B2B buyers are nearly 70% through their purchasing process before engaging with sellers — and 80% of the time, it’s the buyers who initiate the first contact. Given these self-service and anonymous tendencies, it’s imperative that marketers leave one-size-fits-all planning in the past and instead focus on models that will help them more accurately engage buyers. As prospect and customer needs evolve in real-time, marketers need to craft strategies that prioritize speed and responsiveness.
The recently aired 2024 Strategy & Planning Series featured a series of webinars that revealed how B2B teams are embracing dynamic frameworks that fuel prospects’ needs as they prepare for 2025. To prep for the upcoming year, some of the experts’ top tips included:
1. Adapting GTM Motions To Account For Expanding Buying Groups
Given the buyer-driven era, practitioners need to embrace a new engagement model between go-to-market (GTM) teams and buyers. According to Randy Littleson, CMO of Salesloft, the new model involves a combination of digital and face-to-face interactions led by the buyer.
“It’s the seller’s job in the GTM team to add value to the buying journey,” he continued. “We need to shift from a transactional environment into multiple orchestrated revenue streams that focus on lifetime value, repeatability and renewability, and that’s all powered by data and buying signals.”
Adding to Littleson’s insights was Michelle McCarthy, Director of Marketing Operations for Salesloft, who noted that there needs to be a shift away from factors such as total addressable market and ideal customer profiles toward prioritizing connecting with in-market buyers. With that in mind, the duo discussed how traditional lead scoring misses the mark.
“Traditional lead scoring only looks at first-party engagement — there’s this whole world out there that we weren’t accounting for,” said Littleson. “We’re now starting to look at things from an account-based perspective versus just a lead. Regarding signals, instead of a linear process that included scoring a lead and definitive sales hand-off, you now must focus on signals throughout the journey.”
2. Identifying Target Accounts Based On Intent Data
To drive meaningful engagement and results, marketers need to identify high-value accounts, which are determined based on intent data signals. Amy Humphrey, Marketing Manager, New Business & Pipeline at ZoomInfo, noted that she starts by leveraging data and analytics to identify high-potential segments. From there, she focuses on aligning messaging with industry trends, pain points and more.
“For instance, one of our most successful plays targets prospects who fall into our top-performing industries and sub-industries,” Humphrey said. “We go after buying committees with personalized messaging and we leverage competitive analysis to find market gaps. We also heavily use buyer intent data and engagement signals to prioritize outreach, ensuring we target the most likely to convert segments and personas for effective pipeline growth.”
Additionally, Maura Cantoni, Marketing Manager, Existing Business & Pipeline for ZoomInfo, noted that marketers also need to look at where prospects are within the buying cycle. When practitioners know that they’re going to target people who are up for renewal, for example, they’d have to target their messaging differently than someone who was looking for an expansion motion.
“These data-driven plays and campaigns are going to start with understanding the unique signals from each account,” said Humphrey. “We’re mapping out where an account is within the buying signal, crafting messaging that speaks directly to their needs and using personalized outreach and SDR support to kind of drive that messaging home.”
3. Conducting A Content Audit To Determine Relevant Assets
To ensure prospects and customers are targeted with the most relevant messaging and formats, the experts at Emerald Studio recommended performing a content audit. According to Alexis Carroll Cline, Director of Content Strategy for the content agency, a content audit includes a detailed review of each asset in a business’s content library to determine how to best use or alter content going forward.
She continued that “it’s important to have your content all in one place,” which often takes the form of collecting links and PDFs and aggregating them in a live link or Dropbox folder. From there, Lori Culliton, Director of Client Services of Emerald Studio, noted that marketers must identify the criteria needed to audit content based on certain goals. These criteria can include:
- Determining if asset titles are outdated;
- When the content was created;
- The evergreen score;
- Where it’s most utilized in the buying journey; and
- What personas are most likely to engage with certain assets.
“Once you’re able to look at your library holistically, you can get a better sense of what types of content you need moving forward,” continued Culliton. “The best tip is to organize your content in one place and give yourself enough time to be thorough.”
4. Embracing The ‘Stickiness’ Of CTV To Fully Engage Buyers
The key to unlocking a full-funnel strategy is to start at the top, which (naturally) requires recruiting the right prospects. According to a Harvard Review study, 90% of B2B buyers select a brand that they knew in their consideration set — meaning buyers must know of a company before they enter the buying cycle. And, as Jon Zucker, Sr. Product Marketing Manager of MNTN noted, the best way to generate that interest is by targeting buyers on Connected TV (CTV).
“Instead of B2B decision makers seeing a little block of social media text on their mobile device, CTV ads incorporate imagery to capture their attention,” he continued. With 30 seconds of unskippable ad times, it allows you to introduce who you are in your business, what you bring to the table and your brand.”
Given marketers’ leaner budgets that typically excluded them from TV advertising discussions, Zucker explained that CTV has the “exact same pipes” as digital, as everything is deterministic. Given CTV’s agility, he explained that marketers can track results and optimize campaigns in real-time.
To unlock even more insights into 2025 strategy and planning, register now to view the entire webinar series on demand.