This virus is costing the world $2.7 trillion dollars and it’s affecting businesses by slowing them down.With the shift to inside sales, marketing and B2B teams are being pulled in different directions.In the current market, sales and marketing must work together to be effective. Let’s dive more on how to enable smart ABM plays in turbulent times.
Need Help Automating Your Sales Prospecting Process?
LeadFuze gives you all the data you need to find ideal leads, including full contact information.
Go through a variety of filters to zero in on the leads you want to reach. This is crazy specific, but you could find all the people that match the following:
- A company in the Financial Services or Banking industry
- Who have more than 10 employees
- That spend money on Adwords
- Who use Hubspot
- Who currently have job openings for marketing help
- With the role of HR Manager
- That has only been in this role for less than 1 year
Why Account-Based Marketing Is the Correct Response
Viruses and the domino effects they cause make it difficult to maintain a healthy lead generation and sales pipeline because of inbound marketing alone.
The chart below shows the drop in web traffic for multiple industries from week to week.
Web traffic is down across the board. Conversions rates are also on a decline.
Businesses are playing defense in the face of public scrutiny, and account-based marketing is key to steady revenue.
Sales and marketing teams should work together, which encourages empathy-driven approaches to lead generation. This will result in personalized messages being sent out.
I want to tell you about how sales reps can help marketers during the COVID-19 crisis.
Create Crisis-Countering ABM Plays
It is important for everyone in the company to understand how ABM plays works, especially sales and marketing leaders because they are key players.
With ABM plays, sales and marketing teams need to work together more than ever.
When brainstorming, it’s important to take note of the following:
- There are many resources available to each department for ABM plays initiatives. This will help the departments in a crisis without blowing your marketing and sales budgets.
- Sometimes, the team needs to change depending on what is happening. For instance, COVID-19 has led outside salespeople to go into offices instead of working from home.
- Benchmarks have been changed to reflect a recent survey of 250+ business executives. In the survey, only 30% reported growth as a priority during COVID-19.
With the points above, its easier to understand how ABM plays initiatives can still be successful in a volatile marketplace.
Help Marketers Make Tailored Content for Accounts You Target
A lot of B2B companies rely on in-person events and traditional marketing. They spend the majority of their budget there, but its not an option now that COVID-19 is around.
With so many people at home nowadays, it’s important to be able to learn or solve problems on your own.
They are also working on digital marketing and inside sales.
Now is not a time to be aggressive or hard-selling.
It’s important to think about the motivations of your content and how it will affect people.
Sales reps can work closely with marketing to provide the best content possible for their buyers.
COVID-19 is an event for content marketing professionals. Sales reps should sit down with marketers to find out what customers need.
Supply Your Marketing Team with Useful Sales Data and Insights
Adaptive ABM plays mean acknowledging change, crafting a message tailored to the customer and delivering content that is relevant.
Sales reps can help marketers with ABM by providing them the relevant sales data.
1. CRM info from high-value accounts
Although it can take some time to populate the right information in a CRM, this is good for sales reps because they have more access to marketing strategies.
You have to know which company you’re targeting before marketing campaigns start.
2. Ground-level talks with customers and prospects
COVID-19 led many companies to change their approach.
After speaking with their customers, sales reps can determine how operations have changed and marketers can use this information to create personalized content for target accounts.
3. The reason behind the not sold status
When a salesperson can’t close a deal, they should talk to the lead and find out why.
Understanding what customers are looking for will help sales reps address future objections, but it also gives marketing insight into the language they use and problems they’re trying to solve.
Find Social Proof to Gop Against Defensive Spending
Testimonials, case studies and referrals are all good ways to market in the B2B environment.
They provide customers with a sense of security. Its especially helpful during periods where companies want to cut back on unnecessary risks and expenses.
By asking for testimonials, case studies and referrals from their customers, sales reps can provide marketers with the social proof they need to be successful in ABM.
When hiring salespeople, I recommend to focus on past-customers who resemble the accounts youre targeting. This way marketing can make messaging more relevant and decision makers are more likely to say yes.
Conclusion
It takes a village. This saying couldnt be more true in these chaotic times.
To be successful, Sales and Marketing need to help each other. When talking with customers they should: -highlight the strengths of their partner department -show how both departments work together for a better customer experience
- Empathy is a tough trait to come by, but it does help in the workplace. It’s not about being tactful or understanding – you need to focus on helping people who are going through some hard times.
- When youre faced with problems, dont focus on the problem. Think about solutions and how to fix them.
- Pay attention to your customers needs in the moment. Listen and adapt, because success is determined by how well you can take advantage of opportunities when they arise.
Need Help Automating Your Sales Prospecting Process?
LeadFuze gives you all the data you need to find ideal leads, including full contact information.
Go through a variety of filters to zero in on the leads you want to reach. This is crazy specific, but you could find all the people that match the following:
- A company in the Financial Services or Banking industry
- Who have more than 10 employees
- That spend money on Adwords
- Who use Hubspot
- Who currently have job openings for marketing help
- With the role of HR Manager
- That has only been in this role for less than 1 year
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