The state of ABM in 2023? Positive, enthusiastic and ready to take the next step up

The Global ABM Conference is always a highlight of the B2B marketing calendar, and this year did not disappoint, with a tangible sense of excitement, intrigue and enthusiasm about account based marketing, and delegates from all sectors and around the world.

The optimism and positivity was particularly significant against a backdrop of what’s been a challenging for many brands and marketers (particularly in ABM heartlands like tech) not to mention AI-induced uncertainty following the launch of ChatGTP and subsequent wave of additional generative AI solution launches. And if that were not enough, as the conference began the UK was literally being battered by storm Ciaran.

Far from the atmosphere being downbeat, the vibe was very positive, with the sense of a movement (ABM) going in the right direction, and those in attendance being on the right side of marketing history.

B2B marketing has always been a small world, in all the positive senses of the expression (deeply connected and highly networked between inhouse marketers, agencies and vendors) and ABM is an even more focused microcosm of the same thing, to the extent that this event almost felt like an old school reunion!

But beyond this inherent and deeply felt positivity and connectivity, what did we actually learn about the state of ABM? Doubtless everyone attending will have their own conclusions, but here are mine, based on the sessions I saw in the ‘AI and innovation’ track that I was moderating.

• ABM feels like it’s come of age, and there’s a growing confidence about its centrality in gotomarket strategies, as demonstrated by John Williams Verizon, John Watton of VMWare, Catherine Dutton of Pegsystems and Joanna Moss Moss of Salesforce. The instances of it being a pilot, or worse still a sideshow, feel as if they are diminishing – or if a firm is still saying its ABM programme is still pilot, that’s because (like Rhiannon Blackwell at PWC) it is not one that is intended to end, and the marketers responsible are constantly iterating to improve impact and results. Robert Norum ’s fantastic ‘Full stack ABM’ model provides the vision or North Star for ABM to take its rightful place, but that still requires marketing to convince other stakeholders of that fact and manage a transformation that will be ongoing. The evidence is mounting, but it remains a big challenge.
• Generative AI will be the biggest thing to happen to ABM since the term was coined and was understood as a distinct discipline. ABM wasn’t ‘invented’ when the Internet was launched, but the world wide web was certainly the biggest transformation of the history of the marketing as a profession, and if anything AI will be bigger still. It’s impossible to overstate the potential ramifications. As AI&Beyond , who co-presented our opening keynote contented, generative AI isn’t going to take your job if you’re an ABMer, but another marketer who is better able to use AI probably will. We all need to be experimenting with this technology – there’s no time to lose.
• AI isn’t tomorrow – it’s today. Although we’ve yet to experience the full potential of generative AI meaningfully on ABM, other forms of AI are already having a big impact. I’m talking here about the AI-enabled functionality built into the leading ABM platforms, such as DemandBase and 6sense, in particular around the fundamental ABM challenge of account selection. As a journalist, I’ve found it easy to dismiss vendor enthusiasm around this ‘baked-in’ AI capabilities has hypey, and paying lip service to a trend, but it was clear to me at the Global ABM Conference that this kind of functionality is having a profound impact on the ABM strategies of leading players such as Salesforce. In short, AI is already profoundly changing account based marketing.
• The future of ABM isn’t necessarily only 1-2-many – it’s likely to be 1-2-1 also. ABM has different origins and starting points on different sides of the pond – in the UK, 1-2-1 has historically dominated, with the onus on focus, whilst in the US, the sheer scale of the territory and proximity of the vendor community inevitably led to an onus on 1-2-many. Hitherto, my sense was that inevitably UK ABMers would migrate towards the broader approach, in part in no small due to weight of vendor momentum, but also as they proved the case for an account based approach via 1-2-1. But as Bev Burgess suggested in her keynote, it’s probable that generative AI will be able to remove many of the productivity bottlenecks that restrict the potential to scale 1-2-1, whilst John Williams of Verizon demonstrated the power and potential of this approach when backed by great creative and fundamentally rooted in the business model. In my mind this has breathed new live in to 1-2-1 and opened up huge potential for the future.
• Experience is everything. It’s often been postulated that the ‘m’ in ‘ABM’ is its weakness, given that successful account based strategies depend only in part on marketing, but also on sales and other functions besides. Several alternatives have been suggested – ABG, ABE and ABX. Prior to yesterday, my money was on ABG… but the case study by Kyndryl and HH Group via their B2B Marketing Awards shortlisted case study and the closing keynote from Verizon demonstrated the sheer power of immersive experiences, and showcased two very different ways to utilise or enable them. For 1-2-1 in particular, getting prospects to feel something is always going have more power than anything you can tell them, or even show them. I’m in no way seeking to validate Elon Musk here, but the future looks increasingly like ‘X’.
• Have brand and demand finally aligned? Lastly, it was a seminal moment for me when Jon Miller of DemandBase the man who virtually changed B2B forever by founding Marketo, coining the term ‘modern marketing’ (which thankfully seems to have finally died out! - no disrepect, Jon!) and then went on to pioneer the burgeoning ABM-tech sector, said that in today’s world, content marketing is no longer enough and that the brand most take centre stage and be your focus. True, agencies have been saying this for years, and LinkedIn Institute more recently (albeit very loudly), but to hear John Miller say this, on stage, was a truly seminal moment in my 20 years evangelising and writing about B2B. I almost felt the tectonic plates of marketing shifting under my feet. Brand has always mattered, as I don’t think John would have ever have agrued, but it feels two divergent schools of thought have finally aligned, or at least are moving together. That’s interesting, but strangely disappointing. The tension between visions polarised opinions created a fascinating dynamic in the discourse. It does, however, make things simpler for marketers - in theory.

So where does this leave ABM? More vibrant, more diverse, more interesting and more powerful than ever before. The ABM collective are raising their game, and achieving great things – but this is still just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more we can do, and so much more we can achieve – and do that by joining coming together as a community and learning. I can’t wait for next year already!

… and if you can’t either, why not join our Propolis community, where you can watch the recorded sessions from yesterday's event AND learn from the likes of Robert Norum, Bev Burgess, Andrea Clatworthy and others about how to do great ABM. What are you waiting for?