In the book  “The One-to-One Future: Building relationships one customer at a time” Peppers & Rogers foresaw the coming of one-to-one marketing and sales in the B2B world (in 1993, when the book came out, B2C marketers were light years ahead of B2B marketers and were already adept at things like the total addressable market, segmentation and personalization).

Quoting from the Peppers & Rogers book:

“When two marketers are competing for the same customers’ business, all other things being equal, the marketer with the greatest scope of information about that particular customer – the marketer with the most extensive and intimate relationship with that customer – will be the more efficient competitor.”

Amazing insight from almost 30 years ago. Mostly ignored by B2B marketers.

In 2003 ITSMA introduced the concept of Account Based Marketing (ABM).

In 2012 ITSMA introduced The ITSMA ABM Adoption Model.

As far as we can tell looking at the ITSMA website, they still use this model in client engagements and why not. I like it. It works.

In 2015 interest and commitment to ABM caught fire with investments in companies including Engagio (now part of Demandbase). As an aside, it is my strong opinion that Engagio put ABM on the map and maintained the purest vision of what ABM is and how it should be deployed compared to the rest of the marketplace. Unfortunately, a good bit of ABM today (like marketing automation before it) is about automating activities (using digital or IP-based marketing) and cutting live conversations out of the equation.

Again, in my opinion (and I often have said), marketing automation and ABM has made it possible to get more poor-quality leads in the hands of sales faster than ever before.

Not every senior executive wants to be treated like a pinball, getting your attention only after they have hit the right buttons and scored enough points. If fact, the higher the score in most cases the less qualified the prospect. But that is not the purpose of this blog – though I would be happy to have a conversation about the source of data that proves this out.

Why Revenue-Focused Marketing – Why Not ABM?

In a December 2021 benchmark study by ITSMA they suggest that there are three types of ABM:

One-to-one (sometimes called Strategic)

One-to-few (ABM Lite)

One-to-Many (Programmatic)

I believe that too much of ABM has become Programmatic and there is not nearly enough focus on the use of the telephone as part of the ABM process. That isn’t surprising because salespeople don’t relish picking up the phone and making what they consider to be cold calls. The focus, instead, is on how many hand raisers come in reactively by virtue of an email, banner, display or other digital media. That is why I suggest a focus on Revenue-Focused Marketing (RFM). The focus is on revenue, not hand raisers. 

Simplistically, RFM ties marketers to revenue. It causes marketing and sales to work more closely as a team.

Every B2B company needs to test RFM to understand how it works, and how it can provide a competitive advantage to their organization. Benefits of RFM, which will reveal themselves in a test, include the ability to:

·      Forge stronger relationships/better alignment between marketing and sales

·      Achieve a higher rate of return on marketing investments

·      Build stronger customer relationships

Besides, marketers should always be testing, and this is a test that won’t break the bank. The upside is tantalizing. The downside is that if RFM is poorly executed, it is one more dart the sales team will throw at marketing. So, test slow and careful. But do test.

With careful planning, communication and careful execution there is no way this will not result in a big win for marketing, sales and the company as a whole.

For my clients I use a step-by-step cycle of development Revenue Focused Marketing (RFM) success as follows:

1.     Select Accounts

2.     Select Contacts

3.     Develop Insights

4.     Generate Messaging

5.     Generate Content

6.     Deliver Account-Specific Focused Plays

7.     Measure Progress

8.     Repeat

Let’s break each of these down into a little more detail:

1.     Select Accounts

The key here is not to select too many accounts. RFM requires a concerted effort by sales and marketing to research prospects, send emails, call, leave voicemails and complete several cycles of contact (sometimes referred to as “plays”) over a relatively short period of time.

Properly executed RFM can change the impression prospects have of your company. The fact that you are persistently yet professionally in front of them with insights (we will get to insights) turns what could otherwise be perceived as an interruption into a preferred partner relationship. A pilot might include 50 – 100 accounts.    

2.     Select Contacts

Each company is different, but it is likely that you will identify 3 – 5 contacts per account. There may be 3 – 5 personas you will need to address in the messaging (we will get to messaging). For each persona there will be several what I call “silver bullets” that will resonate with each contact.

Discussing and agreeing on target accounts and contacts (with lots of communication driven by marketing to sales) is what brings the teams together. Being open and not defensive is critical to success. Change management is key.

3.     Develop Insights

A very good sales manager (and a long-time friend of mine) used to kid about salespeople. He said they come across to prospects as saying, “enough about me, what do you think about me.” It would be a lot funnier if it was not so true.

Insights are just plain hard – but the key is that they are going to need to come from the market – not marketing. They need not be complex. An example: One of our clients does a substantial amount of work for three of the top 10 businesses in their target market. We found 50 targeted businesses (large companies with lots of activity in our client’s markets) that have no idea how experienced our client is in their vertical. They told us that they need to know that, and to tell them. Now it is up to us to do so.   

4.     Generate Messaging

The problem with most messaging today: It comes from marketing – not the market. Understanding who the potential customer is, what their needs are and linking that knowledge with a clear articulation of benefits a customer can expect, competitive shortcomings, and market differentiation is essential. It’s not easy, but with input from the market and expert distillation it’s achievable, and invaluable.

5.     Generate Content

Most companies have a lot more content than they need. Unfortunately, most of the content is not very good. For RFM you don’t need a lot of content. For testing you can use the telephone, email and landing pages and/or PDFs to accomplish what is needed. Small tests with “dimensional” or “lumpy” mailers can also be tested inexpensively. Keep the messaging in the content simple. There are three “silver bullets” that will get the attention of every contact at every account. Use them over and over again – creatively.

6.     Deliver Account-Specific Focused Plays

Plays are the cadence or sequence that are used to reach out to the prospects. A common play is five calls over two weeks supported by three voicemails and three emails (a simplified example). A play could also be expanded to include multiple cycles of contact over a period of time. One client we worked with for 10 years had us execute plays for years as it was cost effective to do so vs. starting over with a fresh prospect with unknown potential. One such prospect – in the fourth year of contact after multiple plays - closed for $100,000 per month on a three year contract – moving from Suspect to No Response to Qualified but not Immediately interested to Qualified Interested to Lead to Closed Deal over those years. It pays to be patient.

7.     Measure Progress

Did the RFM campaign influence the prospect to take a meeting or take a next step that would not have happened without RFM? One large client with long sales cycles (two years on average) put a substantial amount of business on the books within six months of launching the RFM campaign. With RFM you will:

·       Close business faster.

·       Increase average deal size.

·       Increase margins.

·       Create teams that work together rather than silos that seem to be out to get each other.

8.     Repeat

There are eight distinct steps. You cannot short-cut any of them. It takes time – more time that you allow and more time than you think you might have. It is a process, not a campaign. It is a way of doing business – continually generating the opportunities it takes to fill the forecast and grow the business.

Success Center

Many years ago, one of my bosses, another great sales manager, said “salespeople do what you pay them to do, not what you want them to do.” I have seen that play out time and time again for over 40 years. One tactic that I have seen work is to develop what I call a success center to test and execute RFM on a small scale with an elite team of marketers and salespeople who you know are excited and willing to commit to participating in whatever way will help the team. Invariably, people outside the success center will hear about successes and decide that they want to be in the success center. Pretty soon, the success center is the company.

Spend one hour with us. Let us understand your current situation and where you want to be. We will put together a plan and help you execute it over time. Let us guide your team to win consistently and predictably.