I would like, if I may, to take you to a boardroom with a marketing leader… Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
You’ve worked for three quarters to build the inbound leads the board asked for, but now they’re not converting and want to know why. You have three choices: what will you do?
Choice 1: Take your marching orders to heart, tear everything you worked on to pieces, and start from scratch.
Choice 2: Admit defeat and find a new career path. Your Cricut skills could make you a pretty penny on Etsy.
Choice 3: Hide your tears in your 40oz Stanley tumbler and then call up your sales leader to solve what’s really happening in your pipeline.
All jokes aside, choice number three is the best way for your organization to move forward. We see this as a trigger to many successful ABM programs, and if you can relate, this may be a wake-up sign to reconsider your approach and your entire team’s go-to-market strategy.
Here’s what I mean…
The Misleading Paradigm of B2B Success
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: the modern B2B landscape has changed. I won’t go into the undisputed facts (you can find those here), but I will spend some time talking about the juxtaposition of the way B2B buyers are acting vs how traditional performance within a B2B organization is measured.
Leads aren’t what they used to be, and product-led growth will only get you so far in the current B2B climate. But many leaders (and board members) are still operating and evaluating your performance based on these outstanding assumptions of what produces results. When, in fact, what they’re focusing on are vanity KPIs from a bygone era.
It’s easy to create a cycle of failure if you’re not being held to the right expectations. So, I challenge you to challenge authority (Unless that authority is your mother. She probably knows best).
As with any good argument, you need proof to back up your claim, and here’s where you can start.
Get your GTM building blocks lined up.
Sit down with your go-to-market team and consider how the shifts in the buyer’s journey have directly impacted each team’s ability to produce results in terms of revenue (hint: that’s the key).
Here are some things you should ask:
- What do our engagement rates look like for both sales and marketing?
- Are people responding to emails? Phone calls?
- Has the buying committee changed?
- Are leads qualified?
Setting up this discussion will help you understand how your buyers have specifically changed how they buy so that you can address what changes your team needs to make to reach them more effectively.
This will not be a single discussion but will open the floodgates to a wealth of knowledge traditionally siloed in each business unit. Within that knowledge comes the building blocks you need to create a winning strategy.
Remind your players you’re playing for the same team.
Who knew the typical B2B software company is modeled off of Harding and Gillooly’s playbook for the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championship?
Again, I kid, but the sentiment I’m trying to convey is that data continues to validate that sales and marketing teams are increasingly misaligned. That misalignment is self-sabotaging and detracts from the revenue-generating activities that need to happen between both teams to have an impact.
Gartner and other trusted sources have been preaching for years about the impact of sales and marketing alignment. Recent studies show that teams that are aligned are rewarded with an increase in closed-won leads by 67%. Imagine what that would mean for your company (and your job security).
This “friendly” competition between business units is unnecessary and directly impacts your team’s ability to perform at its best.
Regardless of who is responsible for the break in communication between your teams, now’s the time to repair that.
Build your battle plan (& how success should be measured).
Got your building blocks in order? Check.
Got your team on board? Check.
Great, it’s time to assemble your strategy and get leadership buy-in.
I know it’s not simple, but you don’t need to be a small, green humanoid alien to share meaningful knowledge and inspire change. All you need is data and a plan on how to measure it.
Consider the channels your buyers live in and the actions that they’re likely to take at each point of the buyer’s journey. From there, you can map out your game plan and determine what is considered engagement based on each activity. Instead of traditional lead scoring, you’re looking at touchpoints to determine engagement and intent at an account level so that you can be more effective in your sales and marketing efforts.
Here’s a good way of thinking of it… If one persona from an account downloads a piece of generic content but doesn’t take any other action, is that more valuable than 3 different personas from a targeted account browsing your website and showing third-party intent on a topic directly related to your solution?
You can bring this very concept of account engagement to your leadership because, at the end of the day, this specific kind of engagement drives revenue.
Turning Engagement into Revenue
Engagement is a direct result of activity. Within a modern B2B landscape, we must identify opportunities to create as much activity across an account’s buying committee as possible.
Actions speak louder than words, which is true when considering the market we’re selling into today.
At RenderTribe, we’re experts at removing the barriers across teams and shedding light on what areas you need to focus on to create meaningful pipeline movement. From channel selection to choosing the right tech stack to creating the perfect landing page that speaks to your ICP, our team knows how to enhance what you’re already doing.
Interested in learning more? Let’s start a conversation.
