ABM has never been more important. In particular, the rise of the digitally-empowered customer, and the emergence of a hybrid-led never-normal world has disrupted any remaining concept of a linear buying journey. Instead, it’s now about delivering on the promise of personalized buying journeys at scale – where businesses need to blend the best of a diverse digital ecosystem with the return of face-to-face interactions. The only way to achieve this is with the alignment of marketing, sales and customer success.
For the first time ever, we are starting to see ABM as something broader, an insights-driven go-to-market framework that has become the core of B2B marketing.
While ABM is the right destination, getting there requires a GPS. This means setting the right objectives from the offset, and then having the ability to measure and optimize on the go. According to data from LinkedIn and Edelman, 46% of U.S. B2B executives report that marketing spending is being more closely evaluated on direct sales impact. Now more than ever, we need to demonstrate both overall impact and marketing’s role and contributions to the process.
And yet, ABM measurement is notoriously challenging. According to one report, only 54% of marketers are confident that they can measure full-funnel ROI within marketing. CMOs are even more skeptical, with just 32% even sure they can create a unified foundation.
Getting a holistic view of the results of your strategy seems just as difficult now as it ever has - especially as we progress from measuring ABM to ABX, reflecting engagement across the entire customer lifecycle – from marketing to sales to customer success and beyond.
Solving an end-to-end measurement problem requires an approach that spans the entire customer experience, at both an organizational and a buying group level. It’s about bringing together the complete account-centric approach, while demonstrating the value of ABX and its impact across the customer lifecycle. But it all starts with one question: