Back to the basics: The ABCs of ABM, CX and ABX
“You can talk to a hundred different people and they’ll all give you a different view of what ABM is,” Paul begins. Of course, you might consider yourself an ABM purist, focusing solely on one-to-one. Alternatively, you might be a champion of programmatic ABM, with a focus on scale.
Regardless of your exact approach, one thing that is certain is that ABM works.
“It’s the right thing to do. We can all agree on that,” Paul asserts, adding that customer experience (CX) plays a crucial role in ABM. “We know we need to treat people differently based on what industry they’re in, the size of their business, their region and where they are in their buyer journey.” It goes without saying, but if we don’t do this, our customers are not likely to have a great experience of our brand. In turn, we’re less likely to win (or retain) their business.
So, where does ABX come into this? “In its simplest form, ABX harnesses all the best things about account-based approaches and CX. So, ABM plus CX equals ABX,” Paul explains.
For Paul, ABX isn’t confined to the domain of marketing. Rather, it is an approach to business that should be adopted by all revenue enablement teams, from pre-sales to post-sales. After all, every department in your business will affect how your account perceives or engages with your brand, so this account-based focus cannot lie solely in marketing.
Importantly, technology plays a crucial role in ABX, allowing more and more companies to take account-based approaches to a larger data section of their audience by having streamlined data. “If you get to a point where all of those teams are looking at the same data with the same strategy, then you’ll have the same success,” Paul states. “This gives you the ability to report back to the business that this is the impact you’re having on accounts as a combined revenue team. That’s what we mean by ABX.”
The importance of technology in ABX
So, what role can technology play in ABX? “If you’re building out strategies for the future, you want to make sure that you’re focusing on the right companies,” Paul explains. Technology can help surface the organisations which are in market, showing the right buying signals and, to zoom further in, their levels of engagement: website visits; if they’ve talked to sales; attended webinars or events, etc. “The term ‘turning the lights on’ is something we’ve used,” Paul continues.
As Paul maintains, account-based approaches have long been desired, but have not always been accessible due to time and resource constraints. Fortunately, this is beginning to change. “Technology is something that we see speeding up the process and making sure that the data is relevant and available to everyone.” In short, giving you the ability to put your account-based strategy into action based on data that actually means something. And with that added, all-important bonus of sales and marketing alignment.
“We all know that delivering a personalised experience to an account is effective,” Paul states. “But the ability to do that in line with where they are in the buyer journey, what industry they’re in and across a wider section of your target audience is much more effective.” ABX technology allows you to see those specifics and adapt your messaging accordingly. In this way, ABX isn’t synonymous with an abandonment of ABM, rather “it’s about taking that account-based approach and bringing in all those different elements we’ve spoken about” – in other words, taking that proven account-based approach and scaling it out to enable more organisations to do it, and do it well.
“If you haven’t got the data, your strategy is guesswork”
When it comes to strategy and technology, most tend to start with the former and move into the latter. At The Global ABM Conference, Paul took a slightly different view, arguing that the two should work in tandem. “It was seen as a bit controversial at the time,” Paul states. “But simply put, you can’t do one without the other.”
For Paul, strategy without data is nothing more than “guess work, crossed fingers and maybe a bit of intuition.” As he outlines, data helps companies to identify not only which clients are in market, but when you should act, and when it will be too late. “If you don’t have that data, there’s a real risk of missing the mark. No one wants to be sitting there in 12 months saying ‘That approach didn’t work. We just wasted 12 months. Let’s try something different,’” Paul continues.
The advancement of technology
Paul argues that the advancement of technology signifies an ability to tie together both known and unknown buying committees, giving integral insight into buying decisions. It doesn’t stop there. As Paul states, there has not only been an increasing reliance on CRM data, but also a push towards making sure that that data is accurate.
In a similar vein, Paul outlines an increasing use of automation technology which remove the need for “manually intensive processes that sales and marketing have to get involved with (…) so that we can do what we like to do: come up with creative strategies and ideas that push us forwards.”
Where to start with ABX?
It comes as no surprise that for Paul, the foundation of any strategy starts with data: orchestrating it into a format that sales and marketing can understand where to focus their efforts. Paul stresses the importance of making sure that your data is accurate. In his own words, “if you’re not able to identify if that’s a good company to go after or a good fit, it’s all guess work.”
From an in-house perspective, Paul states that ABX needs not only buy-in from the top, but requires wider organisational harmony. Although taking its first steps in marketing, Paul maintains that ABX has expanded to involve all those working in revenue, whether that be sales or post-sales. This plays a crucial role in customer success levels, such as looking into an account’s buying signals to stop any potential problems in its tracks.
If you’d like a more comprehensive, detailed account of the complexities of ABX, check out Demanbase’s e-book here.
