5 strategies B2B marketing and sales teams can bank on as markets tighten
‘Efficient’, ‘accurate’, ‘agile’, ‘more with less’ – these words echo across Zoom calls, boardrooms and budgets as economic uncertainty takes shape as Black ice on the mountain road. In an environment of tight markets and increased KPIs, these words are quickly becoming imperatives for go-to-market (GTM) teams tasked with identifying, attracting, generating, and expanding revenue and relationship.
To help B2B marketing, sales, and customer success teams navigate the current and unpredictable macro environment, this article dives into the basic strategies and tactics for turning GTM efforts into results. These tips were gathered from dozens of conversations over the past 60 days with GTM leaders about what teams are doing to optimize performance in times of uncertainty.
1. Stop chasing leads, double the best customers and opportunities
First, GTM teams need to stop generating and researching random leads, accounts, and markets with little or no familiarity with your business or solution.
Instead, prioritize existing customers to expand relationships. Work on getting leads and already active accounts with your business and in your system.
Well, this approach should always be preferred. But at the moment, there is almost no choice but buyers, sellers and all actors involved in the process are capricious.
2. Surround and collaborate with your existing clients
Your customer base is the biggest and most significant business opportunity presently present in your environment.
This is more than simply the usual customer marketing or the always-important customer voice listening; it’s a more deliberate, planned effort to surround your consumers and aid them in navigating unpredictable times.
In order to understand your consumers, their current situation, and their priorities, start by utilizing the customer data and account intelligence you have gathered.
Leaders might plan an orchestrated tour of clients to get in front of customers, where executive sponsors, solutions experts, and small teams are formed within your organization to concentrate on particular accounts.
To reach customers, executives can organize an organized customer visit where executive sponsors, solutions experts, and small groups are trained within your company to focus on specific customers. These dedicated tiger teams are deployed to sit back and listen to customers’ needs, challenges and plans for the way forward. They are responsible for:
- Identify customer needs.
- Determine if, how and when to act.
- Mobilize the right resources.
- Supply according to customer’s request.
An example of what this high-level collaboration can deliver is using technical and product know-how to refine the solutions needed to make customers more efficient.
This customer co-creation approach not only helps build customer loyalty and become a preferred supplier, but it also provides the opportunity to increase revenue and strengthen customer relationships.
3. Review your lead opportunity process over the past 18 months
With the same level and data usage that you apply when connecting with customers, GTM teams should prioritize accounts with previously active interests, engagement, and conversations, that did not work.
This lead generation effort begins with the revenue, data science, sales, and marketing operations teams coming together to identify the accounts, then develop a strategy to win the business. their.
Apply creative thinking and innovative tactics. Be prepared to be flexible with your client’s priorities. Agility can be applied to the way customers make purchases. Use your solution or add specific resources as part of your relationship agreement to help the company achieve immediate ROI and ROI in times of crisis.
The focus on the best account opportunities outlined above is relentless. It requires regular, disciplined sessions (e.g. weekly and biweekly) to look at opportunities, obstacles, and ways to creatively break through.
Marketing and sales can coordinate specific roles and playstyles, much like what the GTM team implements in account-based one-on-one moves, where resources are centrally concentrated. Crazy about a few accounts. The executive teams are always on hand to monitor and ensure the master account and purchasing committee data is used and available to all players on the team.
As resources are shifted to this more granular GTM approach, marketing can also add ongoing programs to listen to customers and top lead and buyer account activity using first and third-party intents and data.
4. Strengthen your channel and partner ecosystem
To bring additional resources and trusted expertise to customers and prospects, organizations can turn to partners with specific expertise to provide strategic and execution support.
The best partners nurture relationships with potential customers and are often in a strong position to:
- Learn how to get the most out of your solution.
- Combine your services with other providers to develop targeted solutions.
- Provide where companies have distance.
In addition, partners share the same urgency in setting priorities and finding ways to add value to existing and new customers.
Like the customer engagement strategy described earlier, now is the time to prioritize and sit down with like-minded partners to develop a GTM strategy and co-create solutions to satisfy customers. potential and specific requirements.
Many teams are shifting their marketing and sales resources to focus on forming solutions and deeper partnerships. In a spirit of partnership and trust, sharing customer data with your partners to exploit opportunities and build smarter solutions should be part of the effort.
5. Invest and use AI and buyer and account information to define and prioritize your GTM goals
Today, GTM teams can leverage valuable buyer and account data and AI-powered models across sales, marketing and revenue tools, platforms, and data subscriptions.
For invested GTM teams, now is the time to redouble our efforts to fully utilize intelligence in your GTM strategy, outreach, accounts, and buyer identification. If you have no experience or expertise in using data, now is the time to do it.
Let’s start with GTM teams that have access to AI models and account information. This can come from optimizing ABM tools, intent engines, or solutions that apply AI models to identify trends, priorities, relevance, and account timing.
We can no longer scratch the surface. Instead, you must search:
- Maximize the use of our proprietary and third-party data.
- Aggregates and extracts intent signals across all the sources and tools we use.
- Enable this intelligence in the marketplace to identify current customers and the best prospective opportunities.
For teams just starting out, it’s been a steep climb, no doubt. The upside is that this work will be the foundation for creating a very successful customer and revenue-generation machine in the future.
If you need the help and resources to accelerate your efforts, individual consultants and strategy firms can be brought in to provide in-depth expertise to deliver on intent, Trend patterns and other forms of buyer and account information.
