Dive Brief:
- Research reported by eMarketer from the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) found that to scale account-based marketing programs having the right tech and tools is key.
- The top two approaches cited by B2B marketers were developing tools and templates to facilitate best practices (77%), and adding technology to automate the programs (69%).
- One other study from last year by SiriusDecisions found that 92% of B2B marketers described ABM as extremely or very important to their overall marketing efforts.
Dive Insight:
Separate research from last August by Ascend2 found that more than two-thirds of surveyed marketers reported not having all the martech tools they needed, indicating a disconnect between how marketers are hoping to improve B2B marketing and where they actually are in meeting those tech goals.
"Account-based marketing (ABM) is probably the hottest B2B marketing trend in 2016," Damon Waldron, director of demand generation for BrightFunnel, told Marketing Dive in an email. "Because ABM is costly from both a budget and time standpoint, we feel that most marketers are going to take on ABM as a piece of their marketing strategy, 'hybrid ABM' so to speak."
ABM is an important element in the idea of customer-centric marketing, and even though ABM is very technology driven, Ed O'Boyle, global practice leader at Gallup, explained to Marketing Dive earlier this year how a very human element comes into play via key account reviews, which are a series of interviews with stakeholders in the company's most important accounts. He said. "Through a key account review, the company learns more about how customers feel about it and its approach with them in ways that numbers alone cannot express."