Buying groups are larger and more complex
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 6:24 am
This is critical information for any B2B CMO, and I’d love to hear your thoughts (agree or disagree) in the comments. Why marketing-sourced pipeline is flawed In my Marketo days, I preached that the quickest path to CMO credibility and respect was to “take a seat at the revenue table”, which meant directly connecting marketing investments to pipeline and revenue. (Note: I always talk about marketing investment, never spending, since we want people to think of marketing as an investment and not a cost center.) In those days, the model of sales and marketing alignment was a relay race, in which marketing would generate, nurture, and score a lead, then pass it like a baton to an SDR, who in turn would pass it to sales as a marketing-sourced opportunity.
It was fairly easy to show how more marketing bulgaria whatsapp phone number investment would generate more leads, and therefore more marketing-sourced pipeline and revenue. That’s how I would set and defend my marketing budget in the early days of Marketo. The baton handoff model made sense back then, when deals were relatively low value and high velocity, and were often sold to a single decision maker. But it increasingly doesn’t make sense today, especially for more complex, higher value deals. (the most recent data from Gartner says 14 members on average, roughly half “active” and half “occasional”).
And effective account-based motions demand marketing and sales orchestration at every step of the journey, pre- and post-opportunity. This includes SDRs and AEs prospecting into target accounts that are also getting marketing touches, AEs inviting key prospects to field events, and SDRs helping to set meetings and staff the booth at a tradeshow. A better model for sales and marketing alignment today is a soccer team, in which players in different positions pass the ball back and forth as it moves up and down the field. In this model, you don’t give credit to any one touch, any more than you give the credit for a goal to any one kick from any specific player.
It was fairly easy to show how more marketing bulgaria whatsapp phone number investment would generate more leads, and therefore more marketing-sourced pipeline and revenue. That’s how I would set and defend my marketing budget in the early days of Marketo. The baton handoff model made sense back then, when deals were relatively low value and high velocity, and were often sold to a single decision maker. But it increasingly doesn’t make sense today, especially for more complex, higher value deals. (the most recent data from Gartner says 14 members on average, roughly half “active” and half “occasional”).
And effective account-based motions demand marketing and sales orchestration at every step of the journey, pre- and post-opportunity. This includes SDRs and AEs prospecting into target accounts that are also getting marketing touches, AEs inviting key prospects to field events, and SDRs helping to set meetings and staff the booth at a tradeshow. A better model for sales and marketing alignment today is a soccer team, in which players in different positions pass the ball back and forth as it moves up and down the field. In this model, you don’t give credit to any one touch, any more than you give the credit for a goal to any one kick from any specific player.