Day two of Forrester’s B2B Summit 2024, done and dusted! And you know what they say: when in Texas, learn everything you can about next-gen B2B marketing practices. And boy, did we learn a lot.
If you weren’t able to attend yourself, don’t worry — we’ve got you covered.
Keep reading for our recap of our favorite sessions, including Tuesday’s keynote event, which sheds light on the vital role of embracing customer-centricity in fueling revenue and business growth.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | Keynote: Beyond The Breaking Point: It’s Time For A Revenue Transformation
Speakers: Amy Hawthorne, Principal Analyst, Forrester, and Rick Bradberry, Principal Analyst, Forrester
In Tuesday’s keynote session, two of Forrester’s principal analysts, Amy Hawthorne and Rick Bradberry, spoke in depth about why current approaches to revenue generation are at breaking point and what organizations that want to stand the test of time can do to fix it.
There’s one clear path to success: we need to do away with the conventional processes that we continue following because ‘that’s just how it’s done’ and start taking a customer-focused approach to opportunity generation and business growth.
That means leaving ineffective practices like siloed teams, MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), and internal credit metrics — which hinder revenue growth and customer satisfaction — in the rearview.
But if we’re letting go of everything we’ve known and trusted for the past millennia (give or take a few years), what are we replacing it with? Let’s break down everything Hawthorne and Bradberry shared in their session.
The issues with your current revenue processes
Fact: B2B teams are under pressure to continue increasing revenue growth year-on-year, but old-school formulas that fail to prioritize customer needs aren’t working anymore. Instead, businesses need to implement a unified approach that focuses on customer value throughout the entire opportunity lifecycle.
The long-term impacts of failing to make this change are clear: missing valuable opportunities leads to decreased revenue, potentially jeopardizing the longevity of the business.
But in the short term, how will continuing to rely on outdated practices impact your business? Let’s look at how popular yet ineffective go-to-market practices are impacting our teams.
1. An overreliance on MQLs causes confusion. MQLs often cause distractions and inefficiencies, as marketing and sales handoff leads without proper alignment.
92% of B2B buying decisions are made by a group of two or more people.
2. Siloed teams put up barriers. When different teams (marketing, sales, or customer success, for example) work in isolation, barriers to achieving shared revenue goals are created.
3. Too many people play the blame game. A lack of alignment between goals and metrics tends to lead to a culture of finger-pointing between marketing, sales, and customer success teams, with no one wanting to take responsibility for slowing growth.
It’s time to transform your revenue process
Organizations that want to win — and to win big — need to transform their revenue process to focus on customer value before commercial value and cultivate a shared culture of customer obsession. Here’s how.
1. Change the focus. Forrester says we all need to shift from prioritizing internal goals to viewing customer value as the primary driver of growth.
2. Change the work. By adopting cross-functional work techniques and aligned frameworks like the B2B Revenue Waterfall and Opportunity Lifecycle, organizations can become more customer-centric.
3. Change the culture. Cultivating a shared culture focused on delivering customer value and seamless collaboration makes these shifts feel seamless.
We all know that changing the culture can be tricky, especially when it’s deeply ingrained in work practices. Thankfully, Forrester shared some tips for supporting this change:
• Start new conversations. Break traditional behavior patterns by encouraging new insights and data-sharing across teams.
• Prioritize shared goals and metrics. Ensure all teams are working toward common customer-centric objectives.
• Always deliver on your promises. Consistently deliver value to customers, from pre-sale to post-sale stages. Over time, this will become your norm.
Frameworks, models, and cross-functional work techniques, oh my!
Now, it’s important to remember that these types of organizational changes don’t happen overnight. But with the help of the following frameworks, techniques, and tips shared by Forrester, you can transform your mindset, practices, and culture — and see real results.
Let’s start with three handy frameworks and models that Forrester uses to prioritize customers and supercharge growth:
1. B2B Revenue Waterfall. This handy framework is ideal for modeling and measuring progress through the opportunity lifecycle across teams.
2. Opportunity Lifecycle. Forrester’s Opportunity Lifecycle extends the Revenue Waterfall framework to include the post-sale phase and emphasizes customer engagement throughout.
3. Buying groups. By replacing individual MQLs with collective buying group signals, you can unlock more accurate targeting and engagement.
Next, let’s look at two handy cross-functional work techniques that promise to support alignment between teams — and improve customer experiences as a whole.
• Post-sale teams. To provide holistic customer support, these teams should include account managers, customer success specialists, customer marketing specialists, and sales engineers.
• Weekly cadence. Establishing regular meetings among frontline, executive, and operations teams will help improve planning and coordination.
And finally, here’s one bonus tip that will change how you go about securing stakeholder buy-in for the changes you want to make:
• Use insights to gain support from senior executives. “79% of business and technology professionals believe senior executives are willing to change their opinions if presented with insights that contradict their assumptions.”
Our big takeaway: Unified teams = unified customer experiences
To thrive in today’s rapidly evolving market, companies must embrace a unified opportunity lifecycle approach that prioritizes customer value and aligns marketing, sales, and customer success teams. By transforming the revenue process, organizations can deliver better customer experiences, increase retention, and achieve sustainable revenue growth.
Achieving a unified, customer-centric approach to revenue generation requires breaking down silos, aligning cross-functional teams, and transforming the revenue process with an integrated opportunity lifecycle that emphasizes customer value at every stage.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | Collaborative Go-To-Market Playbooks: From Insights To Action
Speakers: Katie Fabiszak, Principal Analyst, and Barbara Winters, VP and Principal Analyst
Next, our team joined a morning breakout session on evolving traditional go-to-market approaches. Speakers Katie Fabiszak and Barbara Winters led this engaging session on the challenges and how-to’s of creating effective GTM playbooks. Why not enjoy a cup of coffee while you mull over our top learnings?
Three challenges and how to overcome them in four steps
First up, what challenges will GTM teams face when creating a playbook?
• Siloed teams. For starters, teams need to shift from siloed functional planning to a collaborative, buyer-first approach if they want to provide seamless buyer experiences. However, when siloes are commonplace in many businesses, getting marketing, sales, and other functionalities to collaborate can prove a challenge.
• Unique playbooks. As each GTM strategy requires its own playbook, this process can become time-consuming. But it’s worth it!
• Standardization. Because each playbook is unique, creating standardized templates can be difficult, meaning you need to start from as close to scratch as possible each time.
Thankfully, you can overcome these challenges with Forrester’s collaborative GTM playbook process, which is broken down into four phases:
1. Prepare. Start by collecting critical inputs, like GTM pathways with goals, personas, buyer journey maps, and messaging.
2. Outline. Once you’ve gathered this critical information, it’s time to outline your ideal buyer experience. This phase includes designating a program manager, defining requirements and roles across teams, and identifying gaps in the buyer experience.
3. Build. Next, populate your playbook with the core information you’ve collected. Additional tasks include identifying shared output and impact metrics and creating functional plans for each team to guide them in supporting the proposed buyer experience.
4. Measure. Lastly, a review cadence and process for gathering feedback must be established. This provides a standardized method of analyzing performance, allowing you to easily adjust your GTM strategies based on your identified metrics and buyer feedback.
Quick-fire round!
Want to know more about elevating your GTM playbooks? Here are six bonus tips and best practices we noted down to help you on your way:
• A GTM playbook should include collaborative planning involving all functional teams.
• There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook, and each GTM strategy requires a unique playbook.
• A static playbook won’t suffice; playbooks should be dynamic, digital, and modular.
• Collaborating across teams will help build an integrated buyer experience.
• Always tailor each GTM playbook to the specific buyer personas and pathways it targets.
• Regularly review and refine playbooks based on shared metrics and feedback.
Our big takeaway: Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate
If you want to create an effective GTM playbook, you need to take a collaborative approach that involves all relevant stakeholders. As we all know, customers want connected experiences; the best way to deliver this is to ensure alignment between functions well before you hit ‘launch’ on any new strategy.
TL;DR: Get rid of silos and make sure you’re working cross-functionally!
ABM Won — So, What’s Next For B2B Marketing and Sales?
Speaker: Nora Conklin, Principal Analyst
Is ABM dead?
No, but Nora Conklin, principal analyst at Forrester, says that in five years, the term will be redundant.
Why? Not because ABM will disappear, but because its capabilities will have been accepted as the new norm for B2B sales and marketing functions.
ABMs success as a strategy has reached a point where it’s become BAU for many growth-minded businesses. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but let’s look at the data that backs this up.
– 99% report higher ROI in ABM vs. traditional marketing programs
– 85% say there is alignment between marketing and sales in an ABM context
What’s next for B2B marketing now that ABM has evolved beyond being a buzzword into a strategic growth engine? Here’s what Conklin shared with our team in their session.
The B2B landscape post-ABM
If you’re wondering what the next decade holds for B2B marketing, Conklin shared the top four trends they expect to see shaping all our futures.
1. Growth engine alignment. A trend we’ve seen throughout the Forrester summit is a focus on the customer. ABM will become integral to building a strong, customer-obsessed growth engine, as it can help align customer value across functions like marketing, sales, product, and customer success.
2. Strategic accounts will be redefined. We’ll likely see organizations begin to prioritize accounts based on their potential for profitable growth rather than short-term revenue opportunities, considering factors like cost of engagement and customer lifetime value.
3. Training and enablement will become a priority. Top-performing companies will continue emphasizing training in skills that align with future business success, such as strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, and communication.
4. Prioritizing buying groups will become the norm. Marketing teams will shift from a lead-focused approach to prioritizing buying groups. Plus, greater alignment across marketing, sales, and customer success will make it easier for buyers to navigate the purchasing process.
B2B marketing’s biggest challenges… and how to overcome them
Before we can discuss what actions next-gen organizations will want to consider taking, let’s talk through the challenges we’ll all need to navigate in the next state of play.
• The process obstacle comes down to utilizing insights. Many businesses still experience difficulties in understanding and operationalizing insights. That means we need to take extra steps to become fully insights-driven.
• The biggest people problem is a lack of alignment beyond ABM. While alignment in organizations with ABM teams is high, marketing alignment remains low outside the ABM context.
Taking into account the four core B2B trends Conklin identified, here are four actionable strategies we want to see organizations interested in maintaining their growth put into practice:
1. Align your ABM strategies with business objectives. If you want to find cohesion beyond ABM contexts, you need to align your ABM strategies with those that impact the wider business.
42% of sales leaders feel a lack of strategic alignment with marketing or other functions is the most significant challenge to their organization’s sales enablement function.
2. Invest in continual training and enablement. The soft skills most critical to ABM, like strategic thinking and communication, need to be instilled across the growth engine.
3. Leverage all your data and insights. How you use buyer insights will make or break your B2B marketing strategy. Make sure to leverage everything available to you.
4. Implement marketing sufficiency metrics. If you want to measure the cost of engagement, you’ll need to implement new and improved metrics to help you gather the relevant data.
Our big takeaway: ABX is next
At B2B IQ, we like to keep our finger on the pulse of B2B marketing trends. As ABM continues to dominate and customer-centricity becomes increasingly important in marketing contexts, a new holistic approach has emerged: account-based experience, or ABX.
Organizations that want to spread their wings and future-proof their marketing sales efforts can expand their ABM functions, integrating their strategies across the customer growth engine. If that sounds like you, watch this space!
And if you missed day one, check out our recap here, where we cover:
• Next-gen buyers (and how they’re creating a new BAU).
• The importance of prioritizing opportunities over leads.
• The power of audience segmentation.
What’s next?
Stay tuned and follow B2B IQ for more insights from this week’s summit! We’re buzzing with excitement and can’t wait for the last day of the event.