Research Shows More Companies Invested Significantly in Account Based in 2018 and Investments Will Continue to Rise in 2019

B2B organizations are doubling down on Account Based Marketing in 2019, according to a report released today by research and advisory firm, TOPO. The Account Based Benchmark Report analyzes the strategies of account based organizations, specifically identifying the tactics, budgets, resources, and results that make the leading account based businesses successful. The research provides B2B sales and marketing leaders with the key insights needed to adopt or evolve their account based strategy in 2019 and beyond.

In recent years, creating an account based go-to-market strategy—a coordinated, cross-organizational effort for driving engagement and sales progress in a set of target accounts—has emerged as one of the top initiatives for growth-oriented companies. However, the metrics, tactics, and resources companies employ in a traditional go-to-market approach have failed to translate directly into account based.

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To better understand their account based strategies and results, TOPO surveyed more than 150 practitioners at leading account based organizations and identified the best-practices and metrics that support them. Among the research, TOPO identified six major market observations that companies can use to deliver on:

• Account based strategies deliver business outcomes, not vanity metrics– 80% of respondents indicated that account based improves the customer lifetime value, 86% said it improves win rates, and 76% said it delivers higher ROI than a traditional go-to-market approach
• For every five accounts targeted, account based organizations create a new sales opportunity– compared to a traditional volume-based approach, an account based strategy is extremely efficient at creating sales pipeline
• Organizations with a strong Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) have 68% higher account win rates– more than 80% of the most successful account based organizations believe they have a strong ICP, whereas only 42% of other organizations believe they have a strong ICP
• Organizations only pursue 38% of their target accounts at one time– the vast majority (78%) of leading account based organizations have implemented intentional account selection processes in order to consistently select and prioritize accounts in a repeatable way
• Successful account based execution uses existing marketing and sales development tactics– addressing one of the biggest barriers to launching account based is the concern that a completely new set of tactics are required
• Account based is not only marketing– a successful account based strategy requires a coordinated effort across all customer-facing functions including marketing and sales development

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“Many B2B organizations are shifting rapidly to account based to help drive their business growth,” said Eric Wittlake, Senior Marketing Analyst at TOPO. “What became clear during our research was that the market growth was fueled by validation from early adopters that account based successfully addresses major business challenges, including pipeline efficiency, retention, expansion, and customer lifetime value.”

TOPO works with high-growth companies to transform their sales and marketing organizations into world-class functions. B2B organizations rely on TOPO research and consulting to make informed strategic decisions that drive pipeline and revenue growth.

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