2021 saw a seismic shift in the way customers interact with B2B brands. The quest for meaningful engagement in B2B is more important than ever now: with expectations around personalization at an all-time high. In response, businesses are shifting from traditional account-based marketing (ABM) to a more holistic approach known as account-based experience (ABX)
ABX uses data insights to orchestrate highly relevant and personalized experiences for customers throughout the B2B buying journey. It’s a customer-centric rethinking of account-based marketing—one that combines the engagement of inbound marketing with the precision and targeting of ABM. When done right, ABX has the potential to outperform every other growth strategy for B2B companies.
Why ABM Isn’t Enough
Account-based marketing services have been around for a while, but it only started making headway about five years ago. In the established ABM model, sales and marketing teams align to achieve valuable accounts, bigger deal sizes, greater ROI and effective long-term growth. Having said that, there are still significant silos in this approach, where customer success is not routinely involved.
ABX confronts this issue head on, pushing ABM to the next level, a 2.0 version, if you will. It starts by acknowledging that it’s not just marketing and sales that are important in any relationship with the customer. What actually matters is how the entire organisation interacts with each customer across the full customer lifecycle, to deliver the maximum value.
In today’s digital era, customers buy experiences, and the way your brand interacts with customers is what influences revenue, satisfaction, and retention. ABX is a holistic approach that ties marketing, sales and customer success teams together to ensure a buyer’s journey flows seamlessly across multiple channels and touchpoints So, there’s continuity and consistency in every customer interaction by removing the existing silos in ABM to deliver a lifetime of value.
The Evolution to ABX
It’s important to note that ABX is not a replacement for ABM but more of an evolution. We don’t encourage brands to no longer practice ABM but believe that ABM will mature into ABX going forward. B2B companies need to recognize this, especially those that are just starting out with ABM. When partnering with an account-based marketing agency, B2B leaders must consider their approach and the benefits of accelerating straight to ABX, to futureproof their organisation.
But, by its very nature, traditional ABM approaches focus on identifying valuable accounts and attempting to engage them, regardless of whether the time is right or if they are interested in hearing from you at all. And that’s exactly the kind of customer experience buyers hate. ABX engages with modern buyers on their own terms: anonymously when they don’t want to be identified, helpful and relevant when they are ready.
ABX creates an immersive buyer journey to drive greater levels of account engagement for B2B brands. As a result, brands have a stronger, two-way engagement with prospects, based on specific needs, profile and buying criteria of each individual account. By meeting the exact needs of each account, B2B owners can accelerate the discovery process, resulting in brand loyalty and faster conversions.
As marketing strategies continue to evolve, ABX is rising and proving itself to be the future of B2B SaaS revenue generation. Using an evolved version of ABM that emphasizes on customer satisfaction early on, ensures the delivery of a timely and hyper-personalized experience that results in more sales and retention.