When Kristina and Eric talked to Matt Hummel (CMO of Pipeline360) about being on the ABM Done Right Podcast to talk about why companies need to go beyond the pipeline, he mentioned that he had just spoken with a CMO customer of his. The customer mentioned that they’re building a strong pipeline using the Pipeline360 platform that helps with generating leads, automating campaigns, scheduling meetings, managing reputations, and creating customizable funnels and websites. But the accounts are not converting to deals and revenue. Matt asked the CMO, how much are you investing in the mid-funnel? And she said, we’re not.
Despite the concerns, CMOs and CROs are continuing to invest in building a pipeline, even though the pipeline struggles to progress toward revenue. They are continuing to invest in building the pipeline which at best will give you 2-5% revenue returns vs. 22%+ returns in compound revenue growth, if you focus on the post-pipeline journey. In this podcast episode, Matt and Eric discuss why the mid-funnel and last-mile nurtures are afterthoughts and how companies should be investing in the post-pipeline account experience.
Lessons Learned From This Podcast Episode with Matt Hummel and Eric Gruber:
- The mid-funnel and final mile are where deals are won and lost, and because teams are not focused on the mid-funnel, they wind up losing as accounts go dark. At least 80% of marketing’s budget, time, and energy goes to the top of the funnel to drive that initial demand. But the mid-funnel is where buyers start wrestling with things like diagnosis, prioritization, political alignment, and internal consensus. The final mile is where risk avoidance spikes. Is this gonna work? Am I gonna get blamed if it doesn’t? Does my CFO buy the story? Will the solution disrupt my operations and customers? You know, careers are won and lost on the decisions that buyers make. Careers are made on making the right decisions and making the right purchases.
- One of the biggest reasons why the mid-funnel and last-mile are often ignored by marketing is that teams are looking to scale. And you can’t scale the connection that your content, messaging, and interactions should create between your teams and your buyers. You can’t scale the account experiences that will move buyers to revenue at a higher ACV and expand existing accounts. You can’t scale ABM in the mid-funnel and last mile, where you need to support selling, retention, expansion, and internal buying conversations, and make a difference with less fluff and filler, and more insight and dialogue, and more… “This is exactly what I needed.” But if you get it right, you can scale your impact on revenue.
- Many marketers don’t realize that they’re not investing in the mid-funnel, as they confuse activity with impact. They’re putting investment into the mid-funnel for the sake of saying, ‘ Alright, I’ve checked that box; I’m investing in the mid-funnel. ‘ They are not actually making sure that deals are actually moving. The reality is that marketers over-anchored on tech. They treat ABM like a campaign. ABM’s not a campaign. It’s like playing a soccer match where you may have a game plan, and you go out on the field, but as soon as that first ball is kicked, you have to read the defense, you have to know what’s going on, you have to see… at the end of the day, what’s your goal? Whether you’re on defense or offense, your goal is to get the ball into the other team’s goal. But if you have a plan and you just say, well, this is what we’re gonna do, we’re not gonna pay attention to what’s actually happening. Your likelihood of success is very low. It’s the same thing with your GTM. You may have thought through your plan and addressed everything from the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. But if you’re not actually reading the defense (your buyers) and if you’re not paying attention to what’s going on within the accounts that you’re trying to win, you’re not going to be successful, no matter how much investment you put there.
- Rather than going just for scale, which is just targeted demand gen, we need to look at what is really moving the needle and driving long-term, profitable relationships with major accounts. Everyone is trying to orchestrate technologies, but we need to orchestrate the account experience and the digital, social, email, and live interactions that all teams have. We need to focus on the struggling moments that sit at the center of every deal – the moments that need to be listened to, understood, catered to, reframed, and solved. We need to make sales and marketing personal, not just personalized, if we are going to help buyers feel uncomfortable about their current situation yet comfortable moving forward to drive change. We need to focus on helping buyers overcome their indecision. The more we try to scale our activities and content in the middle of the funnel, the less valuable we become to the accounts we want to land and expand. 1:1 ABM for the mid-funnel is personal.
- Teams are not increasing their relevance, and the value breadcrumbs are not getting bigger as buyers progress and earn more of our attention. Content and messaging that is pushed out after sales enter the conversation continue on the “industry/persona” thought leadership path vs speaking to clustered situations and then to the account story. Buyers are not personas. Buyers are people. And people have fears, and people have concerns, and people have risks, and people have families to feed. Personas don’t have that stuff. You could be a persona on paper, and yes, you know, maybe 80% of that is applicable, but the 20% is what I actually care about, and where you’re missing the needle. And if everyone else is hitting me with the 80% that looks and feels directionally correct, then you are just adding to the noise.
- Pipeline coverage is meaningless if we’re losing momentum in the third or fourth innings, at midfield, whatever metaphor you want to use. You know, there’s a seven-figure leak in our funnel because we’re not enabling buyers during their hardest internal decision-making process.
Additional Relevant Blog Posts to Read
- CMOs Can Have a Greater Impact on Revenue Growth By Fixing the Mid-to-Late Funnel Account Experiences
- Why Your Focus Should Be on 1:1 ABM Content Even Though It’s Not Scalable
- Rethinking How You Sell and Market AI and Digital Transformation with ABM Content
- Account-Based GTM: A Modern Approach to Winning with ABM