In the world of B2B marketing, account-based strategies that once delivered exceptional results are now simply the standard. Today’s buyers demand authentic, personalised experiences at every touchpoint, and the traditional approaches—static target lists, superficial personalisation, and reliance on third-party data—are increasingly ineffective.
The reality is stark: traditional account-based marketing (ABM) is no longer a differentiator. It’s not that ABM doesn’t work, but that everyone is using it. When every business follows the same formula, standing out becomes impossible.
The Evolution of ABM in the Enterprise
For enterprises, the challenge is even greater. B2B sales cycles are complex, involving multiple decision-makers, diverse markets, and various sales models, from direct sales to partner-led strategies. Conventional ABM lacks the depth and agility needed to navigate this intricacy.
To stay ahead, organisations must rethink their approach, starting with a comprehensive audit of their go-to-market (GTM) strategy. This will lay the foundation for a more dynamic and effective account-based experience (ABX), one that drives new customer acquisition and expands existing relationships. Here’s how to make that shift.
Phase 1: Auditing Your GTM for Actionable Insights
Think of a GTM audit as the foundation of a home renovation. Before making changes, you need to understand the existing structure. This means collecting every relevant data point from across marketing, sales, customer success, and operations. That includes:
- Campaign performance
- Channel effectiveness
- Content engagement
- Messaging impact
- Budget allocation
- Buyer journey analytics
Once assembled, map this data to your revenue architecture. Identify where your revenue truly originates by analysing:
- Source (inbound vs. outbound)
- Segment
- Geography
By examining your funnel from both a volume perspective (how many accounts move through each stage) and an efficiency lens (conversion rates between stages), you’ll gain valuable insights into how your GTM strategy currently operates.
A comprehensive audit reveals how marketing and sales generate leads, where bottlenecks exist, and which signals correlate most strongly with revenue. This forms the blueprint for optimising your strategy.
Phase 2: The Modern ABX Framework
Modern ABX represents a significant departure from traditional ABM. Whereas ABM was primarily a marketing-led effort focused on customer acquisition, ABX is an organisation-wide approach that aligns marketing, sales, and customer success through data-driven insights.
A modern ABX framework consists of four core components:
- Data Integration
- Merging first-party and third-party data to form a complete view of accounts and buying groups.
- Ensuring data is unified, actionable, and measurable.
- Advanced Targeting
- Moving beyond static account lists to identify ‘marketable audiences’—groups of accounts showing clear engagement signals.
- Combining firmographic, demographic, and intent-based insights to predict buying behaviour.
- Strategic Orchestration
- Coordinating multi-channel engagement across the buyer journey.
- Creating personalised experiences tailored to different personas within buying groups.
- Content Optimisation
- Shifting from mass asset production to agile content workflows that enable scalable personalisation.
- Dynamically assembling content based on audience needs.
At the core of ABX is the concept of ‘marketable audiences’—a fluid set of accounts and contacts that display measurable engagement. Unlike traditional ‘buying signals,’ which can be misleading at an enterprise level, marketable audiences provide a reliable indication of which prospects are most likely to respond.
Phase 3: Implementing Modern ABX
With a solid foundation in place, businesses can move towards execution. Successful implementation of ABX requires operational shifts across marketing and sales. Key steps include:
- Refining Account Planning
- Define your total addressable market.
- Enrich account data with first- and third-party insights.
- Map buying groups and segment accounts effectively.
- Establish a structured account tiering methodology.
- Reimagining Segmentation
- Move beyond basic firmographics and technographics.
- Identify engagement-based propensity signals.
- Use AI and data science to refine segmentation dynamically.
- Enhancing Orchestration
- Implement agile planning, execution, and testing cycles.
- Coordinate marketing and sales efforts seamlessly.
- Ensure multi-threaded engagement across all relevant touchpoints.
- Revolutionising Content Strategy
- Shift from creating one-off assets to a modular approach, where core narratives are adapted dynamically.
- Use AI-driven insights to deliver content in the right format and context.
- Refocusing on Account-Based Metrics
- Move beyond traditional funnel metrics.
- Track account engagement holistically, across multiple personas.
- Measure success in terms of revenue impact and efficiency.
The Future of GTM is Dynamic
ABM isn’t obsolete—it’s evolving. Companies that are excelling today are those embracing a smarter, more sophisticated approach to account-based engagement. By fully leveraging data, technology, and strategic alignment, businesses can transform static targeting exercises into dynamic revenue engines.
The next frontier in B2B marketing is an approach that continually identifies and engages the right accounts, with the right message, at the right time—across the entire customer lifecycle. That’s the power of modern ABX.
Source: https://martech.org/why-modern-abx-is-the-future-of-enterprise-gtm/
