Marketers need to focus energy on driving the fundamentals of revenue: sales velocity, average deal size, win rate, and sales cycle time. When marketers start talking about these elements, where/how to move the needle, and the result on revenue – you will get the attention of leadership and boards.
But we can’t be talking about where and how to move the needle and result on revenue because we’re not tying ABM to business challenges that are tied to revenue. Most ABM programs are still focused at the top of the funnel, even though analytics show that ABM can have the greatest impact at the middle and bottom of the buying journey.
In this Quick ABM Done Right Podcast Episode, Kristina Jaramillo Shares Why:
- A fintech firm serving mid-market banks as well as national institutions like Wells Fargo is challenged to drive more deals as the company is not using ABM to change sales motions, sales processes and conversations so they can improve their win rates. Currently, the stage 1 to close win rate is 5%.
- An AI tech firm is nowhere close to a signed deal with Mastercard and Walmart after 14 months of conversations because the CMO is not using ABM to accelerate accounts to revenue. The CMO blames it on the fact that they need closers, even though marketing can influence both selling conversations and the internal conversations that sales are not privy to.
- A channel sales tech firm is unable to create wins with large enterprises that continually make the safe, comfortable bet of investing in legacy platforms like Salesforce.