Revenue weighs heavy on the minds of B2B Sales leaders right now, and understandably so. Especially in times of uncertainty, growing (let alone predicting) revenue is a top strategic priority for most. Here at 6sense, we’re here to help you enable your Sales team with the confidence to “keep on truckin,’” despite the trying times we’re in, and provide you with proven strategies and tactics to stay competitive.
We recently launched a research report, the State of Predictable Revenue Growth, with thought partners at Heinz Marketing, based on survey data from senior and C-suite Sales and Marketing leaders. The report sheds light on the challenges that organizations face of all shapes and sizes when it comes to creating a predictable revenue growth engine.
Based on our research, we’ve broken down the journey to predictable revenue growth into 4 key stepping stones.
1. Align Sales and Marketing (and not just in theory)
Being theoretically “on the same page” is different from true alignment on accounts. Many misaligned Sales and Marketing teams operate using different datasets, platforms, and metrics. For example, our report found that 42% of organizations lack consensus on their target account list. Not being on the same page with what you’re tracking (and how) makes it particularly difficult for your operations teams, who are critical to the revenue growth journey.
Getting Sales and Marketing aligned on ideal customer profiles, target accounts, and KPIs and operating as one “revenue team” allows you to better orchestrate account engagement.
2. Shine a light on the “dark funnel” so you can proactively target your ICP
While goals grow and budgets shrink, you may not have visibility into your full funnel, leaving your reps stuck working bad leads and static accounts. Meanwhile, demand gen marketers rely on inbound leads to fuel your pipeline. Think of inbound marketing like fishing with a net — sometimes you get lucky and attract the right buyer, but often you end up with a bunch of unsuspecting minnows (and miss the bluefin tuna you were hoping for).
Now is a great time to reset expectations and processes on your team with an account engagement strategy — it’s like fishing with a spear, by identifying anonymous and known accounts that are conducting research on you, your competitors, and your market space, so you can target just the right in-market buyers.
Once you identify the right buyers, how will you engage them? Content is (still) king, especially right now. Our research found that less than half (48%) of revenue teams are equipped to deliver personalized content experiences. This is a golden opportunity to stand out from the pack, by delighting prospects and customers with richer, more personalized content, just when they need it most.
3. Reimagine demand generation
Our study found that many Sales teams struggle to prioritize resources effectively, investing too much time and budget working the wrong leads and accounts. In fact, we found that 1 in 3 account-driven teams lack a defined strategy for choosing target accounts.
By digging deeper into buyer insights, with the help of a solution like 6sense, you can prioritize the best actions. When the time is right to target an account, you can easily structure your campaigns and sales cadences based on things like keywords buyers have been researching, recent interactions they’ve had with your brand, and the structure of their buying committee.
4. Target the right buyers with a great experience
The last challenge we uncovered from surveying the field is the inability for Sales teams to engage the right buyers at scale. Even account-driven teams struggle: 9 in 10 said they have difficulty orchestrating their ABM program across multiple channels and tools.
Rethink the way your team engages with buyers and break through the current noise with personalized messages. Customer/prospect experience is the name of the game in today’s climate. Embrace an account engagement strategy that leans on AI to understand the best accounts to target, who is on the buying committee, and the best time and way to engage and add value for those individuals.
Want to learn how top Sales teams are creating predictable revenue growth? Check out these stories.
