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Shifting The ABM Mindset: Replacing Vanity Metrics With Revenue Generation

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Traditionally, CEOs have held CMOs to delivering on pipeline, promoting the lead-based methodology many marketers still prescribe today. But lately, there’s been a shift.

The most successful marketers realize the lead-based funnel doesn’t include all business stakeholders necessary to maximize marketing teams’ revenue generation efforts. This trend, combined with changes in budgets and marketing technology, has reset marketers’ approaches and how CMOs build their strategies, tech stacks teams and even budgets.

Instead, marketers should focus on cultivating an account-based marketing (ABM) mindset. To revitalize the role of marketing as a revenue engine, marketers must engage target accounts across the entire customer lifecycle. ABM empowers marketers to surround ideal customers with multi-channel experiences that drive and maintain efficient revenue growth.

I spoke recently with Terminus CMO Natalie Cunningham about one of the remaining challenges facing B2B marketers: how to pivot from a lead-based to an account-based approach and how this pivot impacts martech, the CMO role and marketing budgets. Read the full interview here.

Gary Drenik: How can marketers create a more immersive buyer journey for not only prospective customers but current customers, too? And why do marketers often leave current customers out of their ABM strategy?

Natalie Cunningham: Marketers have long understood the importance of delivering an exceptional customer experience, but as we all know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In most industries, and certainly in B2B SaaS, driving more pipeline and hitting aggressive growth targets have been the primary goals owned by CMOs.

For a while, CMOs leaned heavily into that remit, over-indexing on lead and pipeline generation and often leaving the customer experience to other teams. While the market flourished, many CEOs were fine with CMOs reporting on increasing lead volume, high MQL numbers and marketing-sourced pipeline. But now, with changing market dynamics, CMOs face intense budget scrutiny. This is leading to a changing CMO mindset — from a lead-based volume play to an account-based efficiency play.

CMOs embracing ABM succeed because they focus their time (and budget) on generating revenue from their ideal customers. Given this focus, shouldn’t CMOs also prioritize the largest and most consistent source of revenue? Many CMOs certainly think so. According to Forrester, three times as many CMOs will make customer health a top priority in 2023.

The market has changed. CMOs must show efficient revenue growth — and now. Savvy marketers will see this new dynamic as a perfect opportunity to prove marketing is more than a lead generation machine and lean hard into creating distinctive experiences to surprise and delight their customers.

Drenik: You mentioned a changing mindset in B2B marketing. Describe why marketers must shift from a lead-focused mindset to an account-based strategy that drives true business outcomes like revenue.

Cunningham: A lead-focused mindset often drains budgets by wasting resources on irrelevant buyers using a “spray and pray” approach. These days, we have access to more data and more channels to activate that data than ever, making ABM a no-brainer for modern marketers.

Market dynamics keep changing, as has the foundation of B2B marketing. Decision makers are harder than ever to reach with frequent role changes, new data policies and work-from-anywhere cultures. According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, business purchasers work from multiple locations — over 58% report working in a hybrid office setting. Much like a surround sound system for an entertainment experience, marketers must create a surround sound experience for the ideal prospects and customers, providing a more immersive buyer journey with diverse targeted content “played” from all directions (channels) at the right time.

And with an account-based strategy, it’s easier to hit play on the surround sound system because you know where your target buyers are at all times. Successfully implementing this strategy requires go-to-market teams to understand that revenue generation is the goal and ABM is the approach. But marketers can’t get there alone. The entire team — marketing, sales, CX and even product — must sing the same song (in the same key) to deliver revenue impact.

Drenik: Data’s role remains critical, especially as marketers continue to prioritize personalization. How can marketers leverage data more effectively to create an inter-channel, “surround sound experience,” as you described?

Cunningham: Data does remain critical to marketing, especially as CMOs shift to the account-centric mindset we’ve discussed. And while Google might keep kicking the third-party cookies can down the road, savvy marketers should take a proactive approach to how they’re obtaining and using other data sources.

To truly deliver a surround sound experience requires marketers to diversify their zero- and first-party data collection and aggregation strategies. The most efficient way to scale targeting for the future? Capturing as much data directly from users through declarative methods and leveraging online properties to garner insights on buying behaviors.

But marketers also need technology that activates — not just analyzes — their data. CMOs should prioritize tools that seamlessly integrate across platforms, build deeper connections with customers, and prioritize in-market action. In this market, it's difficult to justify purchasing technology that merely explains what the data says but doesn't facilitate action. I expect we’ll see mass consolidation in the space, with marketers gravitating toward platforms that activate data and power cross-functional priorities.

CTV is a great example of a new way marketers can activate all the data they’re compiling. CTV advertising remains a fairly untapped strategy, especially for B2B marketers. Traditionally, those B2B companies playing in the CTV space have wasted thousands of dollars on targeting irrelevant audiences. But using accurate insights fueled by ABM programs capturing first-party data, CTV can be a powerful tool to reach prospects with personalized messaging far more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Drenik: Advertising spend has always been one of the largest budget line items for most CMOs. But with increased budget scrutiny, marketers must optimize ad performance. Should digital advertising still be a critical part of an ABM program, and if so, how can marketers optimize those efforts?

Cunningham: Digital advertising will remain a critical part of ABM programs moving forward. Despite budget scrutiny, I expect a continued emphasis on advertising in 2023. According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, plans to purchase advertising are up this December compared to December 2021.

Organizations that continued investing in channels like digital advertising during the pandemic came out of the crisis with a strengthened market position compared to those that stopped investing. We expect the same will ring true for investments during the macroeconomic downturn.

But running the same ‘ole advertising playbooks isn’t enough in today’s market. With tighter resources and higher scrutiny on ROI, marketers would be wise to shift the budget from traditional volume-based strategies to higher-yield account-based advertising tactics across the entire revenue flywheel.

Time, scalability, and a reluctance to pivot continue holding marketers back. Audience demographics and preferences are evolving — ad copy must keep pace. Buyers want advertisers to engage them with personalized messaging across channels where they’re already consuming content — and according to their stage in the buying cycle.

Drenik: As we discussed with advertising, CEOs, CFOs, and board members are also reexamining overall marketing budgets. So, what does this mean for the future of the CMO role?

Cunningham: Budget discussions are essential (and unavoidable) during economic uncertainty. Let’s be honest — CMOs have a reputation for hoarding budgets, but now is the time to take a different approach. Instead of protecting historical budgets, the astute CMOs will drive the conversation with quantitative evidence of revenue value for each investment. In fact, CMOs proactively identifying and cutting waste from their budget will have a stronger leg to stand on when they seek buy-in from the rest of the C-suite for their highest-value investments.

Many marketing leaders have historically operated with this philosophy: “You tell me my budget, and I’ll tell you what I can do with it.” Pivoting to outcome-based budgeting — sometimes known as zero-based budgeting — will be critical for having productive budget discussions.

The modern CMO’s responsibilities require a much deeper relationship with the CFO, and a more thoughtful budgeting process is a fantastic starting point. Today’s CMOs must be business-minded first, focused on efficiency, predictability, and revenue impact. To drive alignment and success, they must understand market conditions and analyze data and productivity across the entire go-to-market team. But these CMOs share a unique trait: they might be businesspeople first, but they cut their teeth in the marketing organization. They are uniquely positioned to harness the power of creative storytelling and exceptional buyer experiences to achieve sustainable revenue growth — an outcome every CEO can appreciate.

Drenik: Thanks, Natalie. It’ll be interesting to see how the marketing mindset changing to an ABM approach impacts customers, prospects, marketers and even CMOs moving forward. Appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.

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