Account-based marketing (ABM) has become THEE go-to strategy for many B2B companies — so important that I said "thee" instead of "the." It's all about targeting specific accounts, personalizing outreach to each of the stakeholders in that account, and trying to get more value from the high-quality leads.
But since we marketers are always trying to improve things and call them something different, we're now creating something bigger and more holistic, and we're calling it Account-based experience (ABX).
To make ABX work, companies need to rely on their go-to-market operations (GTM Ops) to play a critical role in making everything run smoothly.
Why is ABM Evolving into ABX?
We already know that ABM focuses on crafting personalized marketing messages specifically for key target accounts. Rather than casting the wide net of traditional spray-and-pray marketing, ABM is focused on targeting a few high-value accounts.
For example, rather than running a series of TV ads aimed at all IT managers in the tech industry, an ABM approach targets specific companies with highly personalized emails, ads, and content created just for them.
But ABM is often siloed within the marketing department, which means there's not always a smooth handoff between marketing, sales, and customer success.
ABX broadens its approach to include sales, customer success, and other departments throughout the entire customer journey. It creates a seamless and unified experience for target accounts at every stage, from the initial contact to nurturing the lead to closing the deal to customer success to renewal.
If you've ever worked in the retail sector, you may have heard the term omnichannel. That's when the customer experience is the same everywhere: from the retail store to the online store to the mobile app and even the packaging designs and returns.
The retail customer experience is identical at all stages of the buying journey in omnichannel; so, too, is the account-based experience journey in the B2B world.
In ABX, everyone works together in sync to create the best possible experience for your target accounts. It's not just about lead gen, it's about providing value at every interaction.
A hypothetical example
Let's say your company provides cybersecurity software. You've identified a large financial firm as a high-value account.
With an ABM approach, you create personalized content, like ebooks, white papers, webinars, and even videos, that are tailored specifically to that company's IT team. This is great for getting their attention, but what happens next?
In most cases, the lead then gets handed off to the sales team. They do what they usually do, but it doesn't have the same personal touch that the ABM approach gave.
With ABX, once the customer has engaged with the content and they're in the sales funnel, the sales team is able to continue the conversation, following up with the things learned from the personalized content. They can provide solutions to solve specific problems and address particular needs. And, as the relationship deepens and eventually closes, the customer success team is getting resources and onboarding support ready so the experience remains consistent after the sale.
With this approach, the stakeholders never feel like they've been handed off from one department to the next. They should never notice a difference in the level of service or attention to detail as they move from one department to the next.
The Role of GTM Ops in ABX
How does all this come together? How do you ensure that marketing, sales, and customer success are all aligned and working smoothly? A lot of companies are still trying to get the marketing and sales departments to realize they work for the same company, let alone work smoothly together.
This is where GTM Ops comes in.
It's the backbone that holds everything together. Without it, ABX would fall apart because the different teams wouldn't have the same information or use the same tools to communicate with the target accounts. You would just have three different departments working together but believing they should be the ones to drive the process.
After all, "we're the ones who get the leads/close the deal/keep the customer."
Revisiting the hypothetical example
Let's look at that financial firm interested in our cybersecurity software again. To create a seamless experience, we need accurate data about the company, including the names of the decision-makers, their biggest pain points, and how they've engaged with our content so far.
GTM Ops ensures that data is accurate and up-to-date by using tools like Salesforce to manage customer relationships, HubSpot for marketing automation platforms, and third-party data providers like Clay, Apollo, or LinkedIn for specific data on the stakeholders.
Let's say the marketing team creates a personalized email campaign for that particular stakeholder. GTM Ops ensures the sales team can see how the target accounts respond, and the customer success team knows what's been promised when they start working on the account.
GTM Ops also makes sure the data is accurate by updating and cleaning the database. After all, you don't want to send the wrong message to the wrong people, which just looks sloppy and can hurt your relationship with the target account. By using data providers and enrichment tools, you can ensure that the contact information is accurate and that there are no gaps in the data.
How GTM Ops Makes ABX Possible
Without a strong GTM Ops infrastructure, ABX would be nearly impossible to create, organize, and execute. Here's why:
Data accuracy and freshness: ABX needs real-time, accurate data. GTM Ops manages the data pipeline and makes sure every department has access to the most up-to-date information accounts. For instance, if our financial firm above changes leadership, GTM Ops ensures marketing and sales know immediately.
Tool integration: ABX uses multiple tools like CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, and sales engagement tools. GTM Ops makes sure they're properly integrated so no information gets lost. If marketing sends an email via Hubspot, sales can see how recipients respond.
Efficiency and automation: GTM Ops helps automate many of the manual processes that would otherwise slow down ABX. Rather than sales reps manually entering data into the CRM, you can set up automated workflows that sync data between different platforms. That makes everything consistent and saves time on manual processes.
Consistency across teams: GTM Ops creates a unified process for each stage of the account’s journey. If marketing creates a lead gen campaign, GTM Ops helps prepare sales and customer success teams can follow up in the same tone, messaging, and information.
Measuring success: GTM Ops tracks and measures the success of your ABX strategy via dashboards and reports that grab data from different systems. That lets management see if the strategy is driving revenue, increasing the pipeline, and delivering desired results.
What Happens Without GTM Ops?
But without GTM Ops, this is what can happen to your ABX strategy:
Data gets siloed: Your three teams may have access to different data — or different versions of data — which leads to inconsistent messaging and missed opportunities.
Manual processes take time: Without automation, team members will waste time entering and re-entering the same data over and over. This slows down your entire go-to-market process, and you miss opportunities because of delays.
Lack of accountability: Remember earlier when I talked about how, without GTM Ops, it's easy for each department to think they drive the entire process? It also lets them point fingers and shift blame when things go wrong.
Lack of proper measurement: When each department gets to define its own success and measure its own analytics, it's difficult to properly measure success and give credit. Did marketing really grow its MQL by 40%? Did sales fail because they're bad at their job or because marketing gave them bad leads? Did customer success fail because they didn't understand the customers' pain points? See the problem?
Without GTM Ops, ABX becomes much harder to manage, and your chances of success dwindle alarmingly.
Bottom Line
ABM has been a powerful tool, but ABX is the superior application. But without GTM Ops to manage the data, tools, and process, the strategy will struggle and fall apart.
By aligning your teams and investing in the right GTM Ops infrastructure, you can create a seamless experience that not only wins new business, it builds lasting relationships with your most important customers.
The key to success is not just in the strategy, but the operations that support it. When you can build the infrastructure that gets marketing, sales, and customer success to work together, the results can be amazing.