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Fully 66% of ABM programs underperform, ITSMA reports. I contend that many ABM programs fail to deliver significant revenue growth because they are being driven by technology and demand-gen functions. And, in those cases, ABM might as well be a more targeted "demand gen" and "digital advertising" function, using technologies that can be found in the Forrester New Wave for ABM platforms.

Gong Senior ABM Manager Corrina Owens mentioned during her "Less is More" interview on the ABM Done Right Podcast that ABM platforms have diluted the market and obscured what ABM is about. Those platforms' big selling point is the targeted advertising approach, which has become the norm; but many marketers have forgotten the principles of ABM, Owens said.

Marketers need to take a "less is more" approach, she said: focusing less on demand gen and more on "less" accounts, and giving those accounts and the human buyers inside them hyper-personal attention.

When ABM programs are driven by ABM tech and demand-gen functions, they become composed entirely of campaigns and tactics (retargeted ads, emails, outreach campaigns, etc.) to build the pipeline. Even if a huge gap exists between pipeline numbers and revenue, the focus remains on getting leads into the pipeline. There is little focus on influencing buying decisions along the complete buyer's journey.

My marketing metrics poll on LinkedIn found that most marketing teams (60%) are focused only on the beginning of the journey, looking at pipeline KPIs and Marketing-sourced revenue.

Poll on LinkedIn about what metrics Marketing should focus on

ABM organizations that focus on pipeline KPIs and Marketing-sourced revenue are doing only account-based lead gen, account-based advertising, account-based awareness, and account-based demand gen.

But ABM should be about how leadership, sales, marketing, revenue, sales enablement, customer success, and product teams together hit the numbers the business needs to get to the next level.

ABM should be a business strategy that focuses on how the teams will fix business challenges that are tied to the fundamentals of revenue: win rates, deal sizes, sales velocity, stage progression, sales cycle time, retention, annually recurring revenue (ARR), margin growth, and expansion.

It should be about improving sales motions, the interactions go-to-market (GTM) teams are having with Tier 1 accounts (the 20% of accounts that can deliver 80% of today's and tomorrow's revenue growth), and the experiences those teams are delivering.

All that goes beyond building a pipeline and using ABM to reach as many prospects as possible within your ideal customer profile (ICP). It requires marketing to make a real impact on the complete buyer's journey and customer lifecycle.

ABM that's driven by ABM tech and demand gen alone will not help GTM teams go upmarket

I recently asked a CMO of a channel sales technology company about her ABM program. She rattled off the technologies she and her team were using: 6sense, Terminus, Xant, Outreach, and others. She mentioned how her company was a case study for 6sense. But the team was just running targeted demand-gen programs with in-market accounts.

While the team was getting traction, it was challenged to win multiyear contracts with accounts that would need a deal size of more than $75K per year. Accounts that large would consistently move forward with what the team considered a safe bet—in other words, Salesforce.

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Why ABM Should Be Supported—Not Driven—by Tech and Demand Gen

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Kristina Jaramillo

Kristina Jaramillo is the president of Personal ABM, a company that helps GTM teams win, protect, and expand the accounts that make up the 20% of accounts that can deliver 80% of today's and tomorrow's revenue growth.

LinkedIn: Kristina Jaramillo