Your B2B Guide to Account-Based Experience: What You Need to Know in a Nutshell

Account-based experience (ABX) is a growing priority for companies that want to engage and convert their audiences. The power of ABX lies in its ability to deliver on the promises of digital transformation — to personalize the customer experience, improve the customer journey, and integrate new ways of working.

However, it’s a term that’s being used interchangeably with account-based marketing (ABM) – another popular buzzword – which can make understanding what it actually means to create an account-based experience a little tricky.

So, what is an account-based experience? How does it differ from ABM? And what are the key considerations when creating an ABX strategy?

Here’s what you need to know.

What Is an Account-Based Experience (ABX)?

Account-based experience is a type of experience designed, delivered, and measured to meet the specific needs and goals of a small group of individuals (aka: an account).  

An account-based experience aims to create a meaningful connection with the account, which can be leveraged to drive incremental business. 

In other words, an ABX is about understanding the needs and preferences of the people in an account and then using that insight to deliver a tailored experience that meets those needs. An ABX is thus a response to the increased demand for individualized experiences and the shift away from mass-produced, one-size-fits-all marketing and sales strategies.

A traditional one-size-fits-all approach generally focuses on the mass-market, mass-produced delivery of content and offers, with little or no personalization, to maximize reach and bring in as many leads as possible.

In contrast, an account-based experience utilizes an account-based marketing approach to tailor the strategy to each individual in the account and present them with offers and experiences that match their needs and preferences. This results in a more human-centric experience that’s more relevant and compelling, encouraging the account to keep coming back for more.

Source: Hushly

What Makes Account-Based Experiences Different from Account-Based Marketing (ABM)?

Account-based marketing and account-based experiences are strategies that companies use to create a deeper connection with their audiences. However, there is a difference between ABM and ABX.

Account-based marketing is a B2B marketing approach that encourages the collaboration between your marketing and sales teams to target accounts best suited to your products and services.

An account-based experience, on the other hand, takes those accounts that have been identified as ideal accounts in need of what you have to offer and creates experiences that are designed to meet the specific needs and preferences of the people in those accounts to encourage them to engage further.

ABX Enhances Your ABM Strategy

An account-based experience is a way of taking account-based marketing to the next level by creating experiences that match the needs and goals of the people in the account. This means that the ABX is designed to enhance the experience delivered to the account and build on the initial connection that’s been made. 

With approximately 70% of marketers reporting that they used ABM in 2021, utilizing an account-based experience is a great way to enhance your account-based marketing strategy and create more meaningful connections with your audiences.

What Does an Example of ABX Look Like?

Now that you understand that ABX enhances your ABM strategy let’s look at an example of an ABX to better understand what this means in practice.

In a recent case study between Hushly and Mindtickle (a sales readiness company), the brand saw a 93% growth, thanks to their ability to deliver an account-based experience to their audience.

According to Lisa Sharapata, VP of Brand & Demand Generation at Mindtickle, while “brand drives demand,” only by providing the best experiences will you drive real growth.

Mindtickle succeeded with ABX by first understanding the stages of its sales cycle and buyer personas. This allowed them to build an ABX designed to present the right offers and experiences at the right times, which was vital in driving the growth that they experienced.

Here’s what that looked like for them:

Source: Hushly

There were able to get to this point by following the subsequent steps:

• Creating dynamic segments
• Pull together intent data and demographic information to create signals that move accounts between stages
• Create dynamic campaign destinations
• Serve up relevant content by stage

By segmenting their audience and ensuring that the content they provided was relevant to the stage in which the accounts were at, Mindtickle created an ABX that was able to reach the people who were at the right place in their sales cycle and who were ready to move forward. This allowed them to present the right offer at the right time, which was key to their overall success.

Aligning Experiences to Your B2B Account’s Journey

You’ve made the decision to utilize an account-based experience to enhance your account-based marketing strategy. Now, the next step is to ensure that your ABX is designed to align with the journey that your account is taking.

To do this, you’re going to need to take some time to understand your audience better so that you can identify the stages of their journey and the experiences that are needed at each stage.

Source: Demandbase

From there, it’s just a matter of creating suitable offers and experiences to serve each of those stages. This can take the form of content, social media promotions, live events, or something else entirely.

Remember, the point of creating an account-based experience is to enhance the experience that’s being delivered to the audience and to build on the initial connection that’s been made. This helps to build strong relationships between you and your accounts and increases the likelihood that the account will be engaged further.

Start Creating Optimized Account-Based Experiences with Hushly

Hushly makes it easy to deliver ABX experiences! We offer several tools and resources to help you build optimized ABX that your audience will never forget.

Whether you’re looking to build a single optimized experience or an entire platform of optimized experiences, Hushly can help. We offer a variety of ways to build and deliver ABX, ranging from simple email tools to account-focused landing pages that can be customized to fit your needs.  

Are you ready to see what creating account-based experiences can do for your brand? Then request your demo today!

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