marketing and sales activation - engagio | b2b marketing … · 2019-04-22 · chapter 1 at...

Marketing and Sales Activation The Next Level of Alignment

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T

ContentsIntro

Alignment Is Good, but Action Is Better

Clear Agreement on ‘Why ABM’ - Buy-in

Structuring Your Team to Ensure Success

Setting Up Key Business Processes

Using Technology to Streamline Manual Activities

Sales and Marketing Alignment Checklist

Conclusion

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3

I N T R O

I N T R O D U C T I O N

What if you only got 20% of your paycheck each month?

What if your car only used 20% of the gas after you filled it

up? What if your phone only used percent of its battery?

Sounds absurd, right?

Ok, here’s a serious question – what if Sales only

prospected into 20% of the leads Marketing gave them?

According to research by ReachFforce, Sales ignores

as much as 80% of the leads that Marketing passes to

them. If that’s not a problem, I don’t know what is.

Wasted dollars is never a good thing and that is why many

organizations are investing in Account Based Marketing (ABM).

The main premise of ABM is to focus on the optimal accounts

for your business (higher dollar value, greater retention,

more upsell potential) and there is a lot of data illustrating

it works. For instance, almost 85% of marketers measuring

ROI say that ABM outperforms other marketing investments

(ITSMA). Another great benefit from an ABM strategy is the

relationship Marketing and Sales builds in the process.

If there was one golden rule for any revenue team to

follow it would be this: Silos don’t work. They lead to

inefficiencies, broken systems and problems at every level.

“ABM is a strategic business initiative. If it’s only sponsored

by Marketing, it becomes a campaign.”

–Jeff Sands, Senior Associate, ITSMA

Intro

C H A P T E R 1 : A L I G N M E N T I S G O O D , B U T A C T I O N I S B E T T E R

C H A P T E R 1

Alignment Is Good, But Action Is BetterFor many years, we have heard about the importance of Marketing

and Sales alignment - yet in many cases this essential relationship

doesn’t seem to have improved much. It is critical to agree on goals

at a high level (aligning, great!) but creating a valuable day to day

working relationship is what teams should strive for. But how?

ABM helps Marketing and Sales work more effectively because it

clearly requires a shared goal. But to drive success, teams need

ongoing collaboration. Teams doing ABM for a small set of target

accounts know this today. Often Field Marketing works very

closely with a Sales representative to understand the goal and how

BOTH of their efforts will drive meetings and ultimately win a deal.

When this type of working relationship exists, the conversation

switches from Sales vs. Marketing sourced deals to company

sourced deals. When you have team alignment, Marketing doesn’t

have lead commits, and Sales doesn’t have daily dial numbers. An

entire company sources the deal and closes the account together.

C H A P T E R 1

At Engagio, one of our main KPIs is what we call “SAM

Pipeline”. SAM stands for “Sales, ADR and Marketing” pipeline. It’s not just Marketing, Account Development or Sales that is held to the pipeline number – we’re all held accountable.

- Heidi Bullock, CMO, Engagio

Yet, managing change and implementing a different

approach to driving pipeline can be tricky. One of the most

significant challenges Marketing organizations face is how

to drive and operationalize a program with Sales.

Results from a recent Ascend2 study confirms this, with 50% of

respondents saying “Aligning Sales and Marketing initiatives” is a

top priority, and 38% saying it is a challenging barrier to success.

Source: Ascent2, 2018


C H A P T E R 1

This ebook will focus on how teams can leverage people,

processes and technology to help with adoption and success

of ABM to activate Sales. We’ve broken this ebook into three

steps to drive action, each with its own dedicated chapter:

Step 1: Structuring Your Team to Ensure Success

Step 2: Setting Up Key Business Processes

Step 3: Using Technology to Streamline Manual Activities

However, before we dive into the nitty-gritty detailed steps,

let’s first take a step back and examine the strategy.


C H A P T E R 2 : C L E A R A G R E E M E N T O N ‘ W H Y A B M ’

C H A P T E R 2

Clear Agreement on ‘Why ABM’ The first and very critical step for Marketers is to make

sure stakeholders - especially Sales - are bought into

what ABM is and how it can help them. More often than

not, Sales teams do not completely understand ABM

as it just sounds like a new marketing program.

ABM is great for Sales, specifically because it is all about

focus and energy on accounts they care about.

An account-based strategy depends on a partnership

with Sales and Marketing. This partnership helps to drive

awareness, activate accounts, create meetings, and show

Sales which accounts are the most engaged - so they know

where to spend their time. When done well, ABM can align

teams and investment around accounts that are the best

fit for your product and or services. This will result in:

• Larger deal size

• Expansion potential (upsell or cross-sell)

• Better customer retention

• Improved conversion rates

• Shorter sales cycles

It is important that teams driving an ABM initiative spend time

with respective groups and clearly convey how this strategy

can help them. Don’t assume everyone just “gets it.”

C H A P T E R 3 : S T R U C T U R I N G Y O U R T E A M T O E N S U R E S U C C E S S

C H A P T E R 3

Structuring Your Team to Ensure SuccessOnce key stakeholders are bought into ABM as a strategy,

it’s helpful to align everyone on what a positive outcome

looks like. Executives, Sales, and Customer Success should

all agree and provide input into the ‘ideal outcome’.

ABM is a team sport. The roles and responsibilities of your

team members are going to be different than traditional roles

within Sales and Marketing. Let’s start by first taking a look at

an overview of the roles that key departments play in ABM.

Once you have a clear understanding of your departmental

roles, you can go one level deeper and look at the

responsibilities of individuals within each department.

The good news is that you can leverage a lot of your

current team and their strengths to bolster your ABM

initiatives for quick wins and ongoing success.

Here is one example of an ABM team. You will notice most

these roles exist within your current organization already! If your

company has a heavy ABM emphasis, you may want a Head of

ABM. Yet, if you are just getting started or have a hybrid role you

may leverage current team members to run some ABM programs.

ABM Lead (e.g. Head of Marketing)

Spearheads the initiative

Develops playbooks and the technology infrastructure

needed

Tracks metrics and

cmmunicates program

successes

Product Marketing

Helps figure out the ICP

Ranks accounts based on

best fit for your

company

Marketing Manager

Runs the program mix: highly personalized

for tier-one accounts, somewhat personalized for tier-

two accounts, and itedpersonalization

for tier-three

Crafts account-specific emails and messages

Nurtures relationships

Supports sales

Marketing Ops/

Sales Ops

Tags accounts in CRM

Helps with data

appending to build out

contacts

Strategic Account

Manager (AE)

Drives the plan forward

with sales team and at the account

Helps shape the ABM

strategy and each tier-one account plan

Executive Sponsors

Provides deal/account

support to drive

engagement and deal closings


C H A P T E R 3

You can also evolve your team overtime if

Pilot - % of Teamfor Discreet Time

Goal - Showcase early wins, prove hypothesis

Dedicated %of Team for Ongoing Time

Goal - Scaling Success for Key Segments

Dedicated People or ABM Demand CenterGoal - Larger Roll Outs (Global)

RE

SU

LTS

TIME

that makes sense for the business.


C H A P T E R 3

Simple Pilot with Your Existing team

Another helpful approach when getting started with

ABM is doing it at a smaller scale first. Teams can

optimize processes, fix issues, and get reporting up and

running before ABM is executed at a larger scale.

Follow these simple steps for your ABM pilot:

1. Select a group of accounts with Sales. Start with a specific vertical, market segment, territory, etc.

2. Focus on the right message and content. Pick a persona or segment and flush out their pains/challenges, your value proposition, solutions, etc.

3. Move budget from poorly performing campaigns to fund ABM. You may also want to identify what programs will benefit most from ABM.

4. Develop a simple program.

a. Direct mail

b. Hyper-personalized emails

c. VIP events

5. Take a baseline and measure early. Set your success criteria, measure, optimize, then roll out more widely.

Key questions to ask during your pilot:

• Are the target accounts right?

• Is our messaging value prop working?

• Are our scoring/minutes working?

• Does Sales know how to read the reports and summaries?

• Has Marketing been soliciting continual feedback?

C H A P T E R 3


As with most things in business, saying something

doesn’t always make it so! We can’t just wake up

and decide to have our revenue teams be more

aligned. Here are a few select points that can make

coordination and running ABM more successful.

A. Set Clear Goals and Definitions

At the onset of an Account Based Marketing program, have a

hypothesis and establish a goal.

Here is a simple example:

Engagement

>80%Of target| accounts.

Sales App

>40%In cross-sell with Tier

One accounts

Pipeline

40%Of enterpriseinitial

pipeline from target

accounts.

Opportunity

Size

45%Increase in Opp size

with product line “A”

Win Rate

50%Higher for product line

“A” in target accounts

C H A P T E R 4 : S E T T I N G U P K E Y B U S I N E S S P R O C E S S E S

C H A P T E R 4

Setting Up Key Business Processes

It is also ideal to have a Plan of Record (POR).

Simple aspects to cover include:

• Definition for upsell/cross-sell

• Marketing contribution to pipeline

• Partner or Channel contribution to pipeline

• Sales contribution to pipeline

Figure out which accounts to pursue.

Your ability to map out a list of target accounts depends

on how each department defines their Ideal Customer

Profile. Get this wrong, and nothing else you do with

Account Based Marketing really matters. This definition is

the foundation for the whole program. If each team has a

different perspective, you’ll miss major opportunities, waste

resources (time, headcount) on the wrong accounts, or both.

To help mediate the discussion, leaders from Sales and

Marketing should discuss together the following questions:

Where have we sold most effectively in the past?

• Which kinds of accounts have proven most profitable over time?

• Which sub-industries do we work with today?

• What characteristics are most predictive of sales success?

• What attributes make for the best fit with our product?

• What traits should rule out an account?

• What kind of accounts play best to our unique strengths?

• Which accounts do we already have an advantage in?

• What accounts deliver the most value (including strategic value)?

• In addition, both parties should be mindful of firmographic and technographic criteria, as wellas intent and engagement information to identify in-market and highly engaged accounts.

C H A P T E R 4


After agreeing on important definitions, the next step

of aligning is speaking the same language.

Terminology does change.

It’s time to stop talking about leads and

start talking about accounts!

Marketing has been measured for years now on the

quantity and quality of the leads they’ve been asked to

deliver to Sales. We’ve developed a plethora of acronyms

to measure this delivery – MQL, SAL, SQL, and the like.

These metrics, under the traditional demand generation

model, put a huge amount of priority on casting a wide

enough net to reel in as many individual leads as possible,

especially through inbound methods. Companies use MQL to

designate a lead deemed worthy to be handed off to Sales.

ABM Metrics are different and:

• Focus on quality not quantity

• Are a Team effort

• Track accounts, not leads (MQAs, not MQLs)

• Measure time spent (engagement minutes)

• Track impact and influence more

than try to apportion “credit”

However, even the best, most optimized lead handoffs occur

between Marketing and an Account Executive – not a Lead

Executive. Sales, at the end of the day, closes an account – not

a lead. The metrics required for Account Based Marketing are

different than those used in demand generation – instead of

relating to an individual person, they align to target accounts.

Consider implementing a new metric to move the

conversation to a different level – Marketing Qualified Account

(MQA). One definition for an MQA is “A target account (or

discrete buying center) that has reached a sufficient level

of engagement to indicate possible sales readiness.”

C H A P T E R 4


While MQL relates to one lead, the MQA maps

to an account exhibiting buying signals.

The definition of a Marketing Qualified Account is at the

very foundation of ABM, which focuses our Sales and

Marketing efforts on a relatively small number of high-

value accounts that have the greatest revenue potential.

“For alignment, you have to step up and own metrics

that you may not be immediately comfortable with (and certainly don’t have complete control over), but are the metrics that your CFO recognizes and your organization

prioritizes. It would drive alignment of activity and metrics of culture inside of your marketing organization moving forward. You move from an environment of more – more leads, traffic, clicks, retweets – and focus more on the business of pipeline."

–Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing

C H A P T E R 4


B. Establish Service Level Agreements

We’ve talked about roles and responsibilities, and we’ve covered

definitions and language. Now, we must break down the silos

and align your team with Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

These are designed to establish agreement across the entire

team and, more importantly, align thinking and compensation

on comparable business results.

Example SLAs to consider:

• Set agreed upon definitions and criteria for key definitions, such as Marketing Qualified Account, Sales Qualified Account, close lost opportunity, inbound, and outbound

• Set agreed upon KPIs, metrics, and benchmarks.

• Establish dashboard and reporting that key members can easily access.

• Have clear rules around time for follow up and what qualifies as true outbound

Although your team is now on the same page and striving

for the same business results, you still have to hold them

accountable for the activities they do every day. This is going to

be different for each team. These activity metrics are going to be

slightly different, but they’re not unfamiliar. Decide what is going

to be important to your team, and use good judgment.

For example, measuring MQLs is no longer valid, but

inbound response time is still important for Marketing.

Measuring daily dials is no longer valid, but positive

conversations are still important for business development.

C. Document, Document, Document

If Sales doesn’t understand what Marketing does all day, and

Marketing feels the same about Sales, the problem is a severe

lack of empathy. The symptoms of this are broken processes

and a critical lack of trust.

In their book Aligned to Achieve, Tracy Eiler and Andrea Austin

from InsideView explain, “Alignment takes a good deal of

C H A P T E R 4


understanding each other’s roles, challenges, and actions. Both

Sales and Marketing rely on the other for high performance.”

By documenting an overview of the sales process, you can help

Sales and Marketing gain an understanding of their distinct roles

and how to work together towards a common goal.

Peter Buscemi, go-to-market strategy advisor, recommends

on his Four Quadrant blog, to “document the steps in the

sales process so it is clear what is to happen and when. The

steps identified in the sales process should also be included

in the salesforce automation system, serve as the framework

for sales enablement deliverables and be the footprint that

Marketing aligns to the customer buying process to facilitate

the development and execution of an integrated demand

generation plan.”

He continues, “A demand management best practice is for Sales

and Marketing to mutually agree on where a solid vertical line

should be drawn in the Sales process continuum to document

where Marketing and Sales have primary responsibility…

Marketing will run lead on certain tasks that are mutually agreed

upon and will be accountable for those steps, just as Sales will

be accountable for the steps after the hand-off.”

According to the Aberdeen Group, companies with good Sales

and Marketing alignment achieved 20% annual revenue growth

According to the Aberdeen Group, companies with good Sales and Marketing alignment achieved 20% annual revenue growth.

C H A P T E R 4


D. Foster Communication with Regular Meetings

We’ve heard horror stories about management deciding to

physically separate Sales and Marketing because they can’t get

along, or the ever-present problem of each department talking

about each other behind their backs.

Even the best SLA can’t help a fundamentally dysfunctional

relationship.

Like a good marriage, communication matters. In an episode of

Andy Paul’s sales effectiveness podcast, Bridget Gleason (VP of

Sales for Logz.io), describes how she’s been able to create an

open conversation and dialogue between Sales and Marketing.

“My team and I are very involved in the marketing planning

process through continual meetings with demand generation,

branding, content, and product managers. They’re part of my

time just as I’m part of their team. We also have weekly joint

Sales and Marketing office hours, which is a time for people to

come and ask questions. We feel it’s important for them to ask

us together as a team. What affects Marketing will affect Sales,

what affects Sales will affect Marketing.”

At Engagio, our Sales and Marketing teams have weekly

standups. Additionally, every quarter, executive leaders from

each team review progress against shared goals, and make

small adjustments to items like SLAs or metrics.

Maintaining a continuing conversation is a necessary part of

ensuring ongoing alignment, because as the market changes,

what buyers need changes. What Sales is learning needs to be

fed back to Marketing, and vice versa.

If the wide receiver on your football team never talked to your

running back, you’d be in trouble. While the run game is much

different than the pass game, if you want to be a real threat on

offense, both need to be working together.

C H A P T E R 4


C H A P T E R 5 : U S I N G T E C H N O L O G Y T O S T R E A M L I N E M A N U A L A C T I V I T I E S

C H A P T E R 5

Using Technology to Streamline Manual ActivitiesAfter you’ve aligned on strategy, defined your team, and aligned

on processes, the next step is to put the technology in place

that gives you the foundation of your ABM program. After that

you can then start delivering insights and activating Sales!

First, you must have a shared ‘system of record’ to track

accounts. It does not help coordination if Marketing tracks leads

but Sales tracks accounts – that is not going to help alignment.

For example, marketing automation systems are leadbased. It

makes it more challenging to report on marketing impact at the

account level, which is what is interesting to Sales. Make sure

you have an account foundation so you can have a complete

account view to track coverage, awareness, and engagement.

Now, let’s move on to proven processes that will help with acti-

vation. We’ll start with the simplest format to a more sophisticat-

ed way to work with Sales.

1. Email Report

So what if you have Sales reps that are not actively in a CRM

system or do not have an appetite for learning new technology?

Start with a simple email digest. Below is an example of the

emails that come from Engagio for Sales. They can quickly see

their most engaged accounts, top marketing activities, and most

engaged individuals.

Sales and and SDRs love engagement data as much as Market-

ing. They use it to:

• Identify engaged accounts

• Find the best people to contact next

• Understand how effectively Marketing

is supporting their efforts

• Prepare QBRs and other accounts reviews

Sales should access engagement data wherever they already

work – in CRM, email, LinkedIn, etc. – not just the analytics tool.

C H A P T E R 5


2. Reports Native in SFDC

For Sales reps that are active in CRM, they can easily access and

visualize their top accounts, most engaged people, and most

impactful programs.

C H A P T E R 5


3. Alerts and Digests

One thing that is very helpful for Sales is to get alerts when key

behaviors or actions occur with their key accounts.

This is a powerful feature that Engagio supports to not just align

with Sales but to help them in a way that is meaningful.

For example, there are triggered alerts.

When “X” happens, notify “Y”

This could be a new key persona added to a Tier 1 account list

or when two people from the same account fill out a form - end

an alert to the AE and the ADR/SDR.

Another form of this is if something interesting happens - set up

an activity alert or set up a subscription.

For instance, when a “Qualified Meeting” activity is logged in

SFDC, wait until the “End Date” of the activity and send a

reminder to the AE to complete the meeting outcome, copy the

ADR/SDR. Or, when a Tier 1 Account’s opportunity moves to the

“Proposal/Negotiation” stage and there is no engagement from

the VP/CXO in Marketing, send an alert to the VP of Sales.

C H A P T E R 5


A significant advantage of alerts is they help Sales act at the

right time versus days later, which could hurt a deal or part of

the process. The other benefit is many marketers will take on

ABM projects and not have a lot of experienvce working with

Sales.

Many Sales teams are distributed or in other countries - this is

ONE simple and powerful thing that is actionable. Sales knows

where to prioritize time and with the right accounts. They can

drive a meeting and see immediate impact. It is a great place to

start for ABM because getting Sales bought in and seeing the

benefit is step one. Once this is going, the marketing team can

layer in additional marketing tactics.

4. Stand Ups

Many marketing teams know they need to regularly meet with

Sales - but what should they cover? How can they keep the

attention of Sales and more importantly - how can they pull

meaningful insights without it taking weeks?

Stand Ups are regular meetings Marketing has with Sales. The

goal is to go over a set of accounts (could be a particular tier,

geography or vertical) and discuss the accounts that are en-

gaged and those that are not. Where does Sales need to follow

up - and where does Marketing need to drive engagement?

ABM Stand Up = time to collaborate on accounts to focus our

resources to win!

Who attends? AE, ADR and ABM Manager, along with CSM as

appropriate for existing customers.

Timing: Suggest every other week, so we have time between

Stand Ups to make good progress. This may depend on the

size of your Sales organization.

How will this help me? Ensure communication on your top

accounts and coordinate for success.

C H A P T E R 5


For a starting point, here are some ideas the teams can cover:

HOT ACCOUNTS – if there is an account that you KNOW the

Sales team could use help on, come prepared to discuss and

make sure stakeholders agree on an action plan – teams can

start with one account per Stand Up (can take on more as a

group gets rolling!)

FIND NEXT ACCOUNT TO FOCUS ON – Marketing and Sales

can also review accounts together at the Stand Up, and here are

some examples to start with:

• Most engaged accounts with no executive engagement – let’s agree on how to engage the execs needed!

• Most engaged accounts with no sales touches – let’s discuss next steps!

• Low engagement at a key account - how can we jumpstart?

DISCUSS KEY PROGRAMS – Teams can also use this time to

check in on current programs and review how they can be more

effective.

For example:

• Upcoming trade show or executive breakfast

• New direct mail program or meeting incentive program - how do accounts qualify?

REVIEW SUCCESSES and CHALLENGES – What is working and

what isn’t?

C H A P T E R 5


What about Logistics?

Marketing can track agreed to next steps in a ‘Stand Up’ Slack

channel

• Account Name / Key Action by Whom

• Not fancy write up - just get the info down in bullet points

• Review progress at next Stand Up

• Use the Slack channel between Stand Ups for any ideas you have, for example:

a. Seeing good engagement at X Account, let’s run Executive Connection Play or Value Workshop Offer

b. New Hire at Y Account, need Welcome CMO Play – Tier 1 very personalized

If someone in Marketing is very new to ABM - they can leverage

the Engagio Quick Cards for simple questions and then transfer

of knowledge (just email a link).

C H A P T E R 5


Prioritize Activities with Quick Cards:

Using Engagio, this is what a Marketer would do to look at

engaged accounts and those that need Marketing help.

C H A P T E R 5


Now, what about next steps? Take action!

Use a broad set of multi-channel capabilities for best results.

Automate processes with Salesforce and your marketing auto-

mation platform. Define and leverage “if this, then that” scenarios

to eliminate manual tasks and automate processes. You can

even schedule automations to run in real-time triggered off of

an event (think content download, visit webpage, etc.) or on a

recurring schedule.

Here are some other ideas:

For Highly Engaged Accounts:

ADR/SDR Reach Out

Sales Reach Out

Orchestrate Executive Connections

Meeting Incentive Play

Wake the Deal Play

For Low Engagement Accounts:

Contact Review – Iidentify gaps

Marketing Nurture

Display Ads

Door Opener Play

C H A P T E R 5


This is a nice example of what can be highlighted to executives

or other key stakeholders.

Bonus tips for those of you getting started with ABM and Stand-

Up meetings. It is also important to be clear about what these

meetings ARE NOT.

• Stand Ups are NOT for a full territory review, the

goal is to make progress on specific accounts.

• These will NOT replace meetings for rolling

out programs to the entire team. Do think

of this as our 1:1 ongoing time to connect and

make an impact on your specific accounts.

C H A P T E R 5


Here is a simple checklist to review with your team.

The goal of this list is to help teams coordinate and

ensure successful account-based programs.

• Get senior executive buy-in. Your ABM team will need their understanding and protection.

• Position the program as a new, collaborative and ongoing approach to acquire and expand big accounts, not as ‘the next big marketing campaign.

• Make sure the account executives, SDRs and marketers are 100% committed to this strategy. Anything less is a recipe for friction.

• Agree on the criteria for choosing accounts and the governance for when to add or remove accounts.

• Agree on the fraction of all resources that will go to your ABM accounts, perhaps starting with a pilot program.

• Agree on short-, medium- and long-term metrics that everyone will track together. Also agree on the metrics that don’t matter. Document this.

• Create an Account Plan for each Tier 1 account — a product of Sales and Marketing together.

• Hold weekly meetings in the early stages, relaxing to monthly meetings as the machine starts to hum.

• Let everyone know what’s happening. Tell the rest of the sales and marketing teams about what you’ll be doing and how they can help. Market your marketing.

C H A P T E R 6 : T H E S A L E S A N D M A R K E T I N G A L I G N M E N T C H E C K L I S T

C H A P T E R 6

The Sales and Marketing Alignment Checklist

3 0C O N C L U S I O N

ConclusionABM is a proven and effective strategy for revenue teams. It is about

focus and often engaging executives. While it may seem easy to

start with tactics first, the most critical step is being on the same

page with Sales and mapping out how teams will work together.

Ensuring Sales is clear on the benefits of ABM, how groups will

interact, and expectations is essential. We hope this eBook provided

some real-life and practical tips for activating Sales easier.

“Sales and Marketing – Both of you desperately need to empathize

with the other party. Those are the organizations that win. But that’s up to the head of marketing and the head of sales — to be aligned at the top and create the air-cover for their marketing and sales teams to be able to create a cohesive unit. And that’s what great alignment is.“

–Gary Vaynercheck, CEO, Vaynermedia

marketing and sales activation - engagio | b2b marketing … · 2019-04-22 · chapter 1 at...

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