strategies B2B sales and marketing teams can use to capitalize on tighter markets

These words echo through Zoom calls and board rooms as economic uncertainty grows like black ice along a mountain road. These words are quickly becoming imperatives in tightening markets.

This article will help B2B sales, marketing and customer success teams get through the current and future choppy macroeconomic climate. It will discuss core strategies and tactics that can turn GTM efforts into tangible results. This advice was based on dozens of conversations with GTM leaders over the past 60-days about what teams do to maximize performance in uncertain times.

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1. Don’t chase leads. Double down on customers and top potentials.

GTM teams must stop creating and chasing random accounts, leads, and markets without any familiarity with your company and solutions.

Prioritize existing customers instead to build relationships. You should win back prospects and accounts who have been active in your company’s pipeline.

This approach should be a priority. Right now, buyers and sellers are skittish, so there’s no choice.

2. Begin to surround and create with your existing customers

Your customer base is the best and most important source of revenue.

This is more than traditional customer marketing and listening to customers (always important), but a strategic, purposeful effort to surround customers and help them navigate in uncertain times.

To understand your customers and their current state, tap into the account intelligence and customer data you have accumulated.

Leaders can arrange a customer tour that includes solutions experts, executive sponsors and small teams to help you focus on specific accounts.

These tiger teams are dedicated to listening to and planning for customers’ needs and challenges. They are responsible for:

• Identifying the client’s needs.
• How to decide when, if and how to act.
• Allies are needed.
• Client requirements met

This high-touch collaboration can be illustrated by the use of product and engineering knowledge to modify solutions to make customers more efficient or productive.

This customer co-creation approach helps customers retain customers and make them a preferred provider. It also opens up opportunities to increase revenue and strengthen customer relationships.

3. Reexamine your prospect pipeline for the last 18 months

GTM teams must prioritize accounts that are of interest . Engagement and past conversations should be prioritised with the same enthusiasm and data use as when connecting with customers.

The prospecting process begins with revenue operations, data scientists, and marketing teams working together to identify accounts and develop a strategy for winning their business.

Use creativity and ingenious tactics. Flexibility is key to balancing customer priorities. Customers can use agility to make their purchases. To help your company get immediate ROI and payback, you can either use your solution or add resources to your relationship agreement.

It is important to keep the focus on top accounts opportunities as outlined above. You need to be disciplined and hold regular, weekly or fortnightly sessions to examine opportunities, roadblocks, and creative ways to break through.

Sales and marketing can coordinate specific roles and plays similar to what GTM teams do in account-based 1-to-1 moves where resources are concentrated on a handful of accounts.

Operations teams monitor the ground and ensure that key data from the buying committee and accounts is available to all players.

Marketing can use the increased precision GTM approach to increase its resources to add programs that listen to customers, top prospects accounts and buyer activities. This is done using both intent and third-party data.

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4. Enhance your partner and channel ecosystems

Partner organizations with the right expertise can provide support in strategy and execution to help customers and prospects.

Top partners are in strong positions to build relationships with customers and prospects.

• Learn how to get the most out of your solution.
• To create precise solutions, combine your offerings with those of other providers.
• Provide solutions where there are gaps for companies

Partners are also under the same urgency to prioritise and find ways to increase value for existing and potential customers.

As with the customer engagement strategy, now is the right time to prioritize and meet like-minded partners to create GTM strategies and cocreate solutions for specific customer needs.

Many companies are shifting their sales and marketing efforts to focus on building deeper partnerships and solving problems. To foster trust and collaboration partnerships, it is important to share customer data with your partners in order to find opportunities and create smarter solutions.

5. Invest in AI and buyer/account intelligence to prioritize your GTM focus.

GTM teams today have access to valuable buyer and account data, as well as AI-driven models, available in revenue, sales, marketing, and revenue tools, platforms, and data subscriptions.

GTM teams who have made an investment in intelligence now has the opportunity to make a double-down on using it in your GTM strategy and outreach, account and buyer identification, and GTM strategy. Now is the right time to get the data expertise and experience you need.

Let’s begin with GTM teams that have access to AI models. This could be achieved by optimizing ABM tools or intent engines, or using AI models to identify account propensity and priority, fit, timing, and other relevant information.

We can’t just skim the surface anymore. Instead, we need to dig in:

• Maximize our use of first- and third-party data.
• All the tools and sources we use transmit aggregate and mine intent signals.
• This intelligence can be activated in-market to identify the best prospects and existing customers.

It’s not an easy climb for those just starting out. This work will help you create a high-performing customer base and revenue generation machine.

Individual consultants as well as strategic firms can be hired to help you accelerate your efforts. They have the deep expertise to assist with intent, propensity, and other forms account and buyer intelligence.

Do not wait, get moving!

Don’t be afraid. No one knows what the future holds for us. But history has shown that if you focus, stay flexible, and act quickly, your chances of success increase.

GTM leaders have much more experience and intelligence than they did in the past. It’s time to put that experience to use.

The post 5 strategies that B2B sales and marketing teams can use as markets tighten was first published on MarTech.