It’s Time to Let

Common Sense Prevail

THE ENTERPRISE MARKETERS’

Guide to ABM
Introduction
Enterprise marketers who achieve
positive revenue impact through ABM,
play by different rules.
In 2021, MRP released a white paper titled “ABM Execution in Light of Enterprise
Reality,” which cast light on the undeniable truth that most ABM platforms are not
solving the needs of today’s Enterprise marketers.

As Enterprises rush to accelerate the delivery of effective account-based marketing

(ABM) programs, the platforms that support it have become a critical bottleneck.
Enterprise organizations have a sophisticated go-to-market approach, with
specialized teams focused on products or geographies and subject matter experts
who compose their ABM program development. This sophisticated go-to-market
approach creates a paramount need for ABM to be actionable across all teams,
driving the need for a multitenant, collaborative platform.

Earlier this year, Demand Metric and MRP partnered to validate the different needs
of SMB and Enterprise ABM programs and help Enterprises identify the specific
capabilities and platform requirements that lead to ABM success.

The following report provides a guide to successfully executing ABM in a complex

operating environment and shares insights from over 1,200 study participants
across 5 continents.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 2

Table of
Contents
4 Key Findings

8 Guide to Enterprise ABM

14 RFP for Enterprise ABM

24 Next Steps

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 3

Key Findings

Key Finding #1
Enterprises have a more complex operating
environment than SMBs.

High-performing Enterprises have more systems contributing data to ABM, leverage

more marketing channels, and recognize the importance of managing programs
across product lines, languages, and geographies.

80%
of top-performing Enterprises report three
or more systems contribute data to their
ABM programs.

84% of Enterprises leverage three or more systems

to deliver marketing messaging.

79%
of top-performing Enterprise marketers
recognize that managing ABM programs
across multiple product lines, languages, or
geographies is an issue that is “Very Important”
to solve, compared to only 59% of SMBs

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 4

Key Findings

Key Finding #2
Enterprise organizations are more complex than
SMBs and require the right people to execute
ABM at scale, and achieve a revenue impact.
High-performing Enterprises include more roles in their ABM initiatives, execute ABM
across multiple teams, and leverage subject matter experts.

66%
of top-performing Enterprises leverage multiple
teams to execute ABM across their organization.

36%
more roles are involved in the planning 5.6 ROLES > Top Performers

and orchestration of ABM programs at

top-performing Enterprises. 4.1 ROLES > Low Performers

2X
more likely to report significant revenue impact from
ABM when the expertise and capabilities of the
Enterprise’s diverse workforce are connected.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 5

Key Findings

Key Finding #3
Enterprises must empower teams with clearly
defined processes that enable collaboration,
not isolation.
High performers coordinate their approach to target accounts, share insights, and
create a single view of truth for each target account.

93%
have achieved complete or significant visibility
into the ABM campaigns that are managed by
other teams across their company.

2X
more likely to report significant revenue impact
when teams are connected to build and execute
ABM programs.

3X more likely to have a full view of target account

reality across sales, marketing, and ABM platforms.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 6

Key Findings

Key Finding #4
Technology acts as an enabler to Enterprise
ABM when the right people and processes are
in place.
High ABM performers leverage more data sources, practice advanced data management,
deliver messages consistently across audiences, and have solved measurement issues.

Compared to low performers, high-performing Enterprises are:

2.5X 2.5X 2X

more likely to use more likely to have more likely to use intent
multiple data sources like deep integrations in data and predictive
CRM/MAP, Intent Data, their tech stack. analytics to create account
and Predictive Analytics in profiles alongside their own
the Enterprise. CRM and MAP data.

3X 3X

more likely to leverage a platform that more likely to have solved for
automatically changes content across all measuring ABM performance,
channels as target account needs change or the including revenue at each account
account advances in their buyer’s journey stage. and across relevant channels.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 7

Guide to Enterprise ABM

Much can be learned by isolating the capabilities

of high-performing Enterprise marketers.

There are several ways to assess the performance of a marketing function. One
indisputable measure of success involves examining the direct revenue impact of
different strategies in use. This study’s participants were asked to describe the effect that
ABM is having on marketing-generated revenue. Enterprise marketers who reported that
they have achieved a significant revenue impact from their ABM program (25% or greater
increase in marketing-generated revenue) were identified as “high performers.”

Over one-quarter of Enterprise marketers have

27% achieved a significant revenue impact from their
ABM program.

This study’s data revealed almost all high-performing Enterprise marketers share a
specific set of capabilities. The remainder of this report examines the capabilities that
drive revenue contribution from the perspective of these high performers, creating a guide
for achieving high-performance ABM.

Enterprises have a more complex operating

environment.

By definition, Enterprise organizations have developed a specialization in their sales and

marketing efforts. This specialization is critical in the Enterprise because they often have
multiple divisions or product groups who must communicate using various channels,
sometimes in different languages. Furthermore, sales teams are often trying to sell
multiple products into the same group of target accounts. Therefore, Enterprises must
execute ABM differently. The vast majority of high-performing Enterprise marketers are
aware of the complexities of operating ABM at scale and make solving the issues related
to these complexities a priority.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 8

Guide to Enterprise ABM

Nearly four-fifths of high-performing

Enterprise marketers recognize that
managing ABM programs across multiple
product lines, languages, or geographies is
an issue that is “Very Important to Solve,”
79%
compared to only 59% of low performers.

Solving for these complexities is an essential component of Enterprise success, and

nearly all high-performing ABM programs that operate at scale conform to this reality.
Not only do Enterprises have a more complex operating environment, but the analysis
of this study’s data revealed that high-performing Enterprises include more people in
the planning and orchestration of ABM campaigns than both SMBs and low-performing
Enterprises.

High-performing Enterprises have 34% more roles

34% and specialists involved in the planning
and orchestration of ABM campaigns.

Although it’s interesting to note that high-performing Enterprises have more people
involved in executing ABM, there is more to the story - it’s not just the people that
drive results; the most successful Enterprise ABM programs clear the way for cross-
functional collaboration.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 9

Guide to Enterprise ABM

Enterprise marketers who want to achieve

success must facilitate collaboration.

There are two crucial dimensions that Enterprise marketers need to realize and accept:

1 Multitenancy is foundational to Enterprise ABM.

2 Role-based collaboration is imperative in the Enterprise.

Enterprises typically organize teams based upon audiences or lines of business, and
ABM is executed with multiple teams collaborating and/or operating autonomously. In
contrast, over half of SMBs that took part in this study execute ABM with one team only.
When executing ABM with numerous teams, marketers must collaborate on account
insights, targeting, and reporting. Therefore, the platform in use needs to know how to
share data broadly while separating other components. In the Enterprise, this is a critical
capability, and there is a strong incentive for Enterprise teams to leverage a platform that
has multitenant capabilities.

Organizations that connect teams to build and

execute ABM programs across the Enterprise are
twice as likely to report significant revenue impact.

Domain experts must also be able to work natively in the ABM platform. This research
study identified roles like creatives, data scientists, field marketers, and business
intelligence specialists as being critical for ABM success. Further, as ABM matures in
an organization, it becomes evident that experts, those who operate across all revenue-
generating sides of the business, also need to provide their value in the ABM programs
being executed. Therefore, role-based collaboration and the ability to seamlessly connect
experts and generalists is essential for driving revenue impact in the Enterprise.

The Enterprise Marketers Guide to ABM 10

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