Author: Tyler Pleiss

Introduction

How can you drive predictable pipeline using ABM?

Start with closed-lost opportunities.

Why closed-lost opportunities:

Brand awareness
The Data Says It's Important
Sales & Marketing Alignment

Typically it takes multiple lost opportunities before a SaaS deal closes. But for most companies they treat these accounts as truly lost opportunities when they’re not.

By working with sales to identify the right closed opportunities, you can begin building a repeatable program that drives predictable pipeline and inches you one step closer to revenue.

Identifying Dead Opportunities

It’s important to note that every lost opportunity should not be revived.

The key to running a successful Wake the Dead strategy starts with having good CRM data.

📊 Two data points to track are:

1. Having a field in CRM to for sales to select the Closed-Lost reason.

Reasons can be: went dark, timing, product market gap, pricing, competition

2. Having a field in CRM for sales is write additional notes when deal is lost.

Anecdotal feedback can add color to the Closed-Lost reason

🔎 How do you actually go about identifying these opportunities in CRM?

1. Set a timeframe: typically I like to look back during the last one or two fiscal years.

2. Make sure the accounts do not have any open opportunities.

3. Filter by specific Closed-Lost Opportunities.

For example, you probably want to stay away from any lost opportunities due to Product Market Gaps.

After you pull an initial list of accounts you want to pay attention to the number of accounts. More is not always a good thing. Quality of these lost opportunities is what matters most.

🎯 Some additional steps you can take to further refine the list:

Comb through the sales notes: this will help uncover any hidden gems that can lead to disqualifying an account.
Filter by number of lost opportunities: It sounds weird, but those with more than one lost opportunity can be the best to focus on.
Pull in intent or engagement data: Depending on your MarTech stack, I recommend pulling in additional data to uncover which of these accounts are continuing to engage with your brand, and showing buying intent.

Further refining your account list can help you ensure it leads to the best possible results.

Building Your Campaign Play

✍️ Messaging:

In most cases deals are lost because the prospect didn’t see enough value in your product and decided to stay with the status quo. With any messaging and content I try to re-emphasize the pain points of staying with the status quo and curate it in a custom landing page.

Reinforce use case
Reinforce pain points
Promote new products

📲 Channels:

Once the messaging is nailed down, it’s time to distribute it across your owned channels. Channels that I use are LinkedIn sponsored content ads, targeted display ads, email signature banner, and marketing emails all directing to the custom landing page. If there is a webinar coming up that’s relevant to the prospect, I’ll work with sales on personalized outreach to drive attendance and re-engagement.

(Example: LinkedIn Ad)

(Example: ABM Landing Page)

📧 Sales Outreach:

Stray away from automated, blanketed sales outreach with these accounts.

In theory, there should be enough information in your CRM about the account and previous deal information that the sellers can create personalized emails, LinkedIn messages and phone calls.

Doing this increases the chances that the account re-engages in new conversations.

Work with sales team to craft templates
Acknowledge previous conversations
Personalize where you can based on previous conversations

(Example: Sales Outbound Email)

🛠️ Operational Cadence:

If you don’t have a recurring meeting with your sales team(s) yet, then you need to get it on the calendar immediately. Setting an operating cadence with sales ensures alignment on the strategy, surfaces any issues and highlights successes.

Typically these meetings are weekly or bi-weekly with sales leaders and reps, and the marketing team involved in running the strategy.

Measuring Success

There are overarching strategy KPIs and then the very tactical KPIs to measure success.

Overarching KPIs include tracking number of meetings booked, qualified meetings booked, and pipeline generated.

Tactical KPIs (also depending on your tech stack) should include accounts reached, accounts visited, accounts engaged, display ad CTR, LinkedIn ad CTR and engagement percentage, number of unique visitors, total page views.

Best Practices & Lessons Learned

1. Avoid lost deals due to product market gaps.

2. Lean on your sales teams to qualify and disqualify accounts.

3. Be creative with your messaging and content to re-engage these accounts.

Summary

Pipeline generation is hard to come by in today’s climate. Sales and marketing teams are more stressed than ever trying to collaborate and develop strategies and campaigns that help them hit their quotas and KPIs.

Closed-Lost opportunities provide an avenue to capture low-hanging fruit and generate not just new pipeline, but predictable pipeline.

Why?

These are accounts that have brand awareness, engaged with your content, expressed a specific pain point and interest in your product.

And by the next time you engage with them, chances are there’s been product enhancements, a new sales rep on the account or a new champion at the account, which can provide a better chance of success.