Tip #1:

Get your Data Foundation right, and get it in place early.

B2B companies spend from 10s to 100s of $1000s procuring data. Getting individual marketing and sales teams (including BDRs) to “buy their own” data is the fastest way to make a complete mess of your MAP, CRM and other critical systems and tools. Another issue we often see is mis-alignment of data licenses, licenses for the wrong users, missing data management and de-duping tools, versus the right combination of licenses and tools so it’s both cost-efficient, and time-efficient (i.e. increased day-to-day productivity) across all the teams.

At Kwanzoo, we have also developed a specific point-of-view (POV), and process around data acquisition, management and use that is a significant departure from prevalent industry practices. B2B companies, in our view, must procure all the data that fits the Company’s or  Line of Business’s Ideal Account/Customer Profile (IAP / ICP) upfront. It’s essential to have well-thought-out, documented and widely shared specifications on accounts, buyer personas, technographics, intent data topics, targeting keywords, and more.

Tip #2:

All the Intent data you have is only as good as how it’s operationalized.

There’s the old adage that Companies spend a lot on marketing, except they often don’t know what marketing tactics really worked!  The same goes for Intent data. B2B companies often source Intent data from multiple providers, where each source provides a list of accounts to pursue, that have been  scored against a specific topic (e.g. Cloud Security). But then, how do they know what intent data source truly delivered?

A key challenge for marketers is building a combined account list that spans all intent data sources around a specific topic. From there, it’s a real challenge operationalizing the data in an easy-to-consume and easy-to-activate way across marketing and sales (SDRs, sales reps). Another challenge is tracking the downstream impact in the CRM. How can we tell if the accounts showing intent are in fact converting into opportunities and deals at a higher rate than accounts that were simply prioritized based on engagement through other marketing tactics?

Tip #3:

LinkedIn paid media is expensive. Make it count.

As a B2B company, the wrong way to advertise on LinkedIn is to focus on just generating leads at several $100s per lead. The right way to advertise is to build out LinkedIn matched audiences. Create segments of approximately 100 accounts + specific contacts that match your key buyer personas. Setup your audience in the following format per buyer:

• Format
  Email,firstname,lastname,jobtitle,employeecompany,country,appleidfa,googleaid
• Sample Data
  john@linkedin.com,John,Smith,Sales Manager,LinkedIn,US,AECE52E7-03EE-455A-B3C4-E12345678999,beks52E7-05ee-321b-d5e6-a12345678999

If your team is unable to execute this plan, their core issue, that’s easily solved, is to get access to relevant account and buyer profile data with all the key fields and attributes listed above. With typical costs of $55 to $70 or more in cost-per-thousand ads (CPM), a matched audience is the most effective way of investing your LinkedIn budget to maximize results.

Potential Savings: 40% to 60% of your LinkedIn paid media budget for generating similar outcomes using other tactics on LinkedIn.

Tip #4:

Know your segments, and get everyone on the same page.

Much of the chaos that we have seen within B2B marketing and sales teams is the lack of a centralized, coordinated specifications and taxonomy for building out segments (accounts and contacts). It’s essential to establish a documented, clearly understood process  to define, build, activate and manage segments through a range of channels and tactics (marketing nurture emails, website, programmatic display, LinkedIn, social, sales outreach, content syndication, and more). Segments should additionally incorporate all available insights (first party engagement, third party intent signals).

Tip #5:

Light up your funnel. It’s not as dark as it used to be anymore.

Many growth and demand marketers have forever been seeking the “holy grail” - the “last mile” resolution of buyers on their website, where they can in fact identify who exactly is visiting, even if they have never ever filled out a form. Some in the industry call this the “Dark Funnel”. It’s now time to light it up! 

You can now source and build out a “first party audience” that covers your entire IAP/ICP. You can additionally set up the tech and process that will allow you to identify a significant portion of your website visitors, who may have been “dark” and unknown to you earlier.

Tip #6:

Build all conversations by segment, persona and funnel stage, and operationalize across all customer facing teams.

The most common segments at B2B companies are by company size (SMB, mid-market, enterprise), industry, or product/solution. Add a funnel-stage overlay (unaware, engaged, qualified, opportunity, customer) and an intent-data overlay, so you focus your marketing spend to a set of accounts that are at the same funnel stage, and are potentially in-market based on their behavior as tracked by third party intent providers.

Now add to this a Persona overlay as you build messaging and design content and conversations to engage a set of target contacts with similar personas at an account segment.

Tip #7:

Retargeting is not a one-size-fits-all. Stop having broken conversations.

One of the lowest cost tactics to engage prospects other than through marketing emails is retargeting prior visitors to your website. Many B2B companies take the easy way out and simply retarget ALL visitors to their website with the SAME set of messages. This is a huge missed opportunity. 

With a little bit of upfront work, you can plan out different retargeting conversations with different audiences that are being clearly pursued through various active campaigns at your Company.  Plan upfront and build smaller retargeting cookie-based audiences, who have similar characteristics. They fit a specific account segment, are interested in a common set of products/solutions, or are similar buyer personas. 

Tip #8:

Yesterday’s attribution models simply won’t work for today’s account-based world.

We see many Companies continue to struggle with defining how they will measure the effectiveness of their marketing programs, and the return on their investment into different marketing channels and campaign tactics. 

In today’s account-based world, you will want to track how not just individual leads, but accounts are progressing down a funnel (Unaware -> Engaged -> Qualified -> Opportunity -> Closed/Won Deal). But you cannot just stop there. It is essential to develop the “complete picture” on buyer engagement across ALL of the key buyer personas (a.k.a the buying group) that need to be targeted at a specific account.

Tip #9:

No single “account resolution” source has all the answers!

Combine data across multiple resolution sources to make ABM and GTM really work! 

As B2B companies increasingly adopt account-based go-to-market tactics, the success of their programs is significantly dependent on the efficacy of tracking that is supported by their tech and systems. Another challenge for companies is the varying level of efficacy of “account resolution” (the ability of the tech to report on buyer engagement associated to a specific account) depending on the data sources used by the tech.

Tip #10:

Rationalize your GTM tech stack, at least once a year. 

The new CMO at a mid-size B2B SaaS company recently asked us to help with a quick 30-day GTM Assessment. One of our discoveries very early in the process was that they had multiple platforms and tools with similar capabilities. Some of the overlap was due to their recent acquisition of a smaller business. The other key reason was silo-ed purchases of tools by different groups across the marketing and sales organization, and across their lines of business.

What this forward thinking CMO realized was that they needed more “ABM” and “GTM” DNA within their teams. He wanted to quickly up-level his team’s execution capability. The CMO recognized that they could use some guidance on best practices around building and leveraging a modern go-to-market (GTM) tech stack to maximize outcomes. He was additionally open to redefining their GTM process and blueprint, and taking the steps to make changes across the organization.