B2B Marketing: SMEs must adopt these 10 best practices for ABM and ABX

Align your marketing and sales teams to ensure consistent messaging and coordinated effort.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Account-Based Experience (ABX) have emerged as highly effective strategies for B2B businesses looking to target and engage key accounts. However, very few companies in India are great at doing this, including large conglomerates. Imagine the situation with SMEs then.

ABM and ABX approaches have evolved over the years, adapting to changing market dynamics and technological advancements. In this edition of SMART GROWTH, I will delve into the best practices in ABM and ABX, with some examples from the real world of B2B marketing.

Before we dive into best practices, let's clarify what ABM and ABX mean. ABM is a strategic approach to B2B marketing, where a business identifies and targets a select group of high-value accounts rather than casting a wide net to attract a large number of leads. ABM involves personalised marketing and sales efforts tailored to the specific needs and pain points of each target account. B2B Marketers adopt ABM as the preferred tactic. With this, even when your customers are not actively seeking solutions, they will still value the experiences you provide, and that will influence their purchase decisions.

ABX builds on ABM by emphasising a holistic customer experience throughout the buyer's journey. It focuses on creating a seamless and personalised experience at every touch point, from marketing and sales to customer support and beyond. By combining the two, SMEs can create a very strong customer experience that aligns with specific account needs and preferences. This will allow SME marketers to engage at a deeper level and build long-lasting relationships, which as we all know, will lead to business growth.

Here are the best practices with some global examples that will help embrace these two concepts properly:

Identify high-value accounts: Start by identifying and prioritising high-value accounts that align with your business goals. Adobe is a great example of effective account identification. They used ABM to target and engage enterprise accounts, such as Microsoft, Salesforce, IBM, etc., resulting in significant revenue growth.

Data-driven personalisation: Utilise data and insights to personalise your messaging and content for each account. Terminus, an ABM platform, helps companies personalise their ads based on the industry, job role, and specific account needs. This approach increases engagement and relevance.

Collaborative alignment:  Align your marketing and sales teams to ensure consistent messaging and coordinated effort. Slack's marketing and sales teams work closely to identify target accounts and deliver a unified messaging experience. This collaborative approach has contributed to their rapid growth.

Content relevance and quality: Create high-quality, relevant content tailored to the pain points and interests of your target accounts. HubSpot excels at this by offering a wealth of educational content, webinars, and resources that cater to the specific needs of their target accounts, ultimately driving inbound interest.

Multi-channel engagement: Engage with accounts across multiple channels, including email, social media, webinars, trade shows, conferences and events to create a seamless experience. Salesforce hosts Dreamforce, a massive annual event where they invite key accounts to engage with their products and services. This multi-channel approach strengthens relationships.

Measure and optimise: Continuously monitor and measure the success of your ABM and ABX efforts, making data-driven adjustments. Marketo, a marketing automation company, used its own platform to track the engagement and conversion rates of its target accounts, allowing them to refine their strategies continually.

Personalised onboarding and support: Extend the personalised experience post-purchase with tailored onboarding and ongoing customer support. Zendesk, a customer service software company, ensures that their key accounts receive dedicated onboarding and support teams, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and retention rates.

Account expansion and advocacy: Leverage satisfied customers from key accounts as advocates who can refer new business or expand their own usage. Amazon Web Services (AWS) encourages its satisfied enterprise customers to participate in case studies and share their success stories, which, in turn, attracts new high-value accounts.

Technology and automation: Utilise advanced ABM and ABX technology platforms to scale your efforts efficiently. Demandbase, a B2B marketing technology company, offers AI-powered solutions that help companies identify and engage target accounts more effectively.

Adapt to market changes: Stay agile and adapt your strategies to evolving market conditions and customer needs. During  Covid, many companies adjusted their ABM strategies to address the changing priorities and challenges of their target accounts, like cutting down supply when demand slowed, arranging alternative input sources for industries where demand didn’t slow down, etc.

ABM and ABX are dynamic strategies that have proven to be highly effective in B2B marketing and sales. But the adoption of its best practices in India has been slow. SMEs can change this by following some of the steps outlined above.

As technology continues to evolve, ABM and ABX will undoubtedly become even more powerful tools for B2B organisations seeking to thrive in a competitive landscape.