At the end of last year, #FlipMyFunnel, Terminus, Sigstr, and DiscoverOrg collaborated to produce the 2019 State of ABM Survey.
With questions focused on how successful B2B practitioners use ABM to generate more qualified demand and drive more reliable revenue for their business, the 2019 State of ABM Survey sought to collect information about why, how, and how well marketers use account-based strategies and what advanced practitioners were doing differently from early-stage practitioners.
Our goal was to understand the correlation between organizational focus, technology, and goals among practitioners confident in their ABM programs, and discover insights to help early-stage ABM programs overcome common challenges.
These were the key findings we uncovered.
1) Barriers to greater ABM adoption
While account-based marketing as a philosophy is not new, hiring seasoned professionals with modern account-based experience is a common struggle in today’s B2B landscape.
41% of ABM practitioners believe hiring the right personnel is the biggest barrier to further ABM adoption within their organization with concerns about scaling (34%) as second.
For tips on how to hire ABM professionals, read our recent hiring guide here.
2) Top priorities for ABM
No shockers here – acquisition (82%) took the top of the list for critical goals laid out by ABM practitioners, with pipeline acceleration (60%) close behind. Our prediction for the next decade of ABM is that customer retention will rise as a primary goal as lead generation continues to decline.
When we look at the responses from only professionals running advanced ABM programs, only 8% listed lead gen as a top priority in 2019, down from 21% in 2018.
3) Top ABM achievements
82% of advanced practitioners agree that pipeline generation was a goal successfully achieved by their ABM program, with account engagement (68%) as the second.
39% of respondents with early-stage programs also listed pipeline generation and account engagement as goals successfully achieved, indicating that even early-stage ABM programs can show immediate results with room for improvement as your teams grow more experienced.
4) ABM tech stack trends
79% of ABM practitioners confident in their ABM programs have account-based analytics as part of their tech stack, with 73% saying account-based ads are part of their tech stack.
Check out the rest of the survey results to give yourself a better understanding of how the market has changed and how to move your ABM programs forward in 2020.
