Reality Check: Why Your ABM Program Might be Missing the Mark

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a highly targeted, strategic approach where marketing and sales teams work together to engage specific high-value target accounts instead of broader audiences. Programs leverage data, personalization and multi-channel engagement to tailor content to each target account. It’s gained momentum in the last couple of years because it drives higher ROI, shortens sales cycles, and enhances customer relationships. In fact, according to HubSpot’s State of Marketing report, 70% of marketers have an ABM (account-based marketing) program in place and dedicate roughly 30% of their budget to it. However, there are several misconceptions about how ABM programs work. This blog will explore some common misconceptions and offer solutions to improve your ABM efforts.

Misconception 1: Marketing is responsible for ABM

Woof. This one hurts. An ABM program without sales (or your executives) is no ABM program at all. And when it comes to sales, it’s not your typical salesy pitch. The emphasis is on establishing, nurturing and growing relationships, and sales/executives have equal responsibility to participate. In fact, unless all teams are aligned and working together, your program won’t be very successful at all.

At a basic level these are the responsibilities for each role:

Marketing – Identifies target accounts, creates personalized content, runs multi-channel campaigns, provides actionable insights to support sales and executives.

Sales – Engages and nurtures key decision-makers within target accounts, leveraging marketing insights to drive conversations and close deals.

Executives – Provide strategic direction, secure buy-in across teams, and support high-value account engagement through executive outreach and relationship-building.

Misconception 2: ABM is just display ads

Double woof. ABM is so much more than display ads. It’s an entire strategy where you look holistically at an account and put together a strategy and plan to reach those target accounts and their decision makers. A display ad is simply a tactic – and it’s an important one for visibility and raising brand awareness. But if you aren’t thinking about other tactics like email, social media engagement, direct mail, executive visibility and thought leadership, customized landing pages, personalized content, and events, among others – across MULTIPLE channels – then you’ve already lost.

Misconception 3: ROI is directly attributable to ABM activities

ABM on its own can’t demonstrate ROI. In fact, instant conversions are rare. ABM differs greatly from lead generation, where a specific activity (think tradeshow, webinar attendance) may trigger the lead for follow up.

Instead, ABM is a high-impact strategy that aligns with business goals. Your target accounts are your leads, and your top priority accounts should have personalized plans put into place.

Account engagement comes from page views, ad clicks, emails read, activity on social media, etc, and is triggered by activities from marketing, sales and executives. The goal is to build relationships, from top-of funnel, through to bottom-of-funnel. ABM is a long-term strategy that requires nurturing over time, with many touches throughout the customer journey. This should be tracked and attributed to results to show the impact and influence of efforts.

Misconception 4: A no from one department is a no from all departments

Target accounts are not just one person or one team. A “no” from the internal communications team doesn’t mean you might not get a “yes” from the social media or content teams. Each account has multiple entry points and multiple opportunities. The trick is getting the right content in front of the right audience across the account, building engagement and continuing to nurture and develop relationships. When done correctly, that “yes” from the social media team gives you the opportunity to showcase your abilities and demonstrate impact that other teams can see across the brand. It makes turning that “no” from internal communications much easier to convert to a “yes” – they might even actively seek you out!

Shifting to an ABM Mindset

In my experiences, getting your sales team and executives socialized with the idea of ABM is relatively easy. It all sounds good in theory. But, helping them to understand how ABM works and why their roles are paramount to the program’s success is sometimes difficult. Converting them to program participants, even harder.

Typical sales teams are conditioned to run after the incentive – i.e. the deal in front of them. Consider how many lower value deals you need to close versus how many target accounts it takes to reach your revenue goals. Then think about the quality of most inbound leads. If you identify the right accounts and put in the effort to woo them instead of chasing down less qualified leads, I promise you will see results. Work smarter.

If you’d like to discuss your ABM program, let’s chat!