The State of ABM in Cybersecurity and Other Undifferentiated IT Markets

ABM Done Right - A Personal ABM Podcast

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Account-based marketing and selling became a must for cybersecurity firms and others looking to drive higher-value deals in an undifferentiated, crowded market. In fact, 92% of B2B marketers have some kind of ABM strategy or program in place as companies dove into ABM tech and other platforms that promised a path to greater growth with more focus and partnership with sales leaders. However, ITSMA, Tech Target and others report that only 17% have a mature program and 69% of ABM programs underperform when it comes to revenue growth.

GTM teams are building pipelines with ABM but….

• Accounts go dark after initial engagement – Teams are challenged with driving stage progression
• Sales cycle time with tier 1 enterprises are not accelerating - They’re still way too long
• Deal sizes aren’t increasing when it should be 2X-3X with ABM accounts
• Too many accounts are at-risk as ABM isn’t being used to protect high-value accounts
• Limited impact on NRR as ABM is only being used for the pipeline

In this webinar, James Kessinger (CMO of Hushly) and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) discuss:

• The current state of ABM in cybersecurity and how most are in the experimentation stage as they have not figured out how to orchestrate ABM across the organization to impact more than just the pipeline. They are doing ABM lite or targeted demand gen vs. what ABM is supposed to be which is about creating the right experiences and having the right interactions across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle.
• How teams are missing the mark with their ABM content and the experiences that are delivered to the buyers in the accounts teams want to win, protect and expand.
• What cybersecurity teams are doing right to build muscle memory and prove out the ABM model -- and where ABM is broken.
• Many cybersecurity GTM teams jumped into ABM before they built out the foundation. In ABM, you want to come to each interaction with a perspective about your prospect's business but this cannot happen because many cybersecurity firms and others do not have a POV about their business so GTM teams are pushing out the same content and messaging, just making it more targeted. Teams jumped into ABM without looking across the buyer's journey and customer lifecycle to find the "red" in the business and see where ABM should be applied. It was automatically used to fix the pipeline when the pipeline is not the key issue for many cybersecurity firms. And, they didn't use any data to make ABM decisions including who they'd target.
• Many ABM programs especially in cybersecurity are half-assed as there is no orchestration and they did not think about the complete digital, social, email and live experience. They are retrofitting ABM and doing marketing as usual vs. making the necessary changes that need to happen to drive desired outcomes from ABM.
• The challenges that GTM teams will face with ABM in 2023 as buyers are beoming more savvy where sales and marketing alignment is not enough. We need the teams to work in lockstep and to integrate to land and expand key strategic accounts., Marketing needs to shift from pre-sales support to helping teams to protect and expand accounts.