Despite being an industry staple for nearly a decade, account-based marketing (ABM) practices feel newer than ever — and according to Mason Cosby, Founder of Scrappy ABM, the strategy’s still firmly in its “buzzword” days. With studies showing that 94% of B2B marketers are building ABM programs despite not understanding what it actually means, Cosby plans to take the B2B Marketing Exchange East (#B2BMX East) Stage on Oct. 2 to discuss why ABM practices often fail and how practitioners can validate program effectiveness with existing tools and signal stacking.
While we’re still a few weeks out from listening to Cosby’s insights live, he did stop by the B2B Marketing Exchange Podcast to discuss his session and share more about his perspective on modern ABM strategies. While you’ll have to head over to your podcast player of choice to unlock the full episode, here’s the gist:
Why ABM Traditionally Fails
According to Cosby, there are three major reasons ABM fails: A lack of internal alignment, resource constraints and differing success metrics.
1. Lack Of Sales & Marketing Alignment
Disconnected teams come in “two flavors,” according to Cosby. The first is a misalignment in communication — i.e., marketing believes that generating leads means form fills while sales views them as pipeline opportunities — and the second includes a lack of buy-in.
“I was talking to a client the other day, and they were struggling to get sales on board with their ABM program,” explained Cosby. “When I asked why, the company explained that sales is going after inbound accounts that are closing at a 35% rate because accounts generated from ABM programs are closing at a 7% to 10% rate. What sales often doesn’t realize is that while account close rates might be lower, those customers often have a higher lifetime value and less churn.”
In that context, Cosby continued that it’s not marketing and sales alignment, because marketing is aligned on the business objective. Instead, it’s about properly compensating sellers to get them to focus less on the short-term, high-value wins and more on the long-term value.
2. Lack Of Dedicated Resources
More times than not, ABM gets thrown at somebody who doesn’t have the authority to make the organizational changes needed to facilitate its success. Pointing back to compensation challenges, Cosby explained that if it doesn’t make sense for sales to financially go after account-based programs, it’s never going to work — “ABM programs need the resources to come from the executive level down.”
3. Measurement Of Success
Being that marketing automation platforms (MAPs) and customer relationship management platforms (CRMs) are largely based on contact-level data, Cosby explained that it’s hard to leverage them to determine if a company is winning or losing with its account-based programs.
“Accounts are different from contacts because we’re not targeting a person,” said Cosby. “ABM programs see multiple people engage with a brand, and those folks might also be showing third-party intent signals that showcase they’re in market. So, you also have to factor in firmographics and combine it with first-party engagement data, which is hard to achieve right out of the gate.”
Identifying The Technology Needed To Remedy ABM Programs
According to Cosby, 80% of people lack confidence in their ABM programs. To help remedy that, he noted that he thinks people are focusing “less and less” on shiny new object syndrome, as “it’s not about the sexy things we can do with AI.” Instead, it’s about determining if companies have the right processes in place to engage right-fit accounts, and then deciding if there’s alignment on audience messaging.
“We need to ensure we’re saying the right things to the right people at the right time,” Cosby explained. “It’s so cliché, and there’s more sophistication you can incorporate with great tooling, but AI is not an autopilot; it’s a co-pilot. For many marketers, they just need to do it right the first time with their current tools to figure out what’s working and what’s not, and then bridge the gaps with new processes, tools or headcount.”
To that end, Cosby explained that its core, getting an ABM program off the ground only requires:
- A MAP;
- A website; and
- A CRM.
Stacking Intent Signals For A Holistic Account View
In general, most folks look at ABM and talk about the importance of scale. And while Cosby believes marketers do need to focus on scaling at some point, the first step is — again — getting a program that works.
“We often focus so much on scaling our approach that we never think about whether or not it’s the right thing to do,” said Cosby. “Instead, we need to validate our strategies. As you look at your existing first-party data, most people have a CRM that captures contact information and allows them to track contact engagement on website pages — but there’s a lot of signals that get missed by that technology.”
Cosby then pointed to himself as an example of missed signals, noting that he has “the least trackable marketing program of all time,” because he often opts to post on LinkedIn, go on podcasts and speak at events.
“There are a lot of signals captured through those programs,” Cosby explained. “It could be someone who engages with my LinkedIn content every single day that’s a right-fit customer, or it could be someone who scanned my QR code at a speaking engagement. And through those QR codes and engagement data, we can track who’s engaging. None of those are necessarily tracked in your CRM, but they are viable signals.”
The Power Of Signal Stacking
To that end, Cosby shared two examples of signal-stacking success:
- Combining champion tracking with closed-lost — i.e., a case where a buyer was super interested but dropped off — can uncover that the account champion switched companies and is now at another right-fit account. Leveraging information from previous exchanges, practitioners can re-engage that contact with highly contextualized messaging.
- Stacking playbooks on top of one another — i.e., if your primary goal is to get event attendees to engage with your website, you know their topic of interest and can follow up with content that dives even deeper into their area of interest.
To dive more deeply into the power of building a successful ABM program, tune in to the B2BMX Podcast now to hear all of Cosby’s insights, and make sure to register for #B2BMX East today!
