B2B Marketers Gaining Confidence in Account-Based Marketing Efforts

Previous research indicated that B2B marketers were beginning to adopt account-based marketing (ABM) tactics, and a new survey sheds light on their progress.

The “2017 State of Account-Based Marketing Survey” from #FlipMyFunnel discovered that over the past 12 months, the percentage of B2B marketers who say they use ABM has increased from 49 percent to 81 percent.

“ABM is becoming a catch all phrase,” wrote the authors of the report. “As inbound came to encompass search, email, social and content marketing, ABM has quickly come to mean anything involving highly targeted, focused marketing programs, be it technology or process.”

In 2017, nearly half of B2B marketers (45 percent) state that their primary goal with ABM is to generate revenue. This is compared to 25 percent who said the same in 2016. Pipeline acceleration (22 percent) and lead generation (17 percent) are also key reasons for utilizing ABM in 2017.

This year, 46 percent of marketers consider themselves to be beginners in terms of ABM, which is a drop from the 49 percent who said the same in 2016. Approximately 41 percent now call their ABM skill level “intermediate,” compared to 21 percent last year.

Account-Based Marketing Efforts in 2016

Last year, research suggested that B2B marketers were poised to invest more in ABM in the coming months. The “2016 ABM Metrics Report” from Bizible and Terminus discovered that 60 percent of marketers intended to do “a lot more” with ABM within the next six months.

At the time, 80 percent of respondents claimed that they were either moderately or highly successful in terms of ABM, and none intended to scale back their efforts.