Demandbase Aims ABM Stack Evaluator At 70% Of B2B Firms That Call Their Tools 'immature'

Demandbase is offering to help the 70 per cent of B2B firms who describe their account-based marketing technology as “immature” with a digital questionnaire that will recommend tools to align with their strategies.

The San Francisco-based firm last week released a report, The State Of The ABM Tech Stack, in partnership with Demand Metric. The results of its research, which was based on about 180 responses, showed less than 10 per cent of marketers consider their ABM tools mature. This is despite priorities like personalizing content, which was cited by 60 per cent of those surveyed, and measuring account engagement, cited by 52 per cent. Half of the respondents also said they were trying to develop a target account list.

“It seems that the widespread assumption in the B2B marketing community is that martech stacks do a good job supporting ABM, or at worst they are benign,” the report’s authors wrote, adding later that the research confirmed not only that firms lack the right tools, but just how busy those trying to make use of ABM already are. “One study participant summarized the root cause of this challenge by lamenting the lack of ‘resources to set things up and too many other priorities.’”

Demandbase is pairing the launch of the report with what it calls the ABM Stack Evaluator, a tool that asks seven questions in order to help suggest possible additions to B2B marketing teams’ arsenals. The ABM Stack Evaluator is in part a response to findings in the report that 36 per cent have trouble identifying the right software to achieve their goals with ABM programs.

The ABM Stack Evaluator asks those who use it to choose which statements they identify with in areas like target account lists, including, “I need to determine if the target account list I currently use is a good list and how often I should refresh it” and “I need to determine if the target account list I currently use is a good list and how often I should refresh it.”

B2B firms are not only struggling to figure out who they should approach with an ABM campaign, but how to articulate their key messages. Producing quality content was a challenge for 63 per cent, for instance, while 57 per cent aren’t sure about producing it in enough quantity.

While it may seem intuitive, these results show how strongly adoption maturity drives satisfaction with ABM results,” the report added. “Mature ABM adopters have fewer challenges. Of the seven challenges this study examines, more than 50% of those in the mature segment rated just one of them – sales enablement – as being a major or very major.”

Demandbase plans to build upon the research with a webinar that will dive into more detail on Dec. 3.