There is a growing interest in investing in marketing/sales strategies that empower sales teams. In fact, marketing departments in B2B companies are investing in digital training for sales or ABM strategies that provide a procedure and resources in digital.
1. With common goals
In an ABM Marketing strategy, marketing and sales have common goals. Sales pursues thailand email list these goals with the help of materials, messages and resources that the marketing team creates specifically for them.
This strategy is also interesting for the marketing team. According to HubSpot data, 76 % of marketing content creators do not ask the sales team for feedback. What does this mean?
Sales doesn't know your company's marketing content
Salespeople don't use content in their approach strategy
Sales does not perceive the marketing team as a relevant and supportive team
Marketing content is not so efficient
Marketing content may not match the needs and problems of potential customers. In fact, 40% of B2B marketing experts consider creating the right content for a specific target audience to be a challenge (LinkedIn)
Furthermore, by setting common objectives, we can establish Sales Enablement processes in the company and begin to obtain real data that allows us to know the ROI (return on investment) of our marketing and sales actions.
2. Sales enablement: making the real alignment
ABM Marketing is a strategy that allows for closer contact between both departments. By implementing it, we take a big step towards alignment.
Please note that we work with a specific list of accounts. We develop a strategy and procedures. We study the performance in each phase together with sales, in order to detect areas for improvement. All of this contributes to improving their work and allows them to access target companies more easily.
For this to happen we must work on Sales Enablement.
Sales enablement is the process focused on building a procedure that aligns our marketing and sales departments. In the B2B sector, this is a major challenge.
The digitalisation of processes makes it essential to work together to be able to row in the same direction, improve business results and obtain traceability of our marketing and sales actions. In other words, to study the ROI. How to start?
Prepare a common report
A common KPI report should be shared that records, for example:
New MQLs
New opportunities
Activities recorded by sales
Offers submitted, won, lost
Depending on the company, the metrics to be analyzed in this standard report may vary. It is necessary to do this exercise together . Sales, for its part, will provide information from its sales funnel and explain to marketing how it is working. Marketing, then, can generate this data report (for example, once a week).
Review procedures and content
A weekly meeting should be organized with the aim of:
Showcase new content marketing has created and where to find it
Sales will provide feedback for upcoming content, based on active listening to potential customers on a day-to-day basis
The weekly KPIs report is closed
Gaps in the strategy are detected and commented on
Contact qualification and review
In order to have traceability on the actions being carried out, it is important to spend some time analyzing the source of origin of the contacts that have entered the website.
Review MQLs and their source of origin
Review the validity (or not) of these contacts and why (sales feedback)
Knowing where they are currently in the funnel
Information on new sales (win)
Accounts for which a proposal has been submitted
Information about lost accounts
3. Strategies and procedures
Having a work strategy helps to boost the efforts of the sales team and obtain data on the performance of their actions.
In itself, an ABM Marketing strategy is built on a very specific procedure. Sales does not act 100% independently, but rather relies on the content, messages and campaign structure proposed by marketing.
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4. Exploiting content and marketing efforts
In an ABM Marketing strategy, content plays a leading role. If it is effective, it is capable of ensuring that sales find marketing as a fundamental support for their sales process.
From this point on, the content that is created will be much more focused on the target. It will be more effective for the Inbound strategy and will attract, simply by being active, accounts of interest to your company. If we also have the support of sales to mobilize them in the digital environment and to potential clients, our results will improve.
5. Forming the team
To develop an effective ABM Marketing strategy, we need the sales team. And if we are going to do it in the digital environment, they will need training and tools.
Sales training
Currently, 26% of salespeople in B2B companies say that their training is ineffective (Training Industry) . In addition, 84% of sales training is forgotten within the first 3 months.
That is, if your sales team does not apply what they have learned and does not feel motivated, it is possible that all your financial efforts will not have a return on investment.
At Connext, we train your marketing team in Social Selling techniques .Then, we support them in consolidating their training with tutoring. We combine this training with an ABM Marketing strategy that allows them to put what they have learned into practice.