Brandon Redlinger posted on LinkedIn:
“Marketing doesn’t deserve a seat at the table by default. Marketing doesn’t have the respect of the CRO by default.”
Now, marketing should have a seat at the table and earn the respect of the CRO and sales, but other members of the C-suite lose confidence in Marketing’s ability to contribute more broadly than just branding and campaigns. They need to see that:
- You develop strategies that directly align with the company’s financial objectives.
- You collaborate more effectively with sales, customer success, product, and finance.
- You drive measurable impact on business, revenue, and margin growth – and not just pipeline.
In this podcast episode, Jayashree Rajan (CMO of Nexla) joined Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM to discuss how CMOs need to rethink what ABM is — and their approach.
Listen to the ABM Done Right Podcast Episode with Jayashree Rajan and Eric Gruber:
Here Are the Key Points From This Podcast Episode with Jayashree Rajan and Eric Gruber:
- Most CMOs and their teams are only doing list-based marketing or account-based demand gen vs. changing the interactions that all teams have and the account experiences that are delivered across the buying journey and customer lifecycle. When Jayashree started with Nexla, she was given a list of accounts that the teams wanted to pursue without knowing why (besides the account being on a wish list) and how they should move the needle in terms of engagement.
- Most GTM teams are not ready for ABM, as CMOs and their teams aren’t looking for the revenue leaks across the buying journey and customer lifecycle. They aren’t optimizing brand, demand, land, and expand motions to create the greatest revenue streams possible. Remember, we as CMOs need to develop strategies that directly align with the company’s financial objectives. We need to focus on what current and future GTM gaps and needs are, and how we’re going to get to leadership’s bigger vision, instead of retrofitting ABM on top of existing content, messaging, processes, and account experiences. We need to look at how we are targeting accounts, how we are going to market with these accounts, how we are going to communicate our value to them, how we are going to engage VPs and the C-suite vs. the directors and managers that are typically engaged, and how we are going to align with their strategic priorities vs. pain points.
- CMOs need to take a data-driven evaluation approach for actual ABM impact that goes beyond the marketing-sourced pipeline. We need to stop focusing on a small portion of the buyer’s journey. CMOs and their marketing teams need to contribute more broadly than branding, campaigns, and pipeline to earn the trust of the business. We need to focus on revenue KPIs like stage progression, deal sizes, win rates, ARR/GRR/NRR (lagging indicators), and we need to focus on KPIs that are tied to where the issues in the business lie (leading indicators that will guide how you need to optimize the account experience). Rather than focus on campaigns and scaling, we need to take a 1:1 approach first and look at what’s working and why it’s working, and put each interaction under a microscope to uncover a path to revenue.
- GTM efficiency = sales and marketing productivity gains + increases in sales and marketing effectiveness. Too often, CMOs forget the 2nd part of the GTM efficiency equation as they focus on scaling ABM activity and outreach. You can’t be doing the same thing and expect a different outcome just because you’re doing better targeting. If we want to have compounded returns that can deliver 30%+ revenue gains, then we need to scale our impact on revenue vs. scale activities.
Additional ABM Resources for CMOs
- CMOs Guide to Mastering ABM Part 1 – How CMOs Need to Rethink Their Approach to ABM
- CMOs Guide to Mastering ABM Part 2 – How to Align ABM with the CEO, CRO, CFO, CCO, COO, and CPO)
- Real Examples of How Most GTM Teams Are Not ABM Ready