ABM has been the hottest topic in B2B sales and marketing for the last two years. As a result, the B2B market is shifting furiously to account based. At the beginning of 2018, only 18% of the market was mature (2 years+ in account based). Over the course of 2018, the number of organizations actually executing account based has increased significantly, and that number will continue to grow in 2019.
ABM isn’t just a trend, it is the foundation of an effective go-to-market strategy. In other words, account based will become just B2B marketing. Companies will increasingly migrate existing demand generation activity towards a broad, large list, account-based approach. This is a way to improve targeting and leverage the account-based execution technology and skill set developed through more targeted programs.
We believe there are a number of key themes for 2019, which include:
The big message that we learned from early adopters is that account-based works, particularly in strategic metrics such as average contract value and close rates. 2019 will be a fun year to watch as we move from change management to account-based execution.