Allbound framework
How to shift from marketing and sales silos to Allbound strategy
In today’s newsletter we share:
Why sales push back collaboration with marketing, and how to handle it
Allbound strategy
Allbound tactics to generate sales opportunities and drive revenue
A lot of our posts in 2024 were about fixing the broken marketing and sales playbook. As a solution, we mentioned that all GTM teams should switch to Allbound mindset:
Making sure that marketing, sales and client success work together on pipeline and revenue generation and don't have useless debates about attribution.
In reality, there are many pitfalls. As one of our community members Kate said:
"When I engage with sales asking about targeting and segmentation, I get crickets."
Let’s first uncover why sales push back collaboration with marketing.
Get step-by-step guidance in our Full-Funnel ABM on-demand course.
What's included with the course access:
12 modules covering step-by-step ABM strategy development: goal decomposition, ICP, account list building, ABM team, warm-up and activation playbooks, reporting, scaling ABM and building a cohesive ABM & demand gen function.
Short explanation videos and "how to" examples. We believe it's better one time to see a practical example then listen to the theory hundreds of times.
5 orchestrated and ready-to-use ABM playbooks and a detailed explanation
Report dashboard for 4 types of ABM programs: new revenue, pipeline acceleration, expansion and churn prevention
Live case studies and examples of the campaigns we implemented with the clients of Fullfunnel.io in the past few years
17 templates to simplify your ABM strategy launch: ICP, revenue analysis, intent data tracking, account warm-up cadence, customer research, account scoring and prioritization, ABM budget planning and forecasting, account planning, reports, personalized offers, and many more.
Planning & Presenting a Pilot ABM Program to Execs and Sales Framework
Minimal viable stack recommendation and guidelines on how to use it to avoid ramping up budget and being pressured to show ROI for the purchased $50k software
Why sales push back collaboration with marketing
Here are main 5 reasons why sales push back collaboration with marketing.
1. Protective mindset.
Sales believe their core asset is their network. Hence, they are unwilling to share contacts or make intros assuming their relationship can be "stolen".
2. Marketing has no domain knowledge.
When sales talk to marketing and see they don't really know the target market, ICP, product value, and competition, they treat marketing as an "arts and crafts department."
3. Different goals and targets.
When sales have sales quota pressure and outbound KPIs, any new program or initiative feels like a burden that distracts them from the primary goal.
This goes even more extreme in companies where sales don't hit revenue quota and see how marketing celebrates hitting MQLs.
4. Marketing is not responsible for revenue.
Marketing campaigns are not tied to revenue and don't contain a clear list of tasks, responsibilities, and timelines.
No one in sales wants to do "demand gen", "ABM", "content distribution", or help with any other marketing campaign if they don't clearly see how:
The campaign will impact the pipeline and revenue.
Their responsibilities and tasks
Campaign timeline
5. Marketing doesn’t understand the sales process.
If marketing doesn't initiate regular pipeline overviews and conversations with sales about the challenges they face in the trenches, sales believe that marketing doesn't care about it.
Hence, what's the point of collaborating with them?
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𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬.
1. Analyze performance of current motions and pay attention to the revenue metrics (see the screenshot below).
One of the most important metrics we look at when evaluating marketing is the account-to-pipeline ratio. Here is why.
The account-to-pipeline ratio shows how many accounts from your list were converted into sales opportunities. Combine it with the sales pipeline velocity, and you have a clear picture of your program performance.
Here is an example.
Basic analysis shows that it takes more time to generate pipeline with ABM. But this program generates better opportunities with higher win rates, and has a much higher account-to-pipeline conversion rate.
The G2 program generates pipeline and revenue faster, but the quality of the pipeline is worse.
If you want to dive deeper, you can also include:
ROI
GTM team productivity (time spent on program:pipeline value)
Budget, etc.
Ultimately, you can make a better decision on what programs to prioritize and focus more.
I measure the account-to-pipeline ratio to get an unbiased report on what works for generating pipeline.
It helps marketing and sales teams to focus on detailed campaign planning and account selection instead of just focusing on the total addressable market (TAM) and playing the numbers game.
2. Have an open frank conversations about your GTM strategy and challenges.
Explicitly share existing challenges like:
Your product is unknown and nobody wants to buy it
Prospects don’t understand product value
Sales don’t understand buyer’s journey and needs, etc.
Both senior leadership, sales and marketing should accept them and create programs to solve the challenges.
3. Make both functions revenue-responsible.
4. Get alignment about goals, challenges, ICP, buyer journey, value proposition, marketing, and sales processes.
We'll cover it in the next section.
5. Fix knowledge gaps.
Allocate a full day training with an internal SME and make sure they cover product value, buyer personas, their jobs-to-be-done, product differentiation, etc.
4. Define a small pilot team (1 marketer and 1 SDR) that will work on a shared playbook on one market and vertical.
Check this video:
5. Reduce pilot team revenue quota and make sure they have enough time to commit to the new programs.
6. Document and share results with the entire team.
7. Scale the function.
*A complete training on launching a successful pilot ABM program is here.
Allbound strategy
Define a pilot team (ideally, VP of Marketing and VP of Sales) who will run the initial analysis of 4 areas.
1. SALES PIPELINE VELOCITY ACROSS
Markets
Verticals
Clusters (e.g. product use cases)
Analyze the revenue metrics:
Win rates
# of sales opportunities
Sales cycle length
ACV (average contract value)
Then, answer the following questions:
Where should we focus?
What are the lowest-hanging fruits?
Where should we double down our efforts?
Where should we pay attention?
How can we improve our revenue metrics in target markets/verticals/clusters?
Why are some of our revenue metrics low/declining? What are the root reasons?
2. GO-TO-MARKET.
Review together:
a) ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
Who are our best customers?
Why do they buy our product?
Who is involved in the buying process?
b) Marketing message
How can we make our message more relevant to them?
c) Customer research
What do we need to know about our target accounts to create a relevant message, nurturing content, and offer?
How do they buy?
What triggers their buying process?
What should they be educated about to consider your product? What change management should happen?
How can we influence their buyer journey and nurture them across these different stages?
3. MARKETING AND SALES PROGRAMS TO DRIVE PIPELINE.
Plan together playbooks for generating new logos and running expansion programs.
What are the best accounts to focus on?
How many accounts do you need to target across these motions?
In the next section I'll share a list of the most successful programs that work for us and our clients.
4. ACCOUNT LISTS.
Define criteria for selecting accounts for 2 lists.
a) Active focus list:
Current pipeline -> accelerate deals
Expansion -> upsell/cross-sell
High-intent new logos -> generating sales opportunities
b) Future pipeline list:
Accounts with a low intent/no engagement that fit your ICP and are qualified.
Plan together:
How can you create awareness among these accounts?
How can we create awareness and demand in a selected market/vertical/cluster to expand the pool of these accounts?
How and where can we connect with them?
How can we nurture them?
How can we collect the necessary information to understand if they have a potential need for our product? If yes, where are they in the buying journey?
Marketing and sales planning usually happens in silos, which frustrates both teams.
Sales don't understand how marketing programs lead to revenue.
Marketing desperately tries to generate a marketing-sourced pipeline targeting wish lists while taking design and content orders from sales.
Make sure both teams understand how the company grows, what is the current GTM status and how they can work together to drive revenue.
This is the only way to stop being aligned in theory, but not doing anything together in practice.
Allbound programs
Here is a list of the most successful Allbound programs that work for us and our clients:
Micro content collaborations with the target buyers to build relationship and understand how your product can help
Value-added multithreaded buying committee engagement & direct mails to raise account awareness and attract attention
Cluster-based thought leadership and content distribution to initiate change management and generate demand
1:1 strategy sessions and private events to close accounts nurturing and developing strong business cases
Cluster-based webinars for demand generation
Personalized content hubs to influence the buying journey
Social selling based on engagement and intent insights
* We share the detailed playbooks in our Full-Funnel ABM course.
One caveat:
The best Allbound programs are not linear and are not based on one tactic. You need to have a healthy mix.
I didn't mention programmatic display ads and automated outbound.
Allbound ≠ linear lead generation and not a shortcut to immediate revenue.
Allbound is about joint:
account research
buying committee engagement
personalization of your message and offer
to accounts that are likely to buy your product.
Below, I'm sharing a recent episode of Full-Funnel Live where we show an example of an Allbound strategy and the recent program we ran.
Drive pipeline THIS quarter with our help.
If any of these challenges sound familiar:
You are aligned in theory with sales but don’t do anything in practice aside from receiving wish lists from sales and sharing with them your marketing plan. In reality, you work in silos and miss the revenue targets and are being pressured by your executives.
You understand that your marketing and sales playbook is broken (mqls, gated content) but despite many attempts you don’t know how to fix it
Your outbound, paid ads and organic pipeline drastically decreased while CAC increased mostly because most of your market is problem unaware and not buying.
You lack brand awareness among target accounts and sales can’t get even a reply.
You clearly see that you're already behind your revenue targets
We can help.
We'll develop a custom full-funnel ABM strategy aligned with your resources, budget and stack and execute it together to drive results THIS quarter.