Jon Miller is the CMO of Demandbase.
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Today, CMOs, CROs and their go-to-market (GTM) teams have a problem: They’re trying to achieve results in an entirely new landscape using old methods. This is like trying to get into a prospect’s email inbox by dialing their landline on a rotary phone. The approach simply doesn’t fit the desired outcome or the current state of buyers.
Here’s the thing, though. Back in my time at Marketo, I helped to create the old playbook for B2B got-to-market strategies. I still stand by them—but only for that time period and that time period’s buyer. Now, in 2023? It’s high time marketers threw those playbooks out and then maybe burned them for good measure. They just don’t work anymore.
We can point fingers about why that is, blaming buyer indifference, buyer fatigue and a digital world that is increasingly difficult to navigate. But instead of bemoaning how we got here, you’d probably rather know what to do to achieve results in the here and now. Here’s my take.
Marketing Tactics: Emotional Engagement > Gated Content
The old playbook advised marketers to capture buyers’ emails with gated content, and this approach used to get the job done. But buyers today are largely unknown and not interested in becoming known—or in being email-spammed by yet another company with yet more irrelevant, intrusive marketing messages.
Instead of gating content, shift your attention to driving emotional engagement through advertising—and I don’t mean the lead-gen-focused ads of a few years ago. Your goal in digital advertising today is not to get someone to download your guide or click on a certain call to action (CTA). In fact, I fully support you scrapping the CTA button altogether.
What makes modern digital ads work is emotion that engages. Your buyer should see your ad, quickly recognize all the bad that comes with the problem you solve and then grasp the fact that your company does indeed solve it. Think of it as talking to the reptilian brain that responds emotionally, not the logical brain.
Also, forget what you know about demand-gen metrics like cost-per-lead and cost-per-click. Modernize your mindset to be about moving accounts through the buyer journey. This works today, as evidenced by an A/B test my company recently ran, which revealed that 62% of accounts that were exposed to our ads moved to the next stage, as opposed to 45% of accounts in the control group. That’s a meaningful difference.
Internal Alignment: Sales And Marketing Team > A Handoff
We used to think about sales and marketing as two parts of a relay race. When marketing was done with their part, they would “hand off” the leads to sales (and essentially wash their hands of the leads). We’ve since seen the error of our collective ways and realized both departments are actually part of the same team.
Similar to a game of soccer, the ball gets passed around quite a bit as it moves down the field toward the goal. When someone eventually scores, it’s not really that person who scored; it’s the entire team. Every single player, from marketing to sales to customer success, has to work in concert with one another to win the game. The importance of this approach is finding that coordination between marketing and sales for account-based success.
So, since we’re no longer passing a lead from one group to another with minimal communication and teamwork, why are we still measuring success like we are?
This is counterproductive to our alignment goals. Challenge yourself and your organization to move on from terms like “marketing-sourced pipeline” and embrace “team-sourced pipeline” instead. This shift in measurement and language reflects the necessary shift your team must undergo to work together as one and better serve today’s buyers.
Focus: Best Fit Accounts > Chasing All Accounts
It’s human nature to want to win as many customers as possible and get as much revenue as you can. It makes sense, then, that you probably want to follow this modern playbook for every account in your target market. But doing so is not only impossible; it’s also a waste of your resources. Based on my experience, the solution is to tier your accounts so you can prioritize the best accounts and allocate the most resources toward them.
Tying back into the teamwork between sales and marketing above, this is an area where both play a key role. I’ve found it works best when sales owns the account selection and tiering, but marketing is still involved. For its part, marketing should define the entitlements and investments that can be made for accounts in each tier, along with the quantity that can be pursued in each tier. The marketing team can also give the sales reps quality data so they can prioritize accounts accurately.
We like to use the acronym FIRE in my company to help do this. Here’s what it stands for.
• Fit: Using firmographics and technographics, first look for accounts that fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).
• Intent: Use intent data to narrow down your list to the accounts that have demonstrated interest in your category.
• Relationship: Prioritize accounts that have some history with your company (perhaps key folks used you at another company).
• Engagement: Similarly, prioritize the accounts that have engaged with your organization in some way, as they’re more likely to continue doing so and be open to the next steps.
Times have certainly changed in the B2B world, and it’s time our tactics do, too. Adopting these modern rules is a great way to start laying the right foundation for the results you want.
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