Account-Based Marketing: Key Insights from Bev Burgess's Book Launch Event

On February 27, 2025, marketing professionals gathered at Salesforce Tower in London to celebrate the launch of Bev Burgess's latest book, "Account-Based Marketing: The definitive handbook for B2B marketers." The event brought together over 100 ABM professionals to discuss the evolution of account-based marketing and share insights from industry leaders.

The day featured presentations and panel discussions from notable speakers including Bev Burgess herself, Charles Forte (Director General CIO at the UK Ministry of Defence), Antonia Wade (Global CMO at PwC), Andrew Fitzgerald (Global VP ABM at Kyndryl), and other ABM leaders from companies like PwC, Thales, Virgin Media O2, NTT Data, and Red Hat.

Here are the key insights that emerged from this landmark event:

1. The Explosive Growth and Evolution of ABM

Bev Burgess shared that ABM has experienced remarkable growth since its inception, with now over 250,000 professionals having ABM in their job titles. The ABM software market reached $1.3 billion in 2022 and is growing at 15% annually, projected to reach $3.1 billion by 2028.

This growth is driving an interesting organizational shift: many companies are now redirecting their field marketing teams to focus on ABM activities, something that wasn't happening when Burgess wrote her first ABM book in 2016. She also highlighted that the three traditional ABM types (one-to-one, one-to-few, one-to-many) have now expanded to five distinct approaches to meet diverse business needs.

2. The 80/20 Principle Underpins the ABM Case

A compelling argument for ABM comes from the 80/20 principle (Pareto principle): 20% of customers typically generate 80% of revenue. Burgess explained that this principle is "fractal," meaning it repeats itself within segments. For a company with 1,000 customers and $1 billion in turnover, this means:

• 800 customers generate just 20% ($200 million)

• 200 customers generate 80% ($800 million)

• 40 customers generate 64% ($640 million)

• 8 customers generate over 50% of all revenue

As Burgess posed rhetorically, "Why would you not treat those customers as accounts in their own right?" The scale of some of these companies further reinforces this point - there are 81 companies globally with revenues over $100 billion, comparable to the GDP of many countries.

3. Five Emerging ABM Types to Drive Growth

The event highlighted how ABM has evolved beyond the traditional three types to now encompass five distinct approaches:

1. Strategic ABM (one-to-one): The classic approach focused on individual high-value accounts with fully customized marketing.

2. Scenario ABM: Still one-to-one but with a more contained focus on specific outcomes and using playbooks of proven tactics. Rhiannon Blackwell from PwC shared how they've implemented this approach, focusing on common business scenarios like "breaking into new buying centers" or "repositioning the brand."

3. Segment ABM (one-to-few): Sophisticated segmentation around similar accounts with common challenges. Nimi Bala from Virgin Media O2 shared their experience targeting 50 retail accounts, describing how they actively swap out accounts that aren't responding well.

4. Programmatic ABM (one-to-many): Using technology to scale personalization. Vidka McCrae from Thales explained how they target 100-300 accounts with vertical-specific messaging.

5. Pursuit Marketing: Focused specifically on high-value opportunities and big deals, often with dedicated teams.

4. The Power of Human Relationships in an AI-Driven World

Despite technological advances, especially in AI, the event emphasized that personal relationships remain central to effective ABM. Charles Forte was quoted saying, "It's about relationships being used to drive connections. It's about people understanding my context and joining the dots up for me... relationships are not going to be built with AI."

For top-tier accounts, speakers highlighted the value of "immersive, high-touch experiences." Andrew Fitzgerald from Kyndryl shared an example of creating a cyber breach simulation exercise for a retail client that was so realistic one executive thought it was a real emergency, fundamentally changing their relationship with the customer.

Antonia Wade from PwC reinforced this point: "It is all about the relationship. It's whether you think you're going to be able to work with these people through a transformational change over a number of years."

5. Building an Effective ABM Capability

Rachel Bell from NTT Data and Lorraine LeBresco from Red Hat shared insights on building global ABM capabilities. Key success factors included:

• Global consistency: Clear definitions, processes, templates, and metrics that work across regions

• Comprehensive training: NTT Data implemented ABM certification for marketers, industry teams, and field marketers to build organization-wide capabilities

• Clear account selection criteria: Transparent processes for choosing which accounts receive ABM investment

• Community building: Creating forums for ABM practitioners to share best practices across global teams

• Stakeholder management: Continuously communicating success stories and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders

Rachel emphasized, "ABM is a team sport. It's all about relationships... creating those relationships and giving people a place to go and where they feel safe to ask questions."

6. Scaling ABM with AI While Maintaining Personalization

The event highlighted the tension between the desire for scale and the need for personalization. Andrew Fitzgerald from Kyndryl spoke about experimenting with "ABM Lite," a blend of one-to-one and one-to-few approaches, targeting a couple of strategic accounts in an industry while applying similar approaches to 10-15 additional accounts with comparable challenges.

The advent of AI, particularly agentic AI, was identified as a game-changer for ABM scaling. Rhiannon Blackwell noted: "The agentic AI is going to be the real game changer... that is doing what was previously impossible when we were talking about this however many years ago, that is scaling a true strategic ABM approach."

However, Vidka McCrae from Thales cautioned: "I think what's really going to be important is to keep the personal touch... the danger is that it's all going to be samey because we will all be using the same tools... How do you stay relevant compared to your competition?"

7. Measuring ABM Success Beyond Revenue

Throughout the event, speakers emphasized the importance of measuring ABM beyond traditional marketing metrics. Andrew Fitzgerald noted that at Kyndryl, "We don't worry about MQLs, SQLs, attribution, any of that nonsense... fundamentally the ROI for us is do those accounts grow faster than the rest?"

Antonia Wade suggested three key metrics:

• Getting in front of parts of the client organization that were previously inaccessible

• Revenue growth

• Reduced sales cycle length

Multiple speakers highlighted the importance of "outcome stories" - qualitative examples that illustrate the real impact of ABM programs, such as securing meetings with C-suite executives or changing perceptions. These anecdotes often resonate more with senior leadership than pure revenue figures.

As Bev Burgess concluded, ABM is evolving to focus not just on commercial outcomes but also on purpose-driven collaboration. She highlighted how leading companies are now partnering with their key accounts to address major global challenges, referring to Mark Benioff's philosophy: "The business of business is improving the state of the world."

This evolution represents an exciting new frontier for ABM practitioners who can work with account teams and customers to create meaningful impact beyond revenue growth - making a difference on critical issues that governments often can't or won't address alone.