You're Doing It Wrong! How Most B2B Marketers are Missing with ABM.

Somewhere across the last five years, ABM has lost its way. In 2025, if you asked 100 B2B marketers what ABM is, you'd likely get 98 different answers. Answers ranging from:

• "Sending buyers gifts when they have a high propensity to buy"
• "ABM is a software! - I've been buying ABM for years!"
• "ABM is intent data, knowing who is buying right now and trying to sell to them!"
• "ABM is one to many, one to few, one to a bit more, one to even more, and one to a whole lot

Sadly, I think a lot of teams are just missing the mark, especially in the new GTM world that is 2024 and beyond. Interest rates aren't rock bottom, and budgets aren't unlimited - so all of the blemishes in GTM approaches are showing up front and center. ABM can and does work, but its more than "use software to identify account ready to buy, then run campaigns to those accounts". ABM is about TIMING, more precisely connecting a company current steady state to one of four Buyer Mindset stages, then connecting the right content, medium, messaging and campaign tactic with the correct mindset stage.

Propensity: A buyer with no specific/urgent pain, but high propensity to purchase your product or solution. How do you know they have a high propensity? - They look like your other clients. Both at the account and prospect level. Specific industry? specific company size? specific geography? specific technology stack? Currently use competitor? Was closed lost in previous 12 months? specific department size? Specific job titles, specific job level? The list goes on and on, but propensity is about scoring and scaling accounts based on how these factors overlap and at one point the overlap becomes a high propensity account. These accounts need to know WHO YOU ARE. If they don't your ABM strategy is a fail, because at some point, they will have a pain - and if they don't think of your company first, your chances of a close won go down by about 70%. This is where ABM display, event sponsorships, content syndication and other top funnel/brand type channels work, and work WELL.

Pain: Your prospect company is starting to feel enough pain that its nagging at them. They might not know how to define the pain, or even that there may be a solution in the market for it, but they are very much feeling it. Prospects who has realized they have a pain, need help defining it. This is where tools to help them identify and quantify their pain are valuable. A buyer who knows they need to solve for their pain and is planning for it needs feedback on which vendors should be in the mix. Review sites, comparison guides, pricing guides - vendor landscape analysis is key here.

Planning: The planning mindset is the "go time" period for the company buying committee. Its in this phase they are both building an internal use case for approval to buy a solution to solve the problem and evaluating vendors who may or may not check the boxes needed to both get approval from executives and maximize the return on the investment in the solution. "Business case content, ABM display, and other "buyer committee" content is crucial at this phase of buyer mindset. While most marketing teams might mistake this phase for the "decision making/evaluation phase" a lot of the times the decision is made way earlier in the propensity/pain mindsets. A lot of deals are won by brands who are simply most visible to their high propensity accounts and buyers.

Purchase: A buyer in purchase mindset, just needs to feel good about their decision and help navigate their internal processes. Budget is approved, they have selected a vendor - but there are still a lot of things that need to happen to ensure the deal moves to "closed won". This is a commonly overlooked buyer mindset, because we think the deal is "in the bag" but everyday a deal isn't signed off, is a day it has a chance do die on the vine. In this buyer mindset, gifting can be a great play, and other targeted campaigns on process teams at the company (procurement, legal, etc.)

ABM in 2025 is about playing both the long game and the short game - and more importantly figuring out the puzzle of how much time, budget and resources you should focus on each buyer mindset segment. Too much focus on planning and purchase, may have a slight positive impact in the short term - but sacrifices long term wins. Too much focus on propensity and pain mindset stages, and your executive team is going to be wondering where the ROI on their spend is? Winning for a B2B marketer will be about identification and execution. Marketers can no longer just focus on the planning and purchase phase and scoop up enough low hanging fruit to hit their growth goals.

How effective is your team at putting accounts/contacts into buyer mindset buckets?

How effective is your team at attacking those buckets for optimal growth?

The answers to these questions, will be the catalyst for success in 2025 and beyond. Make no mistake, B2B marketing is going to be a grind in the coming years. The glory days of the free money surge are long gone - and its vital for teams to simplify their approaches to ABM, clean house on the expensive software, and focus on identification and execution.

Right account + right content + right tactic + right time = WINNING