As a marketer, you’ve probably heard the term "Account-Based Marketing" (ABM) thrown around. But what exactly is it, how does it relate to ABX, and why should you care?
If you’re not positive how about how to define ABM vs. ABX don’t worry—you’re not alone.
In this post, we’ll break down ABM and ABX in simple terms, offer basic examples, and highlight the misconceptions popular ABM platforms have given about how and why it works.
You’ll learn how essential it is for your marketing strategy and how easy it can be to implement inside of HubSpot.
Let’s get into it!
What is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?
At its core, ABM is a focused approach to revenue where you tailor your efforts to target specific high-value accounts with personalized outreach rather than casting a wide (read: vague) net.
A Simple Example of ABM
Let’s say you’re a B2B software company with a new product designed for financial institutions.
Here’s how you might apply an ABM strategy:
- Identify Target Accounts: Choose a handful of financial institutions that align with your ideal customer profile. In ABM, it isn’t just “banks.” You’d be narrowing that down significantly to perhaps those with a certain minimum amount of assets under management with a lean treasury operations department (bottom headcount quartile for the industry), who have seen a meaningful increase in retail branches opened in the last 12 months.
- Personalize Your Outreach: Create tailored content, such as white papers or case studies, that address the specific challenges these institutions face. Importantly, because the target account list is well defined, you can create more useful, impactful content for your prospects. A big element of ABM is getting small enough to ensure that you can execute really well holistically for the target accounts list.
- Engage Multiple Stakeholders: Instead of focusing on just one decision-maker, your marketing and sales teams work together to engage various key stakeholders within each target account. This could include thought leadership content across LinkedIn, cold outbound email sequences, paid ads to increase awareness, field events, and SDRs hitting the phones. The point is that there’s a story and assets for each stakeholder with excellent alignment in building interest across both marketing and sales activities.
- Track and Measure Success: Use your marketing tools to monitor how these targeted accounts interact with your content and adjust your strategy as needed.
Why Consider ABM?
Sounds good, but why should you consider shifting to an ABM approach?
Check out these benefits:
- Higher ROI: Because ABM is so targeted, it often yields higher returns compared to more traditional, broad-based marketing efforts. In 2024, Salesforce found that 73% of customers of all kinds expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. This is the core value proposition of ABM, and according to the same report most organizations are spending 15% of their marketing budget on ABM. Yes, this is a Salesforce stat. Yes, it’s good. But, importantly, the Salesforce ecosystem has had a lot more time to work on ABX programs than HubSpot users have. We need to look everywhere for inspiration.
- Better Alignment Between Sales and Marketing: ABM encourages close collaboration between sales and marketing teams, ensuring that everyone is focused on the same high-value accounts. LinkedIn has found that 82% of B2B marketers feel ABM greatly improves and forces alignment between sales and marketing teams at their company.
- Improved Customer Relationships: By personalizing your approach, you’re more likely to build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with key clients. This means your churn rate drops and net dollar retention goes up. Alterra found that 84% of marketers found that ABM was a huge benefit in retention and expansion of existing customer relationships.
Going Beyond ABM to ABX
ABX is really just a natural evolution of ABM (and, perhaps, just a new acronym for a strategy we already know).
What’s evolved in the consensus thinking about ABM is that ABX goes beyond just the top of funnel activities that have traditionally been dominated by advertising to encompass an entire funnel strategy through personalized and relevant interactions.
And while some vendors may have led you to believe ABM = Ad targeting, that was NEVER what ABM was about.
It’s about alignment across the entire funnel which is why I think ABX is starting to take root. It more clearly communicates that the strategy is about aligning sales and marketing rather than being a marketing-specific strategy.
We believe fundamentally in personalization at every stage of the customer experience. It requires using multiple touchpoints across various stages.
The good news: That doesn’t have to cost thousands monthly.
I’ll say it again: the definition of ABM/ABX is not what vendors have told you it is. A lot of the ABM providers you’re probably familiar with offer value, yes. But it does not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to run a killer ABM/AMX strategy.
What does it take? An acknowledgment that ABM is no longer just an advertising strategy. It’s an embrace of an ABX FOR ALL mindset.
Let’s talk about how we put that into practice.
“How Do I Put ABX Into Practice?”
If ABX sounds like something that could benefit your marketing efforts, there’s a lot more to explore.
Plus, you don’t need expensive tools or a large team to get started. In fact, HubSpot is an excellent platform for deploying ABM strategies without breaking the bank.
Watch my session with the Boston HubSpot User Group to learn how to put it all into practice:
Here are the resources I covered during the session:
- AI Studio for HubSpot
- Air Traffic Control for HubSpot
- ICP Tools for HubSpot: Clay and Keyplay
- Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with ABM in HubSpot
- ABM Account Planning Template
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to chat more!
