RevOps Co-op Weekly #8 - Do Demand Generation Metrics Make Sense for B2B?
Demand gen waterfalls embrace linear sales cycles. In reality, the B2B buyer journey looks like a bunch of starving squirrels were dropped into the middle of a feast.
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🤔 Do demand generation metrics make sense for B2B?
Demand generation waterfalls embrace very linear sales cycles. They assume one campaign interaction travels a single straight line to a sale. In reality, our B2B buyer journeys look like a bunch of starving squirrels were dropped into the middle of a feast.
We are so fixated on making the traditional demand generation metrics work for us because our systems aren't developed for B2B buyer cycles. Our technology has been limited because our systems think of buyers exclusively as people--which is fine for B2C.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, and frankly, it shouldn’t be.
What does demand generation mean?
Demand generation is the act of creating awareness and desire for your product. This is usually done through press releases, podcasts, videos/television, online paid advertising, and other tactics that drive interest in your brand. The theory is that when more people know about the goodness of your product, it will prompt them to research your company (usually on your website, a product assessment website such as G2 Crowd, and/or within their networks).
While demand generation is technically one of the first legs of the buyer journey, its effectiveness is often measured by the number of leads coming into your funnel. If demand generation tactics are successful, lead generation should increase and match your target profile.
Demand generation vs. lead generation - what’s the diff?
The difference between demand generation and lead generation is confusing because the lines are blurred.
Demand generation is, as we mentioned, the act of creating awareness and desire for your product.
Lead generation is the act of converting interested prospects into known, engaged leads. When you think lead generation, think chatbots, contact us form fills, meetings scheduled at events, and any other obvious indicator a specific person is interested in your product.
Is demand generation B2B or B2C?
Yes.
Seriously, demand generation is a necessary activity whether you’re in a B2B or B2C organization. The only way people will buy your product is if they know you exist and what you do.
However, B2C demand generation metrics and B2B demand generation metrics should not look the same because the buyer journeys are not the same.
What should we be doing in B2B?
B2B sales target accounts and specific people who work at those accounts. The person at the purchasing account who manages the product is most likely the primary contact on the account, but you’ll also need signoff from the people who use the product and other decision-makers in the buying process.
B2B organizations should measure engagement from multiple angles. It’s important to find the right company and interact with the right people. A single demand waterfall following the primary contact simply won’t cut it.
To get the full demand generation picture, you’ll need the right systems and models in place.
Full stack integration
If your tech stack is only configured to track sales from the point of contact (lead form, chat, webinar attendee, etc.), you’re missing a great deal of activity. Demand generation reporting should also include web content interactions (whether they’re gated or not) and paid advertising interactions that do not result in a form fill.
Once a data transformation layer is in place that can unify the definition of a person and account across all of your marketing and sales data sources, measuring demand generation program success gets a lot easier.
Intro the MQA
The demand generation metrics like marketing qualified lead and sales accepted lead aren’t useless in B2B organizations. They just don’t give us the full picture. Keep lead identification metrics in place to make sure sales is following up with people who raise their hand, but introduce the concept of a Marketing Qualified Account.
Marketing Qualified Accounts should be flagged when the right people at an account are engaged. Think of this as smarter engagement scoring. Suppose we know that a sale needs a technical expert, an end-user, and a certain executive in order to obtain sign off. In that case, we should see some sort of activity from all three personas before we consider them a qualified account.
The threshold for including activities in an MQA score should not be a hand raise. If we monitor all web activity, we can flag an account showing active buying signals far more quickly than if we only relied on MQL status. In this example, we would flag the account for sales once we saw all three personas interacting with web content.
Attribution reporting
People have been trying to nail down marketing attribution and failing for years now. But some people are succeeding. The difference between these attribution warriors and the rest of us?
Fully integrated tech stacks
The ability to add in sales and partner activity data
Multi-touch attribution
A cross-functional stakeholder team to define and QA attribution models
If a marketing operations specialist has implemented attribution software without a larger project team (and sign-off from the people who need to buy into the numbers), they’ve wasted their time and a whole lot of money.
Multi-factor campaign evaluation
Evaluating B2B campaign success based solely on demand generation waterfall metrics is like declaring a harness suitable for sled dogs after testing it on a senile cocker spaniel. Sure, we tested it on a dog, but we have no idea if a sled dog would shred it on its first run like a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Remember our B2B buyer journey?
Measuring campaign influence (attribution), demand generation effectiveness, and pipeline velocity will help businesses determine whether or not a tactic is productive. Some campaigns will look better in some categories than others, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth doing.
Read the full blog post from RevOps Co-op here 👉🏻 Do Demand Generation Metrics Make Sense for B2B?
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Analysis of 35 million calls to understand and guide revenue operations, from Chorus.ai
Some key findings include:
C-Suite Participation in Sales Calls: C-Level executives have been joining sales calls at a rate 108% higher than they were in January, but there is an 81% drop in C-Suite meeting attendance from the first to the second call. Sales teams must ensure meetings are airtight and up-leveled from the first interaction.
How Many Cold Calls Does it Take to Make a Sale? Cold Call Connect Rates have fluctuated throughout the year, with a 6% dip in average quarterly voicemail connect rates from Q2 to Q3, but people are still picking up the phone. Phone connections cannot be the only method of interaction, with multi-channel processes and targeting well defined.
Sales Demo Best Practices. A great demo doesn’t just tell a story, it shows the real day-to-day impact. Reps should be prepared for these discussions to happen quickly, as 78% of first calls will include some form of a demo.
Why Marketing Operations Got a Billion-Dollar Nod in Adobe-Workfront Acquisition, from CMS Wire
Major marketing cloud providers have contributed to more than $40 billion worth of acquired marketing technology (martech) software in the last four years. None of them featured marketing workflow and marketing operations software until last week.
Adobe acquired Workfront, a marketing workflow, project management and Digital Asset Management (DAM) provider, for $1.5 billion on Nov. 9. Officials pushed the idea of the growing need to manage actual marketing work and collaboration streams because more marketing teams than ever now work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Adobe and Workfront are longtime partners.
The acquisition is part of a larger trend of companies coupling digital asset management with content collaboration and production capabilities, according to Stephanie Liu, an analyst at Forrester who focuses on B2C marketing professionals. “Aprimo, BrandMaker, IntelligenceBank, Sitecore, Wedia, Widen ... these are just some of the companies that have coupled DAM and some MRM capabilities,” Liu said.
Surprising Changes Ahead for B2B Sellers, from Forbes
Forrester is predicting four major themes:
AI and automation put sellers on a path to fulfill their consultative destiny - technology will increasingly take mundane tasks off of salespeople and give them better insights to be more consultative advisors.
B2B sellers become experts at creating and engaging with video - you don’t need to be a Hollywood director anymore to create engaging video interactions. And after spending almost a year on Zoom, we are all becoming more accustomed to engaging on screen.
B2B sales leaders activate more employees on behalf of commercial goals - compensation models are evolving to incentivize collaboration among sellers and those who support them. The lone-wolf seller is facing extinction.
Sales tech consolidation accelerates as buyers demand end-to-end solutions - Research shows that about 41% of B2B organizations have reduced the size of their sales organization as a result of COVID economic hardships. This cost pressure is impacting the tech tools sales forces use as well.
Funl is an operating system for your GTM team that provides end-to-end, full funnel analytics and insights that keep marketing, sales and customer success teams aligned and working seamlessly together to drive more revenue growth for your business.