As we enter this year, we face a raft of environmental, economic and geo-political uncertainties that will inevitably affect both our companies and its customers. Here are five things to think about as you look ahead into 2025.
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- Being that trusted partner: Widespread uncertainty typically means that we look to brands and people that we trust to keep us both up to date and safe. It’s likely that customers will increasingly rely on their trusted partners and advisors in 2025, making it hard for new suppliers to break in. Account-based growth strategies that focus on growing with existing customers are ideal in this environment, and ABM is the natural marketing approach to support them.
- Collaboration with wider purpose: Some of the challenges we face as a society can’t be tackled by governments alone. Businesses will need to step up to help marshal innovation and resources to help solve them. This is a great opportunity for ABM-ers to support initiatives that involve collaboration with top accounts and executives.
- Doing more with less: Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) will continue to be asked to do more with less, balancing brand building with demand generation activities. They have many levers to pull to achieve this feat, including leveraging AI to deliver some form of personalisation (or ABM) at scale. I recommend adopting the ‘frequent flyer’ approach to designing the experience you offer different tiers of customer, moving up from largely digital and self-service to high-touch, proactive and immersive experiences. For ABM-ers, this means working up from Programmatic ABM, through Segment and Scenario ABM to full Strategic ABM.
- Effective, safe use of AI: Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) will continue to change the way we work as marketers, helping us be more productive and creative. While many AI tools will shortcut both analytical and creative processes for us, AI Agents will be able to take action on our behalf, too, integrating and leveraging other AI tools. You will need to balance the opportunities these tools offer with the ethical and security challenges they present.
- Remember to be kind: All of the above will mean that our teams and colleagues need extra support this year. Everyone is facing change, and we know that people will respond in different ways. Recognise the unique blend of skills and attributes your colleagues bring to the team, and the nature of their specific circumstances throughout the year. A little bit of kindness and compassion goes a long way with your colleagues, customers and even perfect strangers.
The ABM-er
At Inflexion Group, we regularly get asked for advice on Account-Based Marketing (ABM) from marketers across the world. So, this year I’ve decided to create a newsletter for anyone already involved in, or exploring, ABM. Whether you’re just starting out, or an ABM practitioner or programme leader, I hope you find something of interest to you. Let me know what you think (and what you’d like to see next).
