The secret behind the growing popularity of Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is how confident and informed marketers feel while using it. While ABM remains the hottest MarTech topic for 2017, its importance has not grown overnight. While it may seem all geek to newbies, ABM offers very rewarding opportunities for marketers. According to the ABM evangelist, Sangram Vajre of Terminus, “If marketers adopt Account-Based Marketing practices, they will drive revenue in their businesses. I want to do everything I can to help make marketers heroes.” According to The B2B Lead, ABM directly addresses sales/marketing alignment, challenging the 50% of time, sales wasted on unproductive prospecting.

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If you are putting together an ABM strategy, such numbers would be handy. We have gathered 10 key ABM stats that every marketer should have at the fingertips.

92% of marketing leaders are more focussed at selling to executive level than they were two years ago.

According to a recent ITSMA report titled, “Engaging the C-Suite: 2017 Sales and Executive Engagement Survey Report”, 92% of marketing leaders say that selling at the executive level is more important to their sales strategy than it was two years ago.

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Marketers are relying on ABM capabilities to capitalize on new market opportunities. B2B businesses are designing and deepening their relationships around ABM to engage C level execs more effectively.

C-suite Participation is Critical to ABM Success

According to an EverString report, 48% marketers said that the C-suite is actively involved in ABM. The report found that the top contributors in ABM across B2B organizations include marketing ops (86%), demand gen marketers (70%), sales development professionals (68%) and customer success team (~33%).

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90% of practitioners consider role of marketers in ABM as strategic and supportive of specific programs

According to a report by the Alterra Group, marketers need to demonstrate deep account and industry-specific expertise to craft perfect ABM campaigns. To create account-relevant marketing messages, companies are dedicating more resources and increasing the spending on ABM. Spending on ABM is expected to excedd that on other marketing technologies very soon.

80% of B2B marketers feel that their lead generation programs are not as effective as they want them to be.

ABM’s rise in the MarTech ecosystem has largely been attributed to B2B marketers who are not satisfied with their traditional lead-gen programs. According to a report by Crowd Research Partners, growing the quality of leads remains the top priority for a majority (68%) of B2B professionals, followed by increasing lead volume (55%). However, only 16% of B2B marketers are actually happy with the effectiveness of their lead-generation programs.

46% of B2B companies anticipate an increase in their ABM budget for 2017 compared to 2016.

ABM is pushing the limits of MarTech budgets in 2017. Companies are confident and more informed about their ABM strategies than previous years. According to ITSMA’s 2017 Budget Allocations and Trends report, most companies plan to implement ABM in 2017 and another 26% plan to do it within the next two years. Compared to a 13% allocation for ABM in 2016, the ITSMA report finds that ABM investments would grow to 17% of the marketing budget in 2017.

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42% of B2B companies prefer to keep the number of accounts in ABM strategy between 50 and 500

According to a report by EverString and Demand Gen Report, 18% of companies try to keep their accounts list under 50; 19% target a broad set of accounts, ranging anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000. For a truly focused ABM approach, the report found that 42% of companies try to keep their account list between 50 and 500.

64% of marketers use account-based advertising tools to support ABM strategies

The EverString and Demandbase report also found that, 92% of marketers were using analytics and reporting tools to support their ABM strategies. 49% of marketers relied heavily on predictive tools, describing them as critical to ABM success.

Companies implementing ABM increased ACV by 171%

A report by TOPO, commissioned by The ABM Leadership Alliance, found that companies that have implemented ABM witnessed a 171% increase in their Annual Contract Value (ACV). ABM offers a major boost to the pipeline velocity and closed rates, enabling marketers to target prospects belonging to new logos and revenue streams.

Companies achieve ABM objectives within a very short time

Companies that had used ABM for at least a year said that they were meeting and exceeding their objectives through self-assessment and performance maturity programs.  54% of companies were successful in meeting their ABM objectives by virtue of investing early in ABM programs that allowed them to define Ideal Customer Profiles, ACV/LTV and to create tier-specific go-to-market strategies.

32% Marketers have a Documented B2B Content Strategy

According to Marketo, customized B2B content marketing makes ABM more effective. Effective content marketing offer marketers an edge in creating visually attractive and relevant stories to help boost sales, in a short time. According to the B2B Content Marketing 2016: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America, produced by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, the effectiveness of content marketing increases when the whole organization understands what success looks like.

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Sophisticated content marketing strategies are more likely to earn ABM success compared to younger ones. As B2B marketers continue to focus on creating documented content using predictive and artificial intelligence, ABM ROI is expected to increase by 2020.

75% of B2B Buyers and 84% of C-level Executives Use Social Media to Make Purchasing Decisions

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), B2B buyers and C-level executives are increasingly relying on social media to garner more information about products and services before making purchase decisions. 80% of buyers who had not yet used social media to research purchases were willing to do so under the right conditions.

B2B companies with strong social selling strategies utilize online and social connections to create ideal customer profiles before selling to them. Social selling offers companies with a higher budget more control on purchasing decisions and better visibility into budget-matching compared to other platforms.

The stats listed above should make it clear that B2B marketers should focus on developing sophisticated content strategies, matched with social selling touch points to ensure the highest returns from ABM.