I'm Thinking Of... Account-Based Experience and Beyond With Jon Miller

In this episode of “I’m Thinking Of…,” I sat down with Jon Miller, CMO and CPO at Demandbase, to discuss why it’s crucial for companies to apply Account-Based Experience (ABX) to their growth strategies.

The fatal flaw of traditional ABM

Traditional account-based marketing (ABM) has undoubtedly been the most effective strategy B2B companies have relied on in recent years. But there is and has always been a fatal flaw in the approach, which Demandbase CMO and CPO Jon Miller likens to fishing with spears.

“You go identify those big fish you want to go after, and then you go after them, regardless of whether they’re interested in talking to you or not,” he points out during our conversation in this episode of I’m Thinking of. “Put simply, it doesn’t feel good to get poked by a spear.”

Customer-centricity with ABX

To make account-based programs more customer-centric, there’s an art to aligning how you treat accounts (e.g. your go-to-market) to where each account is in its unique buying journey. That’s the core concept of Account-Based Experience, or ABX.

So how do you implement an ABX strategy?

The five processes include:

• Build: This is where you collect the first-party data about your accounts. You can augment that with third-party data (like technographics and intent data) provided by Demandbase.
• Find: Here, you identify the styles of ABM for your business. You find out which accounts to prioritize; then you can group them into the right tiers (one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many).
• Engage: During this process, you personalize your interactions with the accounts, whether they consist of emails, calls, and any other form of text or verbal exchange.
• Close: For a successful close, it’s key to ensure your Marketing and Sales teams are perfectly aligned with their data and interactions.
• Measure: This process in ABX measures an account-based set of metrics, not a lead-based set of metrics. As such, you measure engagement with the right people at the right accounts and how that drives the outcomes that you want.

On tiering, engageability, and establishing relationships

For instance, during the Find process, our conversation centered around the tiers in which they should be grouped according to their anticipated level of engagement. In this section, Jon not only goes into detail about how to split the groups in terms of their worth to decide whether they should fall under a one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many style, but he does so by emphasizing the research conducted by the ITSMA, which he leveraged when putting together the Clear & Complete Guide to Account-Based Experience (ABX).

Another reason why this particular conversation with our CMO was so impactful: He directly addressed the reality of ABX as the “best growth strategy available,” with key benefits like engageability and relationship, which are remarkably difficult to establish and attain with other long-standing traditional strategies that don’t have that holistic approach around the experience.

Still hesitant? Do stand-ups (in the best meaning of the word)

For companies or executives that may be hesitant to get started with ABX, Jon suggests implementing ABX stand-ups. “Get a recurring meeting going between your Marketing team, your SDRs, if you have them, and your Sales team just to talk about the accounts that rep has. What’s going on? What are we going to do to engage them?”

This transition from traditional ABM to ABX takes time, but getting everyone on board is mostly about understanding the strategy. Watch the full interview (and share with those you are trying to get on the road to ABX with you) to help you find the right path towards ABX for your company, and drive accelerated growth.

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