Vladimir Blagojević's Linkedin Analytics

Nine pillars of 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲. (a.k.a the market ecosystem) 1. The buying committee @ ICP accounts A typical buying committee structure: 👤 Champions - promote your solution internally  👤 Decision-makers 👤 Influencers who don’t take part in research or negotiations, but participate in vendor evaluation and provide feedback on your offering. 👤 Blockers are the buying committee members who are not interested in your solution or might see a danger to themselves. Look at the top-10 accounts and create a typical buying committee structure. 2. Buyer journey topics and questions Research & interview these buyers about how they discover, evaluate and buy a product like yours. Collect all the topics, questions and objections throughout the buying journey. 3. Insiders & connectors Senior buyers may be difficult to reach, and mistrustful of vendors' marketing messages. But they are surrounded by people that they delegate research to, ask for advice, respect and follow. The first group are their colleagues that influence the deal, can provide insight or connect you to key stakeholders. 4. Industry peers People trust their peers more than they trust vendors. Our buyers often mention they discovered our content because someone from their network engaged or shared it. Drive thought leadership and conversations in the industry, so your brand or content get recommended. 5. Industry influencers Not YouTubers or Instagram influencers with ton of followers. Industry influencers can be leaders in renown companies, or even micro-influencers in a location. 6. Niche media Since we started as an unknown brand three years ago, being invited to speak to dozens of events and podcasts has helped grow awareness and credibility of our brand. Include niche media in your audience and marketing strategy. 7. Communities & associations B2B buyers are asking for recommendations in industry communities. Include community owners and associations. 8. Partner brands Andrei and I quickly grew our audience using partner events with MarTech brands like Demandbase, Sendoso and Chili Piper. 9. Watering holes Instead of jumping on new trends, ask your customers where they like to hang out and learn. Find your key channels, and master them one by one. For each channel, understand the key topics and the complete ecosystem of influencers and peers that will help you get your message in front of the right people. --- The big tech has stripped the way marketers view audience to criteria such as demographics, firmographics, interests or keywords... They reduce your organic reach and hide data, pushing you to just "trust their algorithm to optimize (=spend) your budget. Don't let them narrow down your marketing to a few criteria, algorithms and AI. Consider the audiences that your buyers already trust much more than paid media. Market to a complete ecosystem.

"You cannot generate demand. A prospect has a need, or they don't".  Yes and no. WHAT YOU DON'T CONTROL: 1. BUYERS’ PRIORITIES - High priority business objectives  - Current focus areas & strategic initiatives 2. NEEDS & PROBLEMS - Their challenges - Current perception of how severe or critical 3. EXTERNAL FACTORS - Market changes, regulatory shifts, and competitive activity - M&As, changes in leadership or organizational structure 4. SOLUTION DISCOVERY - Where & how they discover solutions - Who they trust and who influences them - Which competitors they know of, and their perception - Procurement requirements and limitations 5. BUDGET & RESOURCES - Current budget and team allocation - Timing of budget planning, resource allocation & review cycles 6. DECISION MAKING - Who makes decisions - How decisions are prioritized  - The pace of decision making - Their procurement process - Internal politics WHAT YOU CAN INFLUENCE: Awareness of: - Opportunities they were not aware of - Mistakes they‘re making - Cost of inaction - How solving the problem aligns with broader organizational goals - How external changes impact the status quo, and how the winning companies adapt - Different ways of solving the problem they might have not considered - Requirements and purchase criteria they didn’t initially include - What it takes to implement a solution, and how you help And:  - Their internal business case, perceived ROI & value - Perception of your ability to deal with change management and implementation, and your trustworthiness as a partner - Awareness in the buying center WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL - Researching your best customers - Your messaging & positioning - Developing a POV and a strategic narrative  - Your content & consistency - Prioritizing channels your buyers actually use  - Co-creating with brands and people they trust  - Working with your champion on mapping threats to high priority business objectives, the buying center, and on co-creating a business case - Positioning your brand and people as trusted advisors through thought leadership - Creating compelling case studies w/ financial, operational, or strategic outcomes - Proactively addressing concerns, reducing perceived risks, and answering objections - Multi-threading & engagement strategy *** Call it demand generation or don’t—I don’t really care. We've started back in 2020. Nobody heard about FullFunnel (or full-funnel ABM). Since then, we’ve built a full-funnel demand generation program that generated: - 8-figure pipeline and 7-figure revenue - 100K LinkedIn followers, 25K newsletter subscribers, 15K+ subscribers for our online events - Speaking gigs at 30+ events & podcasts During Q1, we documented our process in detail and published a new on demand course. A few more days available at a special launch price:  https://lnkd.in/dcaX6C6Q

𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝟐𝐁 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: - Run keyword research - Briefly consider buyer personas - Write a long form article - Wait to see if it will rank - Wait to see if the traffic will convert into leads - Wait to see if the leads will convert into sales The feedback loop is looong. 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝟐𝐁 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 1. Buyer-centric content strategy Core principle - mapping content to the buyer journey, based on: ✅ Target account use-cases, challenges & priorities ✅ Level of intent ✅ The goal (actions we want buyers to take) 2. Social-first (1:MANY - NO BUYING INTENT) - You post thought leadership and expertise content on social - You immediately see if the post resonates - You immediately see if the engagement can be turned into conversations with the relevant ICP - Very soon you can see whether those conversations lead into sales conversations 3. Regular long-form, multi-channel (1:MANY - NO BUYING INTENT) Now that you know which content resonates, you can easily repurpose. And that's exactly what we do with our newsletters, articles, webinars, and podcasts episodes. (this way you start creating "I see you everywhere" effect in your market). 4. Demand Generation & Solution Positioning (1:FEW - MEDIUM INTENT) Goals: ✅ Help buyers connect the dots between their challenges and your solution. ✅ Showcase different solutions and position yours as the best. ✅ Move them from research to active engagement. Examples: - Cluster + Jobs-To-Be-Done Specific content (e.g. How to successfully replicate your pilot ABM program with the regional teams). - Detailed industry case studies with our clients: video interviews + content summary, where we review specific ABM programs in detail. 4. Demand Capture & Deal Development (1:1 - HIGH INTENT) Goals: ✅ Position your product as a solution to specific challenges of a target account ✅ Enable champions helping them sell internally ✅ Address specific objections and concerns Examples: - Fully personalized business cases and solutions for a specific account - Arguments for multiple stakeholders (e.g. how sales will benefit from ABM, etc). --- The main difference? - Content aligned with the buyer journey & challenges of high value accounts - Quick feedback loop - Content used by sales to start convos & win deals

Demand capture aligned with the buyer journey.  (and optimized for buyer experience) 1. REMOVE FRICTION Typical buying experience:  - Dismiss cookie banner - Close chatbot pop-up - Start reading the headline — get interrupted by a slider - Re-read 3x to figure out what the company does - Go to the "pricing" page without pricing info - Give up and try the chatbot - No answers, just demo booking - Click away - See their display ads for weeks - Delete follow-up emails - Hear from someone about the product - Book a demo - Answer SDR's questions - Don't get answers - Get handed off to an AE - Answer the same questions again - Finally see the demo and pricing - Realize it’s not a fit — and they could’ve just told you that in step 1 Fewer friction points = more demand capture. 2. CAPTURE INTENT SIGNALS 📌 Website Traffic & Social Engagement - Visits to high-intent pages (pricing, case studies, demo page) - Repeat visits from specific named accounts - Engagement with relevant content on social 📌 Event & Webinar Attendance - Signing up for a webinar, especially if it’s late-stage content (e.g., ROI analysis, customer case studies). - Attending industry events where your company has a presence. 📌 2nd Party Intent Data (Review Sites & Directories) - Accounts researching your category on G2/Capterra - Comparing your solution with competitors 📌 3rd Party Intent Data (Paid Platforms & ABM Tools) - Platforms like 6sense or Demandbase detecting increased activity in your category - Spikes in engagement across multiple stakeholders in an account. Next, align the action with the level of intent. 3. INBOUND DEMAND CAPTURE This is what the majority of B2B companies focus on the most: capturing existing demand on high intent channels: - Search Intent Capture (Google Ads & SEO) - Review & Directory Listings (optimized listings, reviews, paid promo) - Qualified Retargeting (CTA, product marketing, socia proof...) 4. ALLBOUND DEMAND CAPTURE To make Allbound demand capture work, you need documented playbooks that outline: 📌 Which signals matter? - Define what counts as low, medium, and high intent. 📌 What action should be taken? - What should marketing do? - What should sales do? - What content should be shared? 📌 What next steps should follow? - If an account engages or responds, what’s the next logical CTA? - If they don’t respond, how do we continue nurturing? --- Demand capture gets the majority of marketing $$$. And yet, most teams suffer a terrible ROI. Why? - Only focusing on demand capture = low conversion, high CAC, commodity perception - Friction kills the ROI  - No allbound capture = leaving money on the table (especially for enteprise deals) #demandgen #b2bmarketing

How we're making long sales cycles even longer. Sure, there's a bunch of things OUTSIDE our control that's making the buying cycles longer and more complex. But to make things worse, a few outdated or  broken practices are making cycles even longer: 1. Friction everywhere - Confusing, vague websites without showing what the product actually does  - Lack of pricing information   - Booking a demo is a hassle - Unnecessary hand-off 2. Lack of brand awareness slows down everything The number one complaint that I hear from sales teams? Lack of awareness and recognition of our brand from our target accounts. Why? 1) Buyers ignore their outreach, perceiving them as “yet another rep” trying to sell them something.  2) Being late to the party (since the vast majority of B2B buyers short-list a product BEFORE they tart their research) 3) They “lose on brand”. Buyers (especially corporate ones) don’t want to risk their social capital on an unknown brand. When there is no brand awareness early in the process, you’re fighting an uphill battle. If your company isn’t consistently present in the places your buyers pay attention to—through industry conversations, peer recommendations, and valuable content—you’ll be left scrambling to get the attention, and if you do, to prove the credibility late in the game. 3. Internal buying committees drag things out (especially when you don’t enable champions) Today, buying committees often have six, ten, sometimes even more stakeholders—each with different priorities and concerns. That means your champion actually "sells" your product internally to a whole group of people And if you’re not helping them with buyer enablement, the deal stalls. Or worse, they’ll go with a competitor who made it easier for them to say yes. 4. Unqualified sales reps make it even harder A lot of sales teams aren’t equipped to handle today’s complex buying journeys. In the rush to scale, many companies hire junior SDRs and AEs who: - Don’t deeply understand the product or industry - Follow scripts focused cursory qualification questions, instead of having real discovery conversations - Default to pushing for a demo instead of helping the buyer - Can’t answer in-depth technical or ROI-related questions And the result? Buyers don’t trust them, leave with open questions, and focus on vendors whose teams genuinely help them move forward. --- Sales cycles are getting longer, and many companies experience: - Declining pipeline with rising CAC - Unpredictable inbound with many non-ICP leads with low revenue potential - Miserable marketing-sourced pipeline We just published a new guide on how to generate demand and win enterprise customers with long and complex sales cycles:  https://lnkd.in/dyD_JSZW

If GTM=production line, revenue=output.  To scale, fix the bottlenecks. Optimize 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦. Imagine your B2B go-to-market system as a production line¹:  - Input = target ICP accounts - Output = revenue - Throughput = sales velocity (revenue GTM generates in a quarter/year) 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐘 𝐓𝐎 𝐎𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐙𝐄 (𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐔𝐄) - Add more input (target more accounts) - Optimize locally (more MQLs / leads / meetings / demos) The result? - Many leads don't convert to sales  - Unpredictable pipeline  - AEs — the most expensive resource — chase low-value accounts, struggle with low win rates  - Missed revenue targets 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌 The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In any production system, there are always constraints — the true bottlenecks that limit the entire system's throughput. They show up as a build up of materials in front of a production machine.  (shown as the "red", bottlenecked accounts on the video below). But symtoms can mask the root causes. Here are root bottlenecks we see frequently. 1. PRIORITIZATION Simply increasing volume only causes more accounts to get stuck ("engaged", but not moving to pipeline and deals). Instead, prioritize acconts that: - We can reasonably win & retain (best-fit) - Have high revenue potential - Are more likely to have an active need 2. AWARENESS Symptoms of low brand awareness:  - Low response rates - High CAC - Sales lose deals "on brand" Most buyers shortlist vendors they discover (=awareness) BEFORE they start the buying process. 3. DEMAND GEN Beyond lack of awareness, demand gen often suffers from: - Targeting, messaging, and content misaligned with prioritized accounts - Transactional processes with too few touch points - Sales not engaging and developing relationships with multiple buyers 4. DEMAND CAPTURE Two frequent bottlenecks:  - Friction (lack of product info, no trials/sandbox, delays in booking demos, handoffs...) - Lack of allbound capture with active sales involvement 5. DEAL DEVELOPMENT While the biggest problems at this stage are usually caused upstream, a common bottleneck is lack of proper buyer enablement. --- ¹ The production line analogy doesn't hold 100%. The biggest difference: We’re not processing materials — we’re influencing accounts and buyers, with their own priorities, agendas, and many factors outside our control. That’s why we should focus on what we can control: - Prioritization - Awareness creation - Sales and marketing working hand-in-hand on the highest-value, best-fit accounts And that’s why — alongside sales velocity — we should also track account velocity: How fast we move accounts from unaware → aware → consideration → deal. Account velocity can reveal where the bottlenecks are — and where our systems needs to improve.

Practical ways to use ICP to improve pipeline conversion. 1. INBOUND PIPELINE For many B2B companies, inbound pipeline is unpredictable, and many inbound leads have low revenue potential. 𝘜𝘚𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘐𝘕 𝘈 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕: - Identify clusters of ICP accounts that share a common use-case, and have highest revenue potential (e.g. financial service companies with a recent M&A looking to prevent churn of acquired customers) - Target accounts from this cluster with content and messaging aligned with the use-case 2. OUTBOUND PIPELINE Most sales teams are experiencing a decline in outreach response rates and oubound pipeline. In the age of AI, personalization is not enough. Buyers receive so much outreach, they only read messages from people they know. 𝘜𝘚𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘐𝘕 𝘈 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕: - Align marketing and sales on the same ICP accounts and account clusters - Create awareness and distribute content via salespeople’s profiles - When leading with relevant ICP content, sales will start many more relevant conversations. 3. MQLs NOT CONVERTING For many B2B companies, MQLs are not converting into pipeline and marketing leads are ignored by sales. 𝘜𝘚𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘐𝘕 𝘈 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕: - Turn MQL activities into multiple touch points of a cluster-based program targeting ICP accounts with similar challenges - Each touchpoint is a new opportunity to: (1) start a conversation (2) collect key insights about their priorities, challenges, existing solutions, needs, buying center… (3) educate them about the value we can create (4) position ourselves as an industry expert 4. IMPACT OF CONTENT ON REVENUE Most B2B content has little impact on buyers and revenue. 𝘜𝘚𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘐𝘕 𝘈 𝘚𝘖𝘓𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘖𝘕: - Align content with challenges & JTBDs of ICP account clusters and your business goals. - Distribute content on places where target ICP buyers hang out and learn - Use formats sales can use to start conversations --- In 2025, the biggest opportunities for most B2B companies are: 1. Fix the marketing and sales misalignment 2. Create joint programs focused on your best ICP accounts And it all starts by understanding the common characteristics, the buying center and the buying process of your best customers. Or, with ICP development.

Content-Driven Buyer Journey: From a cold account to a closed won deal, using content-enabled touchpoints. We launched our first ABM campaign with 21 accounts and about a $300 budget. It took one person ~six weeks to run (0.5-1 day per week). Here's how we did it: 1. ABM STRATEGY As a new brand, we focused on: - A cluster of SaaS scale-ups in my home region - Companies looking to launch ABM - Prioritized accounts based on personal relationships and connections with a local industry influencer I had a good relationship with   2. AWARENESS & WARM-UP - Co-created with the local influencer and prospects themselves - Co-promoted the content with interviewee's marketing teams - When used this to connect to the rest of the buying center (and interviewee's personal network) - Leveraged co-creation to start convos 3. NURTURE - Interviews became discovery calls - Used collected insights to create personalized solutions - Used gifting to distribute them - Leveraged non-sales touches (content distribution, help with recruitment, free tickets/swag…) - Used expert session as a bridge offer   4. DEAL CREATION - Used trigger-based outreach to try book follow-up calls - Would always run a deep discovery (as an audit) to uncover key priorities and challenges - To lower the threshold, would offered a custom pilot scoped to a single market   5. CUSTOMER SUCCESS & ADVOCACY - Adjusted our playbooks - Focused on change management to enable sales & marketing collaboration - Featured their success in a customer story - Run an expansion play to operationalize and scale the pilot (which the team didn't have the capacity for) --- You don't need a fancy stack and a 6+ figure ad budget to run a successful ABM program. You do need: - Clear (and realistic) target account cluster - Prioritization criteria that stack the odds in your favor - Multiple meaningful touchpoints (hint: content play a key role) - Lots of patience 😄 #abm

Sales often blame marketing lack of awareness and inbound pipeline. Instead, sales MUST participate in demand generation. 𝟏. 𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 ⌖ Objectives: Position themselves as a trusted advisor instead of yet another rep & increase response rate. ﹩ Metrics: Account engagement ☑ Activities: 1. Repurpose and share expertise content from their own social profiles. 2. Account "love letters" with account-specific content 4. Find the right buyers in the buying committee 5. Start value-added commenting in the places where these buyers hang out (this could be LinkedIn or for more technical audiences, niche Discord or Slack communities). Pro tip: while sales should prioritize members of the buying committee, they should not disregard the rest of the audience ecosystem (industry peers, thought leaders...). 6. Use engagement as a reason to connect, and start a relevant conversation. 𝟐. 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ⌖ Objectives: Build relationships, Account Research & Progressive profiling - What challenges does the account have? - Is the account in market? - Who are the technical and economical buyers they need to engage with ﹩ Metrics: account penetration, account-to-covo ratio ☑ Activities: 1. Account research and buying center mapping 2. Invite them for content collaborations with your marketing team: interviews, quotes for the blog, etc. 3. Connect to buyers registered for an event and ask what they're looking to learn 4. Non-sales touches 𝟑. 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ⌖ Objectives: Help get content in front of the buyers (and use it to start conversations) ﹩ Metrics: Distribution is necessary part of the other activities (awareness, demand, capture) ☑ Activities: 1. Invite to the virtual or field events 2. Share cluster-based nurture content (aligned with the accounts' challenges and JTBDs) 3. Keep buyers engaged by tagging or sharing with them relevant news or content. 𝟒. 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 ⌖ Objectives / ﹩ Metrics: Pipeline. ☑ Activities: 1. Work with marketing and SMEs to create personalised offers and activation playbooks 2. 1:1 event follow ups 3. Together with marketing, plan nurturing and activation steps for highly engaged accounts with product-need evidence. 4. Connect them with their peers (your SMEs, solution architects, or your reference customers) to help with change management and specific problem-solving. --- Account awareness ≠ In-mail -> Email -> Phone cadence. In the age of AI, personalization doesn't cut it any more. To get your message or email read, you must get KNOWN. Sales must work on account awareness ande demand in parallel with marketing, to create future pipeline. Join Andrei and me as we break down the role of sales in demand generation, on another Full-Funnel Live: https://lnkd.in/eywHjEur

ABM is NOT: ≠ account-based ads + outreach to target accounts ≠ a substitute for demand generation Here are eight pillars of ABM: 1. 𝐀𝐁𝐌 𝐠𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐬 There are 4 goals ABM helps to achieve: - Net new revenue - generate sales opportunities - Pipeline acceleration - win stalled opportunities - Expansion - upselling or cross-selling to existing customers - Renewal / Churn prevention - renewing contracts with key customers Make sure to include all 4 campaigns in your marketing plan. 2. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 (𝐈𝐂𝐏) ICP includes: - Firmographics - Buying committee - Account qualification - Account segmentation - Account enrichment 3. 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Engagement threshold to identify engaged accounts - Sources of intent data - Account-ICP fit Make sure all accounts are qualified and fit ICP. Avoid broad targeting or creating a wish list. 4. 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Account key initiatives, strategy, and goals. - The role of every buying committee in the strategic initiatives, their KPIs, needs, and challenges - Value proposition mapping: how exactly your product fits their needs and what value it brings. 5. 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 - Warm-up: how marketing and sales will create awareness inside buying committee, connect and engage with them. - Activation: how sales should activate accounts - Nurturing: how marketing and sales will stay in touch with target accounts 6. 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬𝐞𝐭 Here is the lean ABM team setup and 5 core functions. - Senior ABM manager - Researcher - Copywriter - Designer - SDR 7. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐤 If you are building a pilot ABM motion, don't buy an expensive stack. Start with Sales Navigator and website traffic reveal software. If you have robust processes and scaling ABM, consider more expensive software to enhance your processes. 8. 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 Define key metrics and leading indicators for all 4 campaigns. Create simple dashboards to track campaign performance. Align everybody on reporting. --- The success of account-based marketing lies not in your stack or budget, but in solid foundations, and joint sales & marketing programs. Make sure you have a team and skillset that can dedicate enough time to develop ABM strategy and maintain the motion. And if you want to learn more about ABM, check out our flagship course:  https://lnkd.in/dCUX_sJX #abm #b2bmarketing #strategy

Buyer journey ≠ your marketing funnel or sales stages. Here is how the B2B buying process happens. Here is how B2B buyers buy: - Review key priorities and challenges with their team and execs - Consider solving issues intermally or with existing solutions - Research different (types of) solutions and weigh the alternatives - Start with top-of-mind vendors they discovered BEFORE they even started their research - Ask internally and check if there are vendors previously vetted by procurement - Ask their peers or communities - Develop requirements and criteria for a good solution - Loop in the executive sponsor and validate key criteria - Discuss vendors and alternatives with their team  - Get critical questions and try to find out answers on their own  - Reach out to prioritized vendors - Discuss budgets with vendors meeting requirements, that left a positive impression - Evaluate internal resources & timeline for a successful implementation - Create an internal presentation or business case to get purchase approval - Get questions or objections they cannot answer (but don't always reach out to reps for anwser) - Finalize the deal with the vendor, get through procurement (can take months) - Vendor onboarding The best ABM teams create buyer enablement programs that facilitate these stages: - Create awareness & engage with target buyers in the channels they use for research - Provide an overview of the best solutions and industry best practices through content - Prepare personalized content hubs with the most common questions, industry case studies, etc. for their champions - Update content hub regularly with the newly collected insights - Create business cases early, together with the champions, to facilitate internal sales - Start multi-threading with the buying committee group to create awareness - Add to business cases implementation plans, cost of inaction, milestones, ROI and other critical documents to address the concerns from key executives -- A lot of B2B teams still leave in their siloed "sales stages" world measuring the conversions between MQLs -> discovery calls -> POC -> Proposals -> Won/Lost. They don't understand what's happening on the buyer's side and don't influence the internal buying process. It is a huge gap that costs millions of dollars. --- Attached is a screenshot from Gal Aga's keynote from our summit about how AE's can use buyer enablement to win more deals. This Wednesday, Andrei and I will share how marketing teams can support in enabling buyers to choose you—especially when you're not in the room. You can save your seat here:  https://lnkd.in/dJMpDhjV

VP of Sales: We need to improve lead quality and pipeline coverage (but we can't give you a dedicated sales rep for ABM). Here is what happens to the ABM program: 1. 𝐀𝐁𝐌 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐒 - Broad list-building without considering target use-cases, brand awareness or intent - AI-based "research" pulling generic public information anybody can find - No account prioritization framework to focus efforts on high-potential accounts - Marketing creates awareness through non-personalized activities - Sales sends automated emails with basic personalization (title/industry/AI) - MQL handover (content dowload and other signals treated as buying intent) - Resource dilution across too many accounts with minimal personalization 𝐸𝑥𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒: 2 recent ABM audits we did last month tell you a painful story: Outbound attempts to 4,412 accounts - 1.77% meeting booking rate - 70.51% no-response rate Programmatic ads: 250k+ impressions, 588 clicks, 28 MQLs, 0 accounts entering opportunity pipeline 2. 𝐀𝐁𝐌 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐒 - Strategic list-building focused on clusters of accounts with high likelihood to become sales opportunities - Multi-factor account prioritization based on revenue potential, vendor awareness, relationship strength, and product-need evidence - In-depth desk and 1:1 research mapping product value to key initiatives and buyer JTBDs - Detailed buying committee mapping identifying Champions, Decision-makers, Power Users, and Influencers - Engagement playbooks aligned with intent level and vendor awareness - Thoughtful commenting and content distribution with multi-threading - Personalized messages based on captured signals and account research - Joint program planning with marketing and weekly activation planning 𝐸𝑥𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒: The results gap is staggering (based on recent pilot program results): - 40% increase in enterprise meeting conversion rates - 25% reduction in sales cycle length - 7-15 strategic conversations scheduled in first 90 days Takeaways? YOU CAN'T AFFORD NOT PROVIDING A DEDICATED REP TO THE ABM TEAM Enterprise opportunities require 250+ touchpoints before engagement. General SDRs focusing on volume cannot provide this. Account research is time-intensive but critical. Sales velocity depends on multi-threading. Without someone mapping and engaging the entire buying committee, enterprise deals stall indefinitely. Time investment delivers exponential returns. Just 50% of one SDR's time dedicated to an ABM program can prevent annual revenue leakage. Resource allocation becomes strategic. Currently, 37% of SDR capacity is wasted on unqualified accounts that never convert. The alternative? Watching how your #ABM program becomes another marketing experiment destined to join the graveyard of failed initiatives that never generated revenue.