11 steps I'd take as CMO if I joined a B2B company selling high ACV (5-6 figures) products in the first 90 days.
1. Alignment with execs and sales on:
- Targets (and analyzing the data to see if these targets are realistic)
- Challenges we are currently facing in achieving these goals
- Marketing role in the organization & expectations
- Metrics to measure marketing efficiency
2. Revenue analysis to figure out:
- What geo markets generate the highest revenue, where is the highest ACV, win rate, and where is the sales cycle shorter
- The same analysis for market segments
- Defining key clients in these segments
3. Running in-depth interviews with the selected clients to figure out:
- What's the value they are getting from our product, and how do they see it's different from the competition?
- What triggered their buying process?
- How they were searching for our product, and who was involved in the decision-making process?
- What channels do they use?
- What questions and concerns do they have when evaluating different vendors?
And other questions to understand better the buying process.
4. Sit down with sales and discuss:
- Challenges and bottlenecks they are currently facing in the prospecting and sales processes,
- What kind of help do they expect from marketing
- Defining the days for the regular pipeline review
- Analyzing recent won and lost deals
5. Sit down with my marketing team to:
- Challenges and bottlenecks they are currently facing in awareness, demand gen, and demand capturing campaigns
- What kind of help do they need from sales
- Auditing recent marketing campaigns and figuring out the setup of successful campaigns
- Figuring out the reasons for failed campaigns
- Evaluating skillset and career expectations
- Auditing current marketing processes and figuring out areas for improvement
6. Auditing current GTM and demand gen strategy with my marketing team:
- Aligning marketing activities with the buying journey to influence the full funnel with existing resources and skillset
- Highlighting the weakest full funnel stage
7. Creating a quarter marketing plan.
- Pilot, small-scoped campaigns with a detailed playbook
- Clear goals and objectives
- Leading indicators to measure campaign progress
- Tying leading indicators to revenue
- Defining a minimal tech stack for pilot campaigns
8. Presenting takeaways and learnings to sales and execs. Running marketing and sales alignment session on:
- Market segments to focus on
- ICP including account qualification criteria
- Value proposition hypotheses and amplifiers
9. Running risk mitigation workshop with sales to figure out:
- Benefits they see from launching the campaigns
- Risks and concerns
- Run together risk mitigation ideas for the biggest concerns
10. Update the marketing plan with feedback:
- Update playbook and timeline
- Set up clear tasks and onboard everybody who is involved
- Set up tracking dashboard and stack
11. Launch the plan.
1. Alignment with execs and sales on:
- Targets (and analyzing the data to see if these targets are realistic)
- Challenges we are currently facing in achieving these goals
- Marketing role in the organization & expectations
- Metrics to measure marketing efficiency
2. Revenue analysis to figure out:
- What geo markets generate the highest revenue, where is the highest ACV, win rate, and where is the sales cycle shorter
- The same analysis for market segments
- Defining key clients in these segments
3. Running in-depth interviews with the selected clients to figure out:
- What's the value they are getting from our product, and how do they see it's different from the competition?
- What triggered their buying process?
- How they were searching for our product, and who was involved in the decision-making process?
- What channels do they use?
- What questions and concerns do they have when evaluating different vendors?
And other questions to understand better the buying process.
4. Sit down with sales and discuss:
- Challenges and bottlenecks they are currently facing in the prospecting and sales processes,
- What kind of help do they expect from marketing
- Defining the days for the regular pipeline review
- Analyzing recent won and lost deals
5. Sit down with my marketing team to:
- Challenges and bottlenecks they are currently facing in awareness, demand gen, and demand capturing campaigns
- What kind of help do they need from sales
- Auditing recent marketing campaigns and figuring out the setup of successful campaigns
- Figuring out the reasons for failed campaigns
- Evaluating skillset and career expectations
- Auditing current marketing processes and figuring out areas for improvement
6. Auditing current GTM and demand gen strategy with my marketing team:
- Aligning marketing activities with the buying journey to influence the full funnel with existing resources and skillset
- Highlighting the weakest full funnel stage
7. Creating a quarter marketing plan.
- Pilot, small-scoped campaigns with a detailed playbook
- Clear goals and objectives
- Leading indicators to measure campaign progress
- Tying leading indicators to revenue
- Defining a minimal tech stack for pilot campaigns
8. Presenting takeaways and learnings to sales and execs. Running marketing and sales alignment session on:
- Market segments to focus on
- ICP including account qualification criteria
- Value proposition hypotheses and amplifiers
9. Running risk mitigation workshop with sales to figure out:
- Benefits they see from launching the campaigns
- Risks and concerns
- Run together risk mitigation ideas for the biggest concerns
10. Update the marketing plan with feedback:
- Update playbook and timeline
- Set up clear tasks and onboard everybody who is involved
- Set up tracking dashboard and stack
11. Launch the plan.
๐2
I've analyzed all won and lost deals of Fullfunnel.io in the 1st half of 2022.
Here are 15 takeaways.
1. 91% of clients mentioned they have heard about us from LinkedIn.
2. Most of them say they saw our content in the newsfeed because somebody from their network engaged with it.
3. Absolutely all clients attended at least one of our webinars.
4. At least one person from our clients' team reads our weekly Full-Funnel Insider Newsletter.
5. Before winning deals with Tier 1 accounts, we engaged with at least 3 buying committee members on LinkedIn.
6. Our detailed case studies had the biggest impact on their decision to choose Fullfunnel.io as a vendor.
7. 85% of clients had at least one person in our Trenches - B2B marketing community.
8. Personalized non-sales touches (like asking about feedback or inviting them to the webinars) helped to stay on top of their minds and remind them about us in an unobtrusive way.
9. Timely outreach after noticing they had passed through our target engagement threshold on the website or content hub helped to accelerate the sales cycle with every second client.
10. Our LinkedIn content, case studies, and webinars were shared a couple of times on the team Slack channel or Teams, which created awareness among the entire buying committee.
11. Clients with the highest ACV were generated via our cohesive demand gen and ABM programs.
12. All inbound opportunities that came directly from the search were a bad fit, so we needed to disqualify them. This leads me again to the conclusion I made years ago:
People buy from people they know, like, and trust. Connections on LinkedIn were crucial for our success.
13. In 2022, we had around 30% of all inbound opportunities from referrals (though, not all of them were a good fit) and 2 from guest posts. One of our best clients came by recommendation from a well-known B2B marketing thought leader.
These stats again prove why you'd build relationships not only with ICPs, but also with industry thought leaders, peers, communities, and industry media.
14. Diversified demand gen strategy (our content is focused not only on B2B marketers but also sales and execs) helped to create awareness and accelerate sales cycle.
Some opportunities were generated via communication with the CRO or head of sales, who introduced us to the marketing team.
15. Whether you want it or not, the buying process has changed.
To create awareness, and generate demand and sales opportunities, you need to do account-based demand generation.
The earlier you'll jump into that wagon, the faster you see the impact on sales pipeline and revenue.
Here are 15 takeaways.
1. 91% of clients mentioned they have heard about us from LinkedIn.
2. Most of them say they saw our content in the newsfeed because somebody from their network engaged with it.
3. Absolutely all clients attended at least one of our webinars.
4. At least one person from our clients' team reads our weekly Full-Funnel Insider Newsletter.
5. Before winning deals with Tier 1 accounts, we engaged with at least 3 buying committee members on LinkedIn.
6. Our detailed case studies had the biggest impact on their decision to choose Fullfunnel.io as a vendor.
7. 85% of clients had at least one person in our Trenches - B2B marketing community.
8. Personalized non-sales touches (like asking about feedback or inviting them to the webinars) helped to stay on top of their minds and remind them about us in an unobtrusive way.
9. Timely outreach after noticing they had passed through our target engagement threshold on the website or content hub helped to accelerate the sales cycle with every second client.
10. Our LinkedIn content, case studies, and webinars were shared a couple of times on the team Slack channel or Teams, which created awareness among the entire buying committee.
11. Clients with the highest ACV were generated via our cohesive demand gen and ABM programs.
12. All inbound opportunities that came directly from the search were a bad fit, so we needed to disqualify them. This leads me again to the conclusion I made years ago:
People buy from people they know, like, and trust. Connections on LinkedIn were crucial for our success.
13. In 2022, we had around 30% of all inbound opportunities from referrals (though, not all of them were a good fit) and 2 from guest posts. One of our best clients came by recommendation from a well-known B2B marketing thought leader.
These stats again prove why you'd build relationships not only with ICPs, but also with industry thought leaders, peers, communities, and industry media.
14. Diversified demand gen strategy (our content is focused not only on B2B marketers but also sales and execs) helped to create awareness and accelerate sales cycle.
Some opportunities were generated via communication with the CRO or head of sales, who introduced us to the marketing team.
15. Whether you want it or not, the buying process has changed.
To create awareness, and generate demand and sales opportunities, you need to do account-based demand generation.
The earlier you'll jump into that wagon, the faster you see the impact on sales pipeline and revenue.
โค2
If you have colleagues/peers on Telegram who are interested in ABM, please, share our channel with them. Thanks in advance.
One of the UNOBVIOUS reasons why even skilled B2B marketing teams underperform is running too many campaigns in parallel and being in charge of multiple tasks.
Here is how to run B2B marketing experiments.
1. Arrange a marketing team meeting and ask everybody to write down the goals they believe the marketing team should focus on and achieve.
It's really important to involve everybody, so people feel their opinion matters, and they are heard.
We love to use Miro software because of the ease of visual collaboration.
Allow everybody to go through the goals their colleagues submitted and give them 3 scores to vote for the goals they believe have the highest priority.
2. Select the 3 most voted goals and add them to the new dashboard.
3. Do the same exercise but for challenges and bottlenecks. Everybody should share the challenges they are currently facing or foresee they can face when working on goals.
4. Write down all the campaigns they are involved in and the new initiatives they want to launch.
Give everybody enough time to go through everything that had been shared.
5. Score each of the campaigns by how you feel they are helping to achieve the top-voted goals or fix the top-voted bottlenecks.
6. One by one, review the campaigns with the highest score and turn them into projects.
Define a project owner, lean project team, and their responsibilities in regard to this campaign. Write down an estimate of % of the time each of the project team members should spend on maintaining the campaign.
Top performing campaigns that your team currently runs should have a lean team that spends 70%-80 of their time. For the rest of the time, they can be involved in the new initiatives but with a small scope of responsibility.
For the new initiatives, the process should be slightly different.
a) Define a project owner and lean team (max 3 people). Project owner should spend at least 60%-70% of their time on the new initiative, otherwise, it won't fly.
You can't expect your muscles to grow, or to lose weight if you go 2-3 times to the gym per month.
Marketing is no different.
b) Set up a campaign timeline of 6-9 weeks to launch and get quick market feedback.
c) Define leading indicators and positive signals that can tell you the campaign is working and should be maintained.
Once you'll see your team is fully involved, stop prioritization and save all the campaigns that were not reviewed into the idea bank until the next team meeting.
This way you'll avoid multitasking, avoid dependencies and make sure your team is working on campaigns that help to achieve goals and fix existing bottlenecks.
At the same time, you give enough space to launch and validate different ideas and campaigns, dedicate enough time to make them work, and don't shut them off too early because of focusing on leading indicators.
Here is how to run B2B marketing experiments.
1. Arrange a marketing team meeting and ask everybody to write down the goals they believe the marketing team should focus on and achieve.
It's really important to involve everybody, so people feel their opinion matters, and they are heard.
We love to use Miro software because of the ease of visual collaboration.
Allow everybody to go through the goals their colleagues submitted and give them 3 scores to vote for the goals they believe have the highest priority.
2. Select the 3 most voted goals and add them to the new dashboard.
3. Do the same exercise but for challenges and bottlenecks. Everybody should share the challenges they are currently facing or foresee they can face when working on goals.
4. Write down all the campaigns they are involved in and the new initiatives they want to launch.
Give everybody enough time to go through everything that had been shared.
5. Score each of the campaigns by how you feel they are helping to achieve the top-voted goals or fix the top-voted bottlenecks.
6. One by one, review the campaigns with the highest score and turn them into projects.
Define a project owner, lean project team, and their responsibilities in regard to this campaign. Write down an estimate of % of the time each of the project team members should spend on maintaining the campaign.
Top performing campaigns that your team currently runs should have a lean team that spends 70%-80 of their time. For the rest of the time, they can be involved in the new initiatives but with a small scope of responsibility.
For the new initiatives, the process should be slightly different.
a) Define a project owner and lean team (max 3 people). Project owner should spend at least 60%-70% of their time on the new initiative, otherwise, it won't fly.
You can't expect your muscles to grow, or to lose weight if you go 2-3 times to the gym per month.
Marketing is no different.
b) Set up a campaign timeline of 6-9 weeks to launch and get quick market feedback.
c) Define leading indicators and positive signals that can tell you the campaign is working and should be maintained.
Once you'll see your team is fully involved, stop prioritization and save all the campaigns that were not reviewed into the idea bank until the next team meeting.
This way you'll avoid multitasking, avoid dependencies and make sure your team is working on campaigns that help to achieve goals and fix existing bottlenecks.
At the same time, you give enough space to launch and validate different ideas and campaigns, dedicate enough time to make them work, and don't shut them off too early because of focusing on leading indicators.
Here is why B2B companies with long sales cycle measure marketing like B2C
(but you should NOT).
Lots of B2B companies are obsessed with scaling and growth, so they want to find several scalable channels, put more dollars in and enjoy revenue.
Unfortunately, the B2B buying process is not linear.
In most cases, buyers use a lot of different channels (lots of them are untraceable like "asking a vendor recommendation in the community") for research and evaluation.
Quite often, the first touch that attracts their attention is your content that is coming through social, recommendation, or organic search.
After the first touch, you'll need to have much more touches to generate demand that could have happened across multiple channels and platforms.
While in B2C you can capture the existing demand and figure out the channels with the highest ROI.
If you follow B2C marketing measurement, you'll focus on the last touch (rarely, on the first) and will make wrong decisions about what works and what doesn't.
Example.
Google Analytics shows that our last inbound opportunity came from a search, while the truth is that one of the buying committee members was engaging with me and Vladimir on LinkedIn, and when wanted to book a call, just searched for our brand name.
B2C decision: invest more in search.
B2B decision:
Self-attribution (How did you hear about us?) + Channels that were identified in the digital analytics + Customer interview (asking customers how they identified us, what channels they used, etc).
B2B marketing measurement is two-sided.
Campaign measurement.
Different campaigns have different goals (create awareness, generate demand, capture demand, accelerate the sales cycle, expand, etc.) and should have their own metrics that are closely tied to revenue.
This measurement helps to see what campaigns are performing well or should be improved.
Example target for awareness campaigns:
# of target accounts that visited the website/read article/engaged with social media updates.
At the same time, you need to have an integrated marketing report.
This report starts from engaged accounts (or MQLs) sourced by the demand gen program and goes down to revenue.
It shows:
- marketing-sourced pipeline
- marketing-sourced revenue
- impact of marketing on sales pipeline velocity and revenue metrics like ACV, sales cycle length and win rate.
-------
Don't try to hack the B2B buying process.
Marketing success comes from stacking full-funnel campaigns including awareness, demand generation, demand capturing, deal acceleration, and expansion on the channels your buyers use to:
- Get professional information
- Research products and vendors
- Get recommendations or advice
Set up correct leading indicators to measure the performance of the different campaigns and integrated marketing report to evaluate the entire marketing performance.
(but you should NOT).
Lots of B2B companies are obsessed with scaling and growth, so they want to find several scalable channels, put more dollars in and enjoy revenue.
Unfortunately, the B2B buying process is not linear.
In most cases, buyers use a lot of different channels (lots of them are untraceable like "asking a vendor recommendation in the community") for research and evaluation.
Quite often, the first touch that attracts their attention is your content that is coming through social, recommendation, or organic search.
After the first touch, you'll need to have much more touches to generate demand that could have happened across multiple channels and platforms.
While in B2C you can capture the existing demand and figure out the channels with the highest ROI.
If you follow B2C marketing measurement, you'll focus on the last touch (rarely, on the first) and will make wrong decisions about what works and what doesn't.
Example.
Google Analytics shows that our last inbound opportunity came from a search, while the truth is that one of the buying committee members was engaging with me and Vladimir on LinkedIn, and when wanted to book a call, just searched for our brand name.
B2C decision: invest more in search.
B2B decision:
Self-attribution (How did you hear about us?) + Channels that were identified in the digital analytics + Customer interview (asking customers how they identified us, what channels they used, etc).
B2B marketing measurement is two-sided.
Campaign measurement.
Different campaigns have different goals (create awareness, generate demand, capture demand, accelerate the sales cycle, expand, etc.) and should have their own metrics that are closely tied to revenue.
This measurement helps to see what campaigns are performing well or should be improved.
Example target for awareness campaigns:
# of target accounts that visited the website/read article/engaged with social media updates.
At the same time, you need to have an integrated marketing report.
This report starts from engaged accounts (or MQLs) sourced by the demand gen program and goes down to revenue.
It shows:
- marketing-sourced pipeline
- marketing-sourced revenue
- impact of marketing on sales pipeline velocity and revenue metrics like ACV, sales cycle length and win rate.
-------
Don't try to hack the B2B buying process.
Marketing success comes from stacking full-funnel campaigns including awareness, demand generation, demand capturing, deal acceleration, and expansion on the channels your buyers use to:
- Get professional information
- Research products and vendors
- Get recommendations or advice
Set up correct leading indicators to measure the performance of the different campaigns and integrated marketing report to evaluate the entire marketing performance.
OIN US AT ABM DAYS IN BOSTON, MA ON 30TH AUG.
Join Fullfunnel.io (Vladimir Blagojeviฤ ), Goldcast (Belinda Joseph) and Alyce (Nick Bennett) in-person for a one of a kind hybrid ABM DAYS event experience in Boston's trendy Seaport neighborhood.
Get all of your B2B marketing questions answered, gather insights to accelerate your career and business, and create new connections.
Can't make it to Boston? We will also be streaming the content virtually via the Goldcast platform.
AGENDA
Vladimir Blagojevic: From 0 to ABM: how to start, operationalize and scale ABM to go upmarket and generate enterprise clients
Nick Bennett: How to leverage thought leadership and personal brand to source ABM programs with target accounts
Belinda Joseph: How to drive pipeline with virtual events
***SEATS ARE LIMITED***
The event is free to attend, but the seats are limited to 100 people. Snacks & beverages are included.
***ONLINE STREAM***
Can't make it to Boston? We will also be streaming the content virtually via the Goldcast platform. https://goldcastevents.registration.goldcast.io/events/6242b1a7-1747-4e5a-8813-bfa67f78edfa
Join Fullfunnel.io (Vladimir Blagojeviฤ ), Goldcast (Belinda Joseph) and Alyce (Nick Bennett) in-person for a one of a kind hybrid ABM DAYS event experience in Boston's trendy Seaport neighborhood.
Get all of your B2B marketing questions answered, gather insights to accelerate your career and business, and create new connections.
Can't make it to Boston? We will also be streaming the content virtually via the Goldcast platform.
AGENDA
Vladimir Blagojevic: From 0 to ABM: how to start, operationalize and scale ABM to go upmarket and generate enterprise clients
Nick Bennett: How to leverage thought leadership and personal brand to source ABM programs with target accounts
Belinda Joseph: How to drive pipeline with virtual events
***SEATS ARE LIMITED***
The event is free to attend, but the seats are limited to 100 people. Snacks & beverages are included.
***ONLINE STREAM***
Can't make it to Boston? We will also be streaming the content virtually via the Goldcast platform. https://goldcastevents.registration.goldcast.io/events/6242b1a7-1747-4e5a-8813-bfa67f78edfa
goldcastevents.registration.goldcast.io
ABM Days in Boston
Join Fullfunnel.io, Goldcast and Alyce in-person for a one of a kind hybrid event experience in Boston's trendy Seaport neighborhood.
Join our expert speakers for a chance to get all of your B2B marketing questions answered, gather insights to accelerateโฆ
Join our expert speakers for a chance to get all of your B2B marketing questions answered, gather insights to accelerateโฆ
Most B2B companies treat lead gen as an offensive tactic, not defensive, and make a huge mistake. Here is why.
Running direct ads, promoting gated content and webinars -> are the tactics they assume can generate almost immediate sales.
While actual marketing is a long-term initiative.
We live in a quick-wins era.
B2B companies are impatient and want the results NOW.
Lots of them have pressure from the investors or are led by CEOs/CROs that don't have a marketing background and assume that marketing is actually all about awaring customers that their product exists.
Even if different marketing initiatives make sense to them, these ideas are shut down just because:
- it takes time to launch and get results
- it seems to be non-scalable and non-predictable
These companies are ready to spend years changing marketers, marketing agencies, and SDRs to get short-term results but they are not ready to spend the same time on doing the things that produce long-term wins and growth.
They are product-biased assuming they have the best product in the market, and all they need is a skilled person who can write great copy for ads + sales veterans who can sell anything to anybody.
They leave in their delusional world looking for people who know how to play with "sell me this pen".
This continues until they learn the lesson the hard way.
It's 2022.
It's a buyer-dominated market.
It's time to market the way your customers are buying, not applying the gimmicks and growth hacks.
Running direct ads, promoting gated content and webinars -> are the tactics they assume can generate almost immediate sales.
While actual marketing is a long-term initiative.
We live in a quick-wins era.
B2B companies are impatient and want the results NOW.
Lots of them have pressure from the investors or are led by CEOs/CROs that don't have a marketing background and assume that marketing is actually all about awaring customers that their product exists.
Even if different marketing initiatives make sense to them, these ideas are shut down just because:
- it takes time to launch and get results
- it seems to be non-scalable and non-predictable
These companies are ready to spend years changing marketers, marketing agencies, and SDRs to get short-term results but they are not ready to spend the same time on doing the things that produce long-term wins and growth.
They are product-biased assuming they have the best product in the market, and all they need is a skilled person who can write great copy for ads + sales veterans who can sell anything to anybody.
They leave in their delusional world looking for people who know how to play with "sell me this pen".
This continues until they learn the lesson the hard way.
It's 2022.
It's a buyer-dominated market.
It's time to market the way your customers are buying, not applying the gimmicks and growth hacks.
Most B2B marketing plans fail because of one reason:
Lack of clarity.
Demand gen is not about showing up consistently and sharing random content on social media.
ABM is not about making a wish list of accounts, running display ads, tracking clicks, and reaching out with templated emails or direct mails.
Lead nurturing is not about setting up an automated sequence of emails to promote the product.
Content marketing is not writing about how great your product or company is, and sharing corporate news.
The list of "is not about" endless.
B2B marketing is not taught at schools.
Most B2B execs and salespeople don't support marketing programs not because they don't understand marketing, but because they don't see:
-Detailed campaign playbook that describes goals and objectives, required resources and budget, timeline, metrics, and basic forecast.
-How the marketing program will help to grow revenue, increase ACV, close more deals, or shorten the sales cycle
This is why many marketing initiatives are killed beforehand and B2B marketers become sales order takers.
Not all B2B companies want to sink into the lead gen swamp. There are lots of them who want to get out but don't know how. Our goal as B2B marketers is to educate and help them.
Here are 7 steps we use:
1. Provide revenue analysis from different markets and verticals, narrow ICP replicating the best customers, and explain how ICPs buy based on the insights collected from customer interviews.
2. Explain what programs can help us to drive awareness in a target market, and how are we going to measure them.
3. Show what programs we can run to generate demand for our product
4. Explain how we can identify warm-up accounts and activate them together with sales
5. Show what we are going to do to nurture accounts that are not sales-ready without being pushy.
When you connect the dots, suddenly marketing starts making sense to everybody.
6. Next step: get feedback and listen to all the concerns about the program suggested. Come up with ideas on how to mitigate the concerns.
7. Prepare a detailed marketing plan that includes a detailed breakdown of the campaigns you want to run:
- Clear goals, objectives, and revenue forecast
- Leading indicators to measure campaign efficiency
- Detailed action plan, timeline, and task distribution among team members
Lack of clarity.
Demand gen is not about showing up consistently and sharing random content on social media.
ABM is not about making a wish list of accounts, running display ads, tracking clicks, and reaching out with templated emails or direct mails.
Lead nurturing is not about setting up an automated sequence of emails to promote the product.
Content marketing is not writing about how great your product or company is, and sharing corporate news.
The list of "is not about" endless.
B2B marketing is not taught at schools.
Most B2B execs and salespeople don't support marketing programs not because they don't understand marketing, but because they don't see:
-Detailed campaign playbook that describes goals and objectives, required resources and budget, timeline, metrics, and basic forecast.
-How the marketing program will help to grow revenue, increase ACV, close more deals, or shorten the sales cycle
This is why many marketing initiatives are killed beforehand and B2B marketers become sales order takers.
Not all B2B companies want to sink into the lead gen swamp. There are lots of them who want to get out but don't know how. Our goal as B2B marketers is to educate and help them.
Here are 7 steps we use:
1. Provide revenue analysis from different markets and verticals, narrow ICP replicating the best customers, and explain how ICPs buy based on the insights collected from customer interviews.
2. Explain what programs can help us to drive awareness in a target market, and how are we going to measure them.
3. Show what programs we can run to generate demand for our product
4. Explain how we can identify warm-up accounts and activate them together with sales
5. Show what we are going to do to nurture accounts that are not sales-ready without being pushy.
When you connect the dots, suddenly marketing starts making sense to everybody.
6. Next step: get feedback and listen to all the concerns about the program suggested. Come up with ideas on how to mitigate the concerns.
7. Prepare a detailed marketing plan that includes a detailed breakdown of the campaigns you want to run:
- Clear goals, objectives, and revenue forecast
- Leading indicators to measure campaign efficiency
- Detailed action plan, timeline, and task distribution among team members
Marketing planning.jpeg
422.6 KB
If you have colleagues/peers on Telegram who are interested in ABM, please, share our channel with them. Thanks in advance.
B2B demand generation demystified.
Demand generation became a buzzword that everybody talks about, but you rarely see practical examples or case studies.
For many marketers, demand gen is all about running ads to ungated content with occasional thought leadership, podcasting, and blog.
These activities should be added to your demand gen mix, but they are not the full demand strategy.
I look at B2B demand generation as a demand waterfall that has 3 pillars.
1. DEMAND ACTIVITIES.
Define how your customers are searching, learning, and buying.
Define demand activities that can consistently create awareness and demand, including the ones mentioned above, co-marketing, guest posting, events, etc.
2. DISTRIBUTION.
Nobody will pay attention to your product until youโll start attracting it. Most B2B companies try to distribute content via ads, but don't limit your program.
Here are 3 other ways to get noticed by your target audience.
1. Grow your own audience you can connect with directly.
Email newsletter, Whatsapp/Telegram channels, own community, social media are core assets that allow you to connect with the audience directly and not depend on other platforms.
2. Borrowed audience.
Find non-competitive companies that also sell to your audience and run com-marketing campaigns with them:
- Educational webinars
- Mentions and link exchange
- Featuring each other on the podcast, etc.
Publish guest posts on industry-known media to amplify your distribution strategy.
3. Social & communities.
Establish your presence in the channels where your audience hangs out, including:
- Industry communities
- Review platforms
3. DEMAND CAPTURING.
To capture the demand, you need to set up an engagement threshold and intent data to start involving strategic accounts in your warm-up ABM plays.
To accelerate demand capturing you need to have a buyer enablement program - content hubs that include content tailored to a specific buyer + continuous nurturing.
Follow the process, and your sales team will never complain about the pipeline and marketing-sourced revenue.
----
As I said in the beginning, you'll rarely see practical demand gen case studies.
I decided to partner with Fran Langham, Head of Demand Generation at Cognism, who from my humble opinion run a fantastic demand gen program.
On 1st Sep we are going live to talk about their shift from lead gen to demand gen, and cover:
- How Cognism made the transition from lead gen to demand gen, and the bottlenecks they faced during the journey.
- Overview of Cognism demand gen strategy, and its key pillars.
- How Cognism measures and tracks demand gen program efficacy.
You can ask all your demand gen questions live.
Save your spot here: https://lnkd.in/dtyGm95i
Demand generation became a buzzword that everybody talks about, but you rarely see practical examples or case studies.
For many marketers, demand gen is all about running ads to ungated content with occasional thought leadership, podcasting, and blog.
These activities should be added to your demand gen mix, but they are not the full demand strategy.
I look at B2B demand generation as a demand waterfall that has 3 pillars.
1. DEMAND ACTIVITIES.
Define how your customers are searching, learning, and buying.
Define demand activities that can consistently create awareness and demand, including the ones mentioned above, co-marketing, guest posting, events, etc.
2. DISTRIBUTION.
Nobody will pay attention to your product until youโll start attracting it. Most B2B companies try to distribute content via ads, but don't limit your program.
Here are 3 other ways to get noticed by your target audience.
1. Grow your own audience you can connect with directly.
Email newsletter, Whatsapp/Telegram channels, own community, social media are core assets that allow you to connect with the audience directly and not depend on other platforms.
2. Borrowed audience.
Find non-competitive companies that also sell to your audience and run com-marketing campaigns with them:
- Educational webinars
- Mentions and link exchange
- Featuring each other on the podcast, etc.
Publish guest posts on industry-known media to amplify your distribution strategy.
3. Social & communities.
Establish your presence in the channels where your audience hangs out, including:
- Industry communities
- Review platforms
3. DEMAND CAPTURING.
To capture the demand, you need to set up an engagement threshold and intent data to start involving strategic accounts in your warm-up ABM plays.
To accelerate demand capturing you need to have a buyer enablement program - content hubs that include content tailored to a specific buyer + continuous nurturing.
Follow the process, and your sales team will never complain about the pipeline and marketing-sourced revenue.
----
As I said in the beginning, you'll rarely see practical demand gen case studies.
I decided to partner with Fran Langham, Head of Demand Generation at Cognism, who from my humble opinion run a fantastic demand gen program.
On 1st Sep we are going live to talk about their shift from lead gen to demand gen, and cover:
- How Cognism made the transition from lead gen to demand gen, and the bottlenecks they faced during the journey.
- Overview of Cognism demand gen strategy, and its key pillars.
- How Cognism measures and tracks demand gen program efficacy.
You can ask all your demand gen questions live.
Save your spot here: https://lnkd.in/dtyGm95i
lu.ma
How to switch from lead gen to demand gen: Cognism case study with Fran Langham - Zoom
Join me and Fran Langham, Head of Demand Generation at Cognism, to talk about their shift from lead generation to demand generation.
We're going to cover:
How Cognism made the transition...
We're going to cover:
How Cognism made the transition...
Our first inhouse ABM campaign generated 2 clients, 6 sales opportunities, and had 76% reply rate. Here is a detailed breakdown.
Before launching Fullfunnel.io we partnered with Vladimir Blagojeviฤ on one project developing an ABM strategy for 30+ B2B tech companies from Belgium.
When we were running office hours, the majority of companies talked a lot about ABM, but their understanding of ABM was limited to:
1. Create a list of companies that fit firmographic data
2. Identify decision-makers, find their LinkedIn profiles and emails
3. Upload the list to LinkedIn and run some product ads
4. Reach out via email and/or LinkedIn
They were upset with ABM agencies and wanted to build an inhouse ABM motion.
We decided to validate the demand for ABM training and coaching with a simple campaign.
Here is a step-by-step overview.
1. Simple Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Belgium B2B scale ups (Hardware / SaaS)
- ARR - $5mln - $10mln
- ACV > $50k
- long sales cycle
- execs background not in sales or marketing.
2. Account list building.
We decided to execute a campaign for the audience that was already aware of us.
We used Leadfeeder and Encharge to identify people who subscribed to my newsletter and were checking my consulting services earlier.
As well, we looked at people who engaged with our content on LinkedIn.
3. Account research.
During the research, we focused on learning more about the goals and needs of target buyers by analyzing press releases, social updates, and interviews of execs.
4. Podcast as a warm-up and relationship.
We invited our target CEOs to our podcast to discuss the topics we collected from the account research.
Our goals:
โ Connect and discuss with strategic decision-makers the challenges they face in growing B2B tech companies + what works for them
โ Create unique content we can use for LinkedIn and guest posts
โ Share a new initiative and validate our idea by asking if a service like this makes sense to them and might be valuable
โ Mention the case studies we have to create a demand
From the 21 accounts, we got a response from 16 (76%), and 9 accounts agreed to an interview (46%).
5. Personalized direct mail swags.
The interviews allowed us to understand our target accounts' priorities and challenges, identify the accounts that were a good fit with an existing need.
We decided to activate these accounts using a 1-1 personalized outreach via direct mail.
Our swag included:
โ 100% personalized proposal with a clear plan on how to tackle their challenges
โ QR code that redirects to a content hub with relevant case studies
โ Personalized gift
---
TLDR;
ABM is not about running display ads to a bunch of logos and sending 21 cold emails.
ABM is about strategically selecting, building relationship, understanding the needs of your target buyers and coming up with personalized solutions.
Before launching Fullfunnel.io we partnered with Vladimir Blagojeviฤ on one project developing an ABM strategy for 30+ B2B tech companies from Belgium.
When we were running office hours, the majority of companies talked a lot about ABM, but their understanding of ABM was limited to:
1. Create a list of companies that fit firmographic data
2. Identify decision-makers, find their LinkedIn profiles and emails
3. Upload the list to LinkedIn and run some product ads
4. Reach out via email and/or LinkedIn
They were upset with ABM agencies and wanted to build an inhouse ABM motion.
We decided to validate the demand for ABM training and coaching with a simple campaign.
Here is a step-by-step overview.
1. Simple Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Belgium B2B scale ups (Hardware / SaaS)
- ARR - $5mln - $10mln
- ACV > $50k
- long sales cycle
- execs background not in sales or marketing.
2. Account list building.
We decided to execute a campaign for the audience that was already aware of us.
We used Leadfeeder and Encharge to identify people who subscribed to my newsletter and were checking my consulting services earlier.
As well, we looked at people who engaged with our content on LinkedIn.
3. Account research.
During the research, we focused on learning more about the goals and needs of target buyers by analyzing press releases, social updates, and interviews of execs.
4. Podcast as a warm-up and relationship.
We invited our target CEOs to our podcast to discuss the topics we collected from the account research.
Our goals:
โ Connect and discuss with strategic decision-makers the challenges they face in growing B2B tech companies + what works for them
โ Create unique content we can use for LinkedIn and guest posts
โ Share a new initiative and validate our idea by asking if a service like this makes sense to them and might be valuable
โ Mention the case studies we have to create a demand
From the 21 accounts, we got a response from 16 (76%), and 9 accounts agreed to an interview (46%).
5. Personalized direct mail swags.
The interviews allowed us to understand our target accounts' priorities and challenges, identify the accounts that were a good fit with an existing need.
We decided to activate these accounts using a 1-1 personalized outreach via direct mail.
Our swag included:
โ 100% personalized proposal with a clear plan on how to tackle their challenges
โ QR code that redirects to a content hub with relevant case studies
โ Personalized gift
---
TLDR;
ABM is not about running display ads to a bunch of logos and sending 21 cold emails.
ABM is about strategically selecting, building relationship, understanding the needs of your target buyers and coming up with personalized solutions.
How to influence the buying journey with full-funnel marketing.
1. Understand the buying journey:
- Channels
- People involved
- Questions and concerns at different stages
- Mindset, motivation and KPI
2. Understand the demand triggers.
What can attract their interest and motivate them to learn more about the problem or an opportunity?
E.g. a company sucks at lead generation and sees practical advise about how other peers are using ABM to generate opportunities with enterprise accounts.
3. Create buyer enablement program.
Buyers don't want to be pushed.
They want to find information that helps to solve their specific challenge or answer their questions. When they feel your product or service is the best way to help them, they reach out.
You can help buyers choose/consider your product, but you can't push them.
4. Establish your brand presence in the channels your buyers use for research, education, or engagement with their peers.
4 pillars you can use (ideally, in a mix):
- Social engagement
- Events
- Paid promo
- Content collaboration
5. Capture the demand.
1. Define engagement triggers to involve sales for proactive relationship building.
A major part of decision-makers ignore the cold outreach but are ready to talk with people they know, like, and trust.
2. Retarget engaged accounts with case studies and client stories.
3. Move the engaged accounts to the ABM program.
---
With Vladimir Blagojeviฤ we worked on a detailed guide on how to influence the B2B buyer journey with tons of examples:
https://fullfunnel.io/buyer-journey/
Would love to hear your feedback.
1. Understand the buying journey:
- Channels
- People involved
- Questions and concerns at different stages
- Mindset, motivation and KPI
2. Understand the demand triggers.
What can attract their interest and motivate them to learn more about the problem or an opportunity?
E.g. a company sucks at lead generation and sees practical advise about how other peers are using ABM to generate opportunities with enterprise accounts.
3. Create buyer enablement program.
Buyers don't want to be pushed.
They want to find information that helps to solve their specific challenge or answer their questions. When they feel your product or service is the best way to help them, they reach out.
You can help buyers choose/consider your product, but you can't push them.
4. Establish your brand presence in the channels your buyers use for research, education, or engagement with their peers.
4 pillars you can use (ideally, in a mix):
- Social engagement
- Events
- Paid promo
- Content collaboration
5. Capture the demand.
1. Define engagement triggers to involve sales for proactive relationship building.
A major part of decision-makers ignore the cold outreach but are ready to talk with people they know, like, and trust.
2. Retarget engaged accounts with case studies and client stories.
3. Move the engaged accounts to the ABM program.
---
With Vladimir Blagojeviฤ we worked on a detailed guide on how to influence the B2B buyer journey with tons of examples:
https://fullfunnel.io/buyer-journey/
Would love to hear your feedback.
ABM and DemandGen Consulting & Training | FullFunnel.io
Step-by-Step Guide to Modern B2B Buyer Journey and How to Influence it With Full-Funnel Marketing | FullFunnel.io
A step-by-step guide to the modern buyer journey (w/ a 47-step example), how to map it (w/ 45 questions to ask your customers), and influence buyers.
How to measure ABM (account-based marketing) campaigns.
The worst thing you can do is measure different ABM campaigns the same way. Depending on the campaign goal, you'll have different goals and outcomes.
Here is how to measure 4 different ABM campaigns.
1. ๐๐๐ญ ๐ง๐๐ฐ ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ฎ๐.
Goal: new opportunities and revenue.
Metrics:
- # of engaged accounts (replied, no immediate need, but are interested in learning more)
- # of discovery calls booked
- # of sales opportunities
- ACV
- Sales cycle length
- Won deals
- New revenue
- Budget
- ROI
2. ๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง.
Goal: Winning existing opportunities.
Example playbook:
-Define appropriate warm-up play and how you can engage the buying committee
- Debrief Champion about blocking points in the buying process
- Prepare a personalized content hub with a doc that addresses the blocking points, content that demonstrates the benefits for different buying committee members + case studies
- Suggest a quick workshop to move the buying committee through your framework
- Suggest 1-1 debriefing sessions with peers (e.g. IT dep with your CTO)
Metrics:
- # of interviews with Champion
- # of workshops booked
- # of debriefing sessions
- Won deals
- ACV
- Activation cycle (from interview to the invoice. You can compare it later with the sales cycle length).
- Campaign revenue
3. ๐๐ฑ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง.
๐๐จ๐๐ฅ: Expand business with existing clients.
Example playbook:
-Create a case study and interview power users, Decision-Makers (DMs), and Champions about the value and results they are getting from your product.
-Find common connections in other departments and/or branches and ask Champion to make an intro when possible.
-Run a campaign with excerpts from the interview and the case study to warm up the buying committee.
-Ideally, co-host a webinar with the Champion inviting other departments/branches.
-Create a personalized content hub explaining the benefits of a new department or branch that they can get from your product.
-Suggest 1-1 debriefing sessions with peers
Metrics:
- # of case studies created
- # of workshops arranged
- # of new licenses sold
- LTV growth
- ACV growth
- Total expanded revenue
4. ๐๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ ๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐ฐ๐๐ฅ / ๐๐ก๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง.
Goal: renew contracts with key accounts.
Example playbook:
- Interview Champions, power users, and, ideally, decision-makers about new initiatives and goals.
- Create a presentation about product roadmap and updates, and tailor it to accounts' goals (how they can benefit).
- Book calls to present the roadmap.
This campaign can be merged with an expansion campaign.
Metrics:
- # of presentations booked
- # of resigned contracts
- Renewed revenue
The worst thing you can do is measure different ABM campaigns the same way. Depending on the campaign goal, you'll have different goals and outcomes.
Here is how to measure 4 different ABM campaigns.
1. ๐๐๐ญ ๐ง๐๐ฐ ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ฎ๐.
Goal: new opportunities and revenue.
Metrics:
- # of engaged accounts (replied, no immediate need, but are interested in learning more)
- # of discovery calls booked
- # of sales opportunities
- ACV
- Sales cycle length
- Won deals
- New revenue
- Budget
- ROI
2. ๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง.
Goal: Winning existing opportunities.
Example playbook:
-Define appropriate warm-up play and how you can engage the buying committee
- Debrief Champion about blocking points in the buying process
- Prepare a personalized content hub with a doc that addresses the blocking points, content that demonstrates the benefits for different buying committee members + case studies
- Suggest a quick workshop to move the buying committee through your framework
- Suggest 1-1 debriefing sessions with peers (e.g. IT dep with your CTO)
Metrics:
- # of interviews with Champion
- # of workshops booked
- # of debriefing sessions
- Won deals
- ACV
- Activation cycle (from interview to the invoice. You can compare it later with the sales cycle length).
- Campaign revenue
3. ๐๐ฑ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง.
๐๐จ๐๐ฅ: Expand business with existing clients.
Example playbook:
-Create a case study and interview power users, Decision-Makers (DMs), and Champions about the value and results they are getting from your product.
-Find common connections in other departments and/or branches and ask Champion to make an intro when possible.
-Run a campaign with excerpts from the interview and the case study to warm up the buying committee.
-Ideally, co-host a webinar with the Champion inviting other departments/branches.
-Create a personalized content hub explaining the benefits of a new department or branch that they can get from your product.
-Suggest 1-1 debriefing sessions with peers
Metrics:
- # of case studies created
- # of workshops arranged
- # of new licenses sold
- LTV growth
- ACV growth
- Total expanded revenue
4. ๐๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ ๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐ฐ๐๐ฅ / ๐๐ก๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง.
Goal: renew contracts with key accounts.
Example playbook:
- Interview Champions, power users, and, ideally, decision-makers about new initiatives and goals.
- Create a presentation about product roadmap and updates, and tailor it to accounts' goals (how they can benefit).
- Book calls to present the roadmap.
This campaign can be merged with an expansion campaign.
Metrics:
- # of presentations booked
- # of resigned contracts
- Renewed revenue
10 questions to see if ABM is a right fit for your company and if you are ready to launch it.
ABM-FIT CHECKLIST.
1. Long sales cycle (>180 days)
If your sales cycle is short and transactional, Iโd recommend focusing on demand capturing activities (ads, SEO, cold outreach) instead of ABM.
2. ACV (average contract value) > $30k.
Will it pay off to proactively market and prospect a specific set of accounts? I suggest considering ABM if the LTV or ACV of your best customers is higher than $30k.
3. Hybrid sales: product + consulting + best practices training.
ABM is extremely important when you donโt only sell product, but also sell your expertise in solving challenges your buyers have.
It includes product training, consulting alongside implementation, training on best practices.
4. TAM < 1000 companies.
If your market is limited to 500-1000 companies across the globe, you have no other choices than ABM.
5. Multiple buyers are involved in vendor evaluation and buying processes.
If you usually deal with multiple people who influence the buying decision, ABM is a perfect strategy.
If ABM is a right fit, next check your readiness to launch it.
5 QUESTIONS TO CHECK READINESS FOR ABM.
1. Do we have clear ICP and account qualification criteria to build a list of companies that are likely to buy our product?
ICP is created for a specific vertical, including:
- Firmographics
- Buying committee
- Account qualification and disqualification criteria
- Account segmentation
- Account enrichment
2. Do we have a value proposition and collateral for a specific vertical and roles?
Enterprise buyers donโt care about your elevator pitch, they care about how your product solves their challenges or helps to hit their OKRs. Hence, your value proposition should be tailored to specific vertical and individual buyers.
3. Do we have a clear playbook to create awareness inside target accounts, generate demand, and activate them?
ABM requires manual account development, including:
- connecting and engagung with multiple buying committee members,
- identifying their needs and educating them on different ways to solve their challenges,
- coming up with personalized solutions.
4. Can we create a dedicated ABM team that doesnโt have pipeline pressure and has time to build ABM motion?
You need a dedicated team that can commit at least 70% of their time to run the program for the next 3โ6 months.
5. Do we have an alignment between marketing, sales, and executives on how to measure the campaignโs progress and performance?
Define leading and lagging indicators to measure campaign progress and get approval from execs and sales.
--
Iโve shared all the points not to scary but to explain that ABM is not an air cover and lead gen on steroids that can convert a wish list of accounts into your customers.
ABM is a strategic motion to identify companies that need your product, personalize your solution to them, and generate long-term customers.
ABM-FIT CHECKLIST.
1. Long sales cycle (>180 days)
If your sales cycle is short and transactional, Iโd recommend focusing on demand capturing activities (ads, SEO, cold outreach) instead of ABM.
2. ACV (average contract value) > $30k.
Will it pay off to proactively market and prospect a specific set of accounts? I suggest considering ABM if the LTV or ACV of your best customers is higher than $30k.
3. Hybrid sales: product + consulting + best practices training.
ABM is extremely important when you donโt only sell product, but also sell your expertise in solving challenges your buyers have.
It includes product training, consulting alongside implementation, training on best practices.
4. TAM < 1000 companies.
If your market is limited to 500-1000 companies across the globe, you have no other choices than ABM.
5. Multiple buyers are involved in vendor evaluation and buying processes.
If you usually deal with multiple people who influence the buying decision, ABM is a perfect strategy.
If ABM is a right fit, next check your readiness to launch it.
5 QUESTIONS TO CHECK READINESS FOR ABM.
1. Do we have clear ICP and account qualification criteria to build a list of companies that are likely to buy our product?
ICP is created for a specific vertical, including:
- Firmographics
- Buying committee
- Account qualification and disqualification criteria
- Account segmentation
- Account enrichment
2. Do we have a value proposition and collateral for a specific vertical and roles?
Enterprise buyers donโt care about your elevator pitch, they care about how your product solves their challenges or helps to hit their OKRs. Hence, your value proposition should be tailored to specific vertical and individual buyers.
3. Do we have a clear playbook to create awareness inside target accounts, generate demand, and activate them?
ABM requires manual account development, including:
- connecting and engagung with multiple buying committee members,
- identifying their needs and educating them on different ways to solve their challenges,
- coming up with personalized solutions.
4. Can we create a dedicated ABM team that doesnโt have pipeline pressure and has time to build ABM motion?
You need a dedicated team that can commit at least 70% of their time to run the program for the next 3โ6 months.
5. Do we have an alignment between marketing, sales, and executives on how to measure the campaignโs progress and performance?
Define leading and lagging indicators to measure campaign progress and get approval from execs and sales.
--
Iโve shared all the points not to scary but to explain that ABM is not an air cover and lead gen on steroids that can convert a wish list of accounts into your customers.
ABM is a strategic motion to identify companies that need your product, personalize your solution to them, and generate long-term customers.
Here is what happens to marketing when it is led by CRO who is coming from sales.
In most cases, marketing will focus on 2 layers:
Performance marketing and lead generation.
Why?
Because they can be measured in the attribution software and can be "benchmarked".
Marketing activities will be limited to:
- gated e-books to get contacts that are transferred to sales as leads
- landing pages that promote demo calls without giving an idea of whatโs the product all about, price, use cases, etc.
- writing scripts and setting up automated cadences for SDRs
- ยซfeature-orientedยป content to ยซsellยป the product
- webinars that are wrapped as educational events but in a reality are pure product pitches.
The marketing problem wonโt be fixed by substituting CMO with CRO.
The problem will be solved only when a company has a clear alignment on:
- Whatโs the role of marketing in the company?
- How can demand and awareness be created?
- How to track, capture and convert the demand?
- ICP and list of strategic accounts
- Positioning
- Account engagement criteria
- Warm-up and activation playbooks
Sales can't replace marketing, and marketing can't replace sales. The same as in football defenders can't replace forwards, and vice versa.
Everybody has their own role and function.
Marketing:
- Creating awareness
- Generating & capturing demand
- Warming-up target accounts
Sales:
- Activation
- Nurturing with non-sales touches
- Relationship and expansion
In most cases, marketing will focus on 2 layers:
Performance marketing and lead generation.
Why?
Because they can be measured in the attribution software and can be "benchmarked".
Marketing activities will be limited to:
- gated e-books to get contacts that are transferred to sales as leads
- landing pages that promote demo calls without giving an idea of whatโs the product all about, price, use cases, etc.
- writing scripts and setting up automated cadences for SDRs
- ยซfeature-orientedยป content to ยซsellยป the product
- webinars that are wrapped as educational events but in a reality are pure product pitches.
The marketing problem wonโt be fixed by substituting CMO with CRO.
The problem will be solved only when a company has a clear alignment on:
- Whatโs the role of marketing in the company?
- How can demand and awareness be created?
- How to track, capture and convert the demand?
- ICP and list of strategic accounts
- Positioning
- Account engagement criteria
- Warm-up and activation playbooks
Sales can't replace marketing, and marketing can't replace sales. The same as in football defenders can't replace forwards, and vice versa.
Everybody has their own role and function.
Marketing:
- Creating awareness
- Generating & capturing demand
- Warming-up target accounts
Sales:
- Activation
- Nurturing with non-sales touches
- Relationship and expansion
โค2