How ABM is different from demand generation Account Based Marketing differs from traditional It supports, but doesn’t source, the pipeline demand generation in important ways. In demand generation, marketing sources ABM or Demand Generation a significant fraction of the pipeline. In ABM, There’s no hard and fast rule about what It’s account-centric marketing influences the pipeline but directly percentage of your programs should be As already discussed, the ABM approach is based sources or discovers very little of it. dedicated to ABM or demand generation. on a fundamental shift from a lead-centric to an Instead, think of it as a spectrum. On one end are account-centric perspective. It measures different things companies selling to the Fortune 100. The vast Because of these differences, the way ABM majority of their efforts are going to be focused It’s outbound is measured is very different from traditional on ABM. On the other end are companies selling Demand generation is, at its best, largely an demand gen metrics. See the Metrics Section into the SMB market. The majority of their efforts inbound operation — publishing content that brings in Part 3 for a detailed discussion. are going to be focused on demand generation. a wide range of prospects into your funnel. Most likely, you’re somewhere in the middle, so With ABM, you don’t wait for target accounts to turn you’ll want to balance the two strategies. up in your lead nurturing system, you reach out s s s s n n ll m In fact, 64.9% of companies are currently using to your target accounts directly. This is r d e les r io io o a e t t se t e iti a m c n p lis a mix of ABM and traditional demand predominantly an outbound strategy, with an isi L n S o U e V tu t fa te g r s s e n generation programs — 27.0% use demand extended set of tactics — including account-specific i a o t R v p Cu a E generation only, and 8.1% use ABM only advertising, sales development, and direct mail. p S O (Engagio ABM Outlook Survey 2018). It’s ‘land and expand’ ABM should be leveraged when: Demand generation focuses primarily on generating net-new leads and opportunities; in fact, many • Teams sell to high-value accounts, marketing departments don’t even get ‘credit’ especially deals over $50,000 for campaign responses from existing leads and • Sales cycles are longer, taking months customers. In ABM, Marketing and Sales work instead of days together not only to land the account, but also to • Growth within the account is a business expand it over time. Marketing continues to work The Bow-tie: ABM focuses on existing customer success and expansion driver, such as renewals, upsells, or cross- with Sales after the deal is done. as much as, if not more than, new customer acquisition. sells into different departments • The team markets and sells to buying centers, not just to one individual 19