Harmonizing ABX Strategy through Revenue Operations: A Symphony for B2B SaaS Companies
Revenue operations (revops) are already becoming a key role in how companies can optimize their organizations and have a more dedicated customer-centric business focused on different touch points and sales points. So it only makes sense to combine this customer-led approach with an account-based strategy.
Yet we’ll want to look at how these two work together to hit those revenue growth targets and ensure they are also sustainable. We’ll also work on elaborating the accounts-based strategy into something known as accounts-based experience or everything (i.e ABX).
Taking a Deeper Look into what is an Account-based Strategy
Here we’re taking a look at a go-to-market approach that focuses on accounts on individual bases instead of trying a traditional broad target market. To be successful with this strategy requires a coordinated effort from several different teams.
These teams are, of course, marketing, sales, and customer success, which eventually can roll into their own team known as revenue operations. When working in tandem together, it helps to team up sales and marketing resources and efforts to focus on what the actual needs and pain points are for each specific account.
This works in a B2B strategy because those sales cycles tend to be a lot longer, so taking this go-to-market strategy will allow for a more targeted approach that will have a higher chance of revenue growth and thus hitting those KPI metrics.
Expanding the Strategy into Account-based Everything
Now that we know the focus is on those specific critical revenue-generating accounts, we’re going to enhance this customer journey even further and move on to something known as ABX. This is essential for a go-to-market strategy focusing on the B2B customer journey but incorporating various aspects of marketing, sales, customer success, and data.
It works on the most basic level due to how the experience itself is driven by data and personalization. When marketing and sales methodologies are combined, that means every single interaction with that account (i.e., the company, customer, or prospect) from any of the arms of revops, is curated for their exact need and want.
Why revenue operations are necessary instead of just those three segregated departments?
RevOps helps to unify and collect all the relevant data and insights and shares them across the board. This results in everyone from sales, marketing, and customer success feeling empowered with the right type of data each time. Certainly an ideal environment for all involved.
Beyond the data-driven approach, ABX is about being as engaging as possible with our customers or prospects while having the right amount of precision to know exactly where to target the account; like what to offer and how best to provide that offer, regardless of where it’s coming from in the revenue operations.
At the same time, with this combination of strategies from both inbound marketing and account-based marketing (ABM), it’s always crucial to go back to the data and consistently review it. It’s always important to ensure the system is operating at an optimum.
Understanding the Data
Having the right available data makes revenue operations a critical force in leading the ABX strategy. Yet it’s not just about gathering a spreadsheet of data points linked to accounts and emailing them to every department when needed. It takes a concentrated effort for this type of data to be properly used.
Data Management
The key step is how the data is collected, and that means getting it from every channel and putting it into a centralized location. Marketing may get the right demographical information, sales may include what the customer needs, and customer success may have the feedback data points of what to do better next time and any pain points.
Alignment
Then it’s all about revenue operations taking these data points and aligning them across the board. That way, every single person that’s part of the revenue operations teams will be able to access the exact same data and work with it so they can close those deals through a personalized and data-driven experience.
Metrics
While data is great, and revenue is even better, it’s also important to take all this information and track it to sustainable KPIs. Revenue operations need to be a formidable, data-centric division that works off those figures and continues its success in revenue growth because of having all the right data collection and processing methods.
Revenue Operations at the Helm
Essentially revenue operations can take the concepts of an ABX strategy and tie figures to it. Being able to plan, design and measure the strategy is where revenue operations come in, and it takes an excellent idea into an actionable strategy toward revenue growth. This is why it’s more important than ever that revenue operations should not only be a part of the strategy, but they should be the ones to lead the overall strategy.
Revenue operations are in a unique position to be able to take their existing cooperations and various compelling insights to make the right data-driven decisions every single time. Otherwise, if there isn’t a revenue operations team, and let’s say, for example, the sales team is fully in charge of the ABX strategy, their goals won’t be aligned with the goals of their supporting departments.
Sales, left on their own, will only focus on closing business, and looking for more business, whether it’s new accounts or expanding relationships with existing accounts. Then marketing will have its own metrics and KPIs to focus on, while customer success goes back to being a more tailored customer support division.
It’s when you combine the three into a cohesive unit with the same goals across the board but their own internal functions to hit those goals you see this personalized data-driven approach that is perfect for an accounts-based experience. The customer journey for any potential customer will feel as if they are the most important customer for the business ever because every interaction they have with the business will appear as if they are intimately knowledgeable of the situation of the company and their specific needs.
That’s where the key to it all is.
With B2B leads receiving so much communication and feeling as if they’re just another lead, they tend to start to do their own extensive research and are not so easy to be contacted by potential sales teams. In fact, potential B2B customers will often talk with their counterparts in the industry, and these days those that feel they are more appreciated will tend to push the advocacy portion of the customer journey more.
In the end…
It all starts with taking that more proactive and individual approach, but also having all the necessary information ready for the client or lead as well through the unified data. You’ll find yourself running a much smoother business with a sophisticated revenue operations team that understands each aspect of the customer journey and have a combined KPI and goal. This makes ABX an excellent strategy for such an efficient team to work with.
Don’t let your B2B business lose out on something that, once implemented, will put you ahead of the competitors more than you can imagine. Take the right go-to-market customer-led approach through ABX, with revenue operations at the helm. Your bottom line will thank you.
