lip service — marketers and the organizations they support are looking for intentionality and tangible results.”
ABM In Action Live! Session Lineup
Ready to see ABM through a new lens at your organization? Don’t miss this stellar lineup of presentations to help you take your strategies to the next level:
Not All ABM Programs Are Created Equal: What’s Different, What’s Required To Win & What Does Success Look Like For Different ABM Models?
-Matt Senatore, SiriusDecisions
ABM 2.0: How To Take Your Marketing From Good To Great
-Sangram Vajre, Terminus
ABM At Scale: Oracle’s Account-Based Strategy With People, Process, Data & Tech
-Kelvin Gee, Oracle
Bringing Oracle’s Account-Based Strategy To Life: A Tale Of Two Campaigns
-Lynn Barnhart & Jungah Lee, Oracle; Meredith Fuller, Quarry
Applying ABM Principals To Target SMBs
-Masha Finkelstein, Google
Rethinking Measurement In The Age of ABM
-Mark Erwich, Lynne Powers, Naomi Marr, Imprivata
The ABM Formula: Strategies To Support Account-Based Initiatives
-Sonjoy Ganguly, Madison Logic
Optimizing ABM Execution To Outperform Organizational Expectations
-Justin Gray, LeadMD; Adam Goyette, G2 Crowd; Som Puangladda, GumGum; Eric Martin, SalesLoft
ABM And Modern B2B Advertising: Reaching The Buying Committee At Your Target Accounts
-Peter Isaacson, Demandbase
What 5 ABM Transformations Have Taught Us About Doing It Right
-Peter Herbert, Kristen Wendel, FullStory
Scaling Account-Based Sales-Marketing At Autodesk — How To Scale An ABM Program Globally To 10K Accounts In One Year
-Nathalie Moore, Autodesk
