With buyers having so much digital content at their fingertips, they are doing a lot of their own research when it comes to purchasing a product or service. This can lead marketers to believe that their value is at the beginning of the buyer’s journey and to think that sales’ greatest value is at the end.
Not quite.
A Marketing Leader, ABM Expert, Formerly the VP, Research at SiriusDecisions / Forrester and the VP, Marketing at Engagio, now the Principal at HeuerB2B, Megan Heuer, smashes the myth that marketing and sales live in their silos of the buyer’s journey and delivers a call to action for companies to be customer, post-sale focused for their Account-Based Marketing approach.



 
Takeaways:
Prospects having early conversations with sellers can help set the terms of how they approach their solution. It is good for sales to get involved early in the buying process.
Marketers used to have the assumption that their job was done once they got a lead to a certain score threshold and then passed them onto sales. However, the experiences that marketing provides has benefits throughout the entire buyer’s journey.
Sales and marketing need to stop fighting over credit and start paying attention to what buyers want to do and the path that they take to become customers.
When starting out with ABM, look at your targeted list of accounts. Identify which ones will be net new and which ones are your current clients. Set goals for each group of accounts and then build your strategy for engagement.
To measure the success of your targeted marketing campaigns, look to see if your targeted accounts are engaging with your marketing content. If they are not, adjustments need to be made.
People trust what other people say. Are you introducing your prospects to your current customers?
Understand what your buyers care about and use that to provide value to them.
Companies that grow at 40% a year invest earlier into their customer marketing and customer success. What does your customer journey look like post sale?
ABM is “just being realistic about who you should be selling to.” - Megan Heuer
Make your customer success stories about your customer, not your product or service. How can you highlight the amazing work your customers are doing?
Career Advice from Megan Heuer - It’s okay to be human and okay to be you. Be a better advocate for yourself and ask questions.




 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-heuer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/megheuer




 
Busted Myths:
67% of the buyer’s journey is done before talking to sales. - This is NOT the case. The correct statistic is that 67% of the buyer’s journey is done digitally. Sales is a part of the buyer’s journey at the beginning stages, just as much as at the end. Buyers are doing their research and consuming content digitally in the beginning while also having conversations with sales.

 
Shout Outs:
36:17 Megan's Friends at SiriusDecisions / Forrester

 
Ways to Tune In:
iTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hard-corps-marketing-show/id1338838763
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1vVLpNI1LssMTiL6Kdsamn
Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-hard-corps-marketing-show
YouTube - Full video - https://youtu.be/LWhxzQw8ncw