Complex buying committees have escalated the need for sophisticated ABM frameworks. Here, ABX steps into the limelight as a much-needed reiteration of ABM.
We’ve all had negative customer experiences. Even with AI becoming a forerunner in customer services, there have been cycles of frustration where we’ve been placed on long waitlists or been given the same cold answer by an AI chatbot.
Even with this persisting (and taxing) problem, companies continue to claim exceptional customer service. It’s an exhaustingly long cycle of frustration for customers whose time the entire process feeds into. In 2025, one bad interaction, and one out of three of your customers will walk away- towards your competitors.
It’s because businesses have emphasized touchpoints- key moments where prospects interact with the brand and its offerings before and after a purchase.
But marketers’ constricted focus on elevating satisfaction at only these moments distorts the whole picture. It suggests that buyers are happy with the business more than they actually are. Because the fundamental cavity remains prevalent, i.e., the actual, more significant picture is easily discarded: the end-to-end buyer journey.
Reaching accounts isn’t enough anymore. B2B buyers don’t just evaluate your solutions and then make a purchase. They assess how your brands deliver on each touchpoint, from the initial touchpoints to retention and beyond.
You can reach the target accounts through precision-targeting, i.e., a well-planned ABM approach. But that’s not enough in today’s relational marketing landscape. Orchestrating experiences has become the real differentiator for brands-
This is where adopting Account-Based Experience (ABX) marketing becomes imperative.
What is ABX marketing?
Tackling buyer disconnect demands a CX design that makes your target accounts feel valued and understood. But not just one that focuses on the key moments, but each moment of a prospect’s progression through the funnel.
An integrated ABX approach amalgamates everything, from marketing and sales to customer success and retention. It’s not just a full-funnel focus, but a deep dive: customer experience across each touchpoint, all under a single umbrella.
Here’s the observable truth.
Even though businesses are leveraging ABM approaches correctly, accounts disengage halfway or slip through the cracks. Because one concern has been put to the back burner- what about the customer moments in between, when they are done interacting with your social media posts or your website?
This is where a shift becomes imperative.
Why shift from ABM to ABX?
Brands fundamentally prioritize siloed functions- it’s either a sales or a marketing campaign to deliver value to target accounts. Even ABM programs have been oversimplified to just stress creating content across diverse formats.
But time-crunched decision-makers refuse to sign up for more content.
Why? Because it’s become downright annoying.
B2B buyers are suffocating from the same messages that congest their inboxes. Marketers chant the ‘we offer better content, content that actually delivers value and instills uniqueness’ prayer to end up developing the same know-how guides as everyone else. What’s missing is becoming a persistent conundrum- insightful opinions and a different perspective.
This is why prospects deny signing up for new content and refuse to share information. Privacy also plays a significant role here. Being pestered over emails or calls is not a great experience if there’s no previous relationship built.
This is why ABX is a notch up from ABM.
The prospecting was done with precision, and the account is engaged. But often it’s the experience after that that feels like the end goal is a transaction. A majority of marketing campaigns end up too surface-level. Like, the only purpose here is outreach.
The result?
Your campaigns attract high-quality accounts but don’t deepen relationships. Sales teams can notice traction and funnel entry, but it stalls. You don’t lose opportunities but fail to convert them into brand advocates.
Truthfully, both parties in B2B are aware of this. But your buyers don’t want to feel this way. This is what calls for pivoting towards ABX.
ABX vs ABM: How are they distinct?
While ABX sounds like a new marketing buzzword, it’s actually a strategic development in ABM. Or instead, an evolution.
ABX isn’t hooked on inbound strategies.
It begins with creating messages that target different shareholders. The messages include relevant keywords and address context that each of the shareholders can relate to. You offer information that will prove helpful to each shareholder.
So, when it comes around to sending these accounts emails or inMails or making calls, it doesn’t seem out of nowhere. The message is targeted and genuinely of value. Technically, isn’t this also what ABM programs do? Targeted messaging and the related shenanigans?
Yes, but ABM campaigns comprise marketing and sales processes, targeting high-value accounts based on whether they’re the right fit. ABX is a step further- a higher level of strategic ABM.
It takes a holistic approach that focuses on orchestrating experience for an account, organization-wide. This model integrates multiple teams and is business-led. Instead of prioritizing who exactly you’re reaching, ABX helps curate ‘how’ they’re experiencing your brand.
This is where the difference between ABX and ABM matters.
ABM focuses on different tiers of personalization- from one-to-many to one-to-one interactions with high-value accounts. It’s all about lead conversion and hyper-targeted acquisition. But account-based experience keeps customers at the nucleus of it all. It boils down to cohesive experiences.
Orchestrate meaningful experiences with the right ABX strategy.
In an increasingly crowded market where everyone follows the same rules, it results in a tie. If everyone leverages the same ABM playbook, no one ends up becoming unique.
But that doesn’t mean you end up abandoning ABM altogether. You level it up to an ABX strategy, one that’s intentional, customized, and measurable. One that aligns with accounts across different funnel stages.
Marketing at the helm, and not a supporting act.
Marketing shouldn’t be entirely relying on sales to hand over a list they would love to sell to. There can be communication as to what would be regarded as high-value accounts, but marketing has to dig deeper.
With the level of 360-degree experiences that ABX promises to offer, research backed with facts, not just feelings, is necessary. Significantly, to develop a list of high-value accounts, your ABM strategy will be delivered to.
The point is that your ICP cannot be each prospect that can buy your solutions. So, start by asking the right questions:
- Does your team hold intricate data points to substantiate that the account fits your ICP and passes all your qualifying frameworks?
- Do these accounts entail the propensity to buy?
- Has the brand done anything similar to this before?
- Do they have any pain points? If so, does it need to be solved, or has it already been solved?
Marketing-sales alignment = Streamlined comms.
After grasping which accounts to target, it’s time to underscore which stakeholders to reach within that buying committee. But these accounts should be deserving of one-on-one engagement. This will also help highlight how to develop resonating messages and which channels to leverage.
And then it’s time to hand over the play to sales. So, it can follow up on the account.
Then, finally, it all boils down to conducting a SWOT analysis. This way, you gauge the gaps, lags, timings, market pivots, any new initiatives, or strategy changes. You can listen to the podcasts the shareholders are a part of, what they’ve been posting, and skim the latest company reports.
It’ll help you orchestrate an experience- a talk track that extends from the first conversation to the follow-up emails.
Strategic shift in organization-wide mindset.
A truly effective ABX strategy demands alignment between all customer-facing departments- from product development and marketing to sales and customer success. But this can only happen when all of them are on the same page.
They must share the same broader goals, i.e., their individual objectives must tie to the final objectives. And coordinate efforts to offer a more cohesive journey as an account moves down the funnel.
Adopting a full-fledged ABX strategy isn’t a piece of cake. Integrating it across your other business functions will take a lot of tweaking and (maybe) a cultural shift. Because it demands that your teams and leadership think differently, whether it’s success metrics or content delivery.
The thing is, you’re making a big leap. It’s redefining marketing-sales handoffs or taking up signal-based activation- the timing must be correct. And it should all be consistent to provide the ultimate cohesive experience.
Coordinated engagement points: content’s space across ABX.
The purpose of content creation transforms with ABX.
In other terms, this approach places content right at the crux of the customer journey. Because it ties insight with action, and becomes a versatile channel to deliver meaningful interactions across the entire lifecycle.
But B2B marketers should stop perceiving content creation as merely creating a bunch of fluff. Copy-pasting the same noise is taking away value from the blogs, videos, and ads that are developed. And it ends up stripping them down to what they truly are- empty words.
Relationship and experience must be infused at the molecular levels of your ABX content strategy. Your content should build experiences that expand across diverse roles and journey stages- content for each touchpoint, not the most meaningful ones.
And take a more intelligent approach to it. Don’t sit down to create content pieces from scratch. You can strategically repurpose what exists and also tap into content atomization. An eBook can be converted into a series of blogs, while a blog can be a social media video.
To create further impact? Layer a variety of formats and personalize.
Additional factors for your ABX success-
Implementing a whole new program is challenging. But your shareholders need to be coordinated in their mindset and the decisions they make from here on. They cannot jump into ROI-justification and tangible metrics if they wish to derive long-term growth from ABX marketing.
Two significant facets they should give heed to:
- Give ABX time. Don’t pull the plugs on it just yet, and let it simmer a bit.
- Ensure you have the right space for its execution. Whether it’s the skill set, martech stack, or frameworks, you should possess the required assets to take this program further. Especially for lead-to-account matching, account-level scoring, and buying group identification and qualification.
The secret sauce to effective ABX is working together. That’s the secret to all marketing and sales campaigns to thrive. It all boils down to coordination across your data, your teams, and organization-wide vision.
Synchronized interactions are the nub of orchestrating a successful ABX strategy.
A chunk of professionals have declared the traditional tactics dead, all at their own convenience. From cold calling to MQLs, the lingo has been discarded and replaced with something new.
At first glance, ABX seems like a sophisticated replacement for ABM. But ABM isn’t dead at all, and neither is it being replaced. It’s just undergoing an evolution to keep pace with the rapidly transforming market.
ABX is quickly becoming imperative for the digital-first marketing landscape. But there’s still a great deal of work left to do. It’s only now that businesses have understood how to do ABM, what’s this new move being thrown their way?
If adopted at the incorrect time, ABX could dissolve amidst the noise and end up as another trend or a hype that dies down. What it needs is space to flourish- and only the realization that personalization isn’t just a byproduct but imperative to customer engagement can change this stance.
ABM is still a need. It’s just that marketers need a piece of mind to grasp that ABX is as paramount to help businesses revamp how they manage their most valuable accounts.
And build an ABX strategy framework that transforms a single interaction into an advocate.
