I had the pleasure of attending B2B Ignite from B2B Marketing yesterday in London. It’s always a great event. I learn something every time while connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. This year’s event was about the pivotal moment B2B marketers are facing and their opportunity to become commercial marketers, playing a critical role in helping their business and its customers face economic sea changes and building commercial strategies that generate profitable revenues. A great manifesto from Joel Harrison, Richard O’Connor and their team.
While the conference is focused on B2B marketing as a whole, I was looking at everything from an ABM lens, and here are my top three takeaways for ABM-ers.
1. We are already commercial marketers
One of the privileges of working as an ABM-er is that you are working at the intersection between your company and its customers. To be credible, you have to know how your own business works (and makes money) and understand your customer’s business context. The wonderful Sarah Thomas, Group CMO and EVP at Capgemini recommended that all B2B marketers need to understand how their company makes money, the pressures it is under, and its strategic initiatives, suggesting that they listen to earnings calls, the questions analysts are asking their exec teams, and how those questions get answered. Then use the same language. As ABM-ers we need to do this for the accounts we’re working on, too.
2. We play a key role in building trust with customers
The ever-engaging Joel Harrison shared his perspective on the way trust is being broken down in society and the three ways that marketers can help to build trust with customers: through thought leadership, advocacy programmes and influencer marketing. He believes that marketing is under-indexed on these programmes today. Again, as ABM-ers, we use these approaches to build relationships in our accounts. We map and profile our buyers and understand who influences their thinking, planning how best to engage these audiences. We often co-create ideas around how the customer can adopt new thinking and innovation to improve their current operations and achieve their future business goals. And we work to help our customers realise value from working with us, and become our advocates. These three things should remain central to our ABM plans.
3. AI can help us do these things better
During the great AI debate, pro-AI team Rhiannon Blackwell, Catherine Dutton and Ben Lee argued that AI tools and agents can be valuable team members, helping us with more repetitive tasks to free up time for us to be creative in how we engage our most important customers. Working with AI tools can turbocharge the unique blend of science and art that is marketing, so don’t hold back.
There’s lots for ABM-ers to be grateful for as we face this pivotal moment in B2B marketing. I remain convinced that ABM can help companies thrive in the coming months and years. As the fantastic keynote speaker Susannah Streeter recommended, we need to change our mindset from marketing being a support function to one that adds value to our companies and customers by being the hub for insight on how markets are changing and what it might mean for us all. I agree. ABM should be part of the service we offer our customers, and one of the reasons they choose to stay with us.
