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It’s time to face the hard truth.

In the mid-market and enterprise space, only 10% of sales opportunities convert into customers. 

But there’s a way to optimize this number.

Let’s digress a little.

Imagine your sales and marketing teams as players in a championship football match. Each player has exceptional individual skills, but they're playing their own game—running different plays, following different strategies, barely communicating with each other. The result? A disjointed performance that leaves points on the field.

This scenario plays out daily in B2B companies, where sales and marketing teams operate in silos, converting only 10% of their mid-market and enterprise opportunities into customers. But what if there was a way to get your team playing in perfect synchronization, executing plays with precision, and dramatically improving your score?

Enter Account-Based Marketing (ABM).

Understanding the Current Game Plan

Before we revolutionize your strategy, let's examine the traditional marketing and sales funnel:

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) → Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) → Opportunity → Customer

Within the Opportunity stage, deals progress through multiple phases:

• Discovery
• Value Alignment
• Stakeholder Alignment
• Negotiation
• Contract

Where Traditional Tactics Fall Short

Just as a football team wouldn't swap out their best performing centre forwards halfway through a high stakes game, your marketing team shouldn't completely hand off leads to sales. Yet traditionally, that's exactly what happens. Marketing qualifies a lead (MQL) and passes it to sales, ending their involvement. This siloed approach ignores a crucial reality: conversion blockers can appear at any stage. A coordinated play between sales and marketing is crucial throughout the pipeline.

The ABM Advantage: Executing the Perfect Play

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Imagine this: You're a B2B software company selling a Travel & Expense solution. A promising lead repeatedly engages with your brand awareness campaign but hesitates during sales conversations due to pricing concerns.

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Traditional marketing would respond with generic nurture content- this is equivalent to running the same play regardless of the defense of the opposite team. ABM, however, is dynamic. It means: 

• Deploying personalized ROI-focused advertising
• Sharing relevant customer testimonials from similar enterprises
• Creating customized email sequences and call scripts
• Organizing reach outs to showcase expertise across offline and online channels

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Your Championship ABM Strategy

1. Scouting Strategically (Segmentation)

Like in sport, success begins with proper analysis. Collaborate with your sales team to gather intelligence on:

• Deal categorization patterns
• Account-specific engagement opportunities
• Potential for personalized interactions

Their conversations are goldmines of niche data on:

• Deal segmentation: Understanding why specific deals are stuck and categorizing them accordingly
• Account-by-account strategy: Crafting personalized engagement plans
• 1:1 engagement: Hosting exclusive workshops, "lunch and learn" sessions, and customized outreach campaigns.

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Now basis these insights curate targeted communication strategies.

Some of the insights could look like this:

1. "Your Pricing is High"

• Showcase differentiation through:

1. Product capabilities
2. ROI benefits
3. Improved employee experience
4. Superior engagement model

2. "Evaluating a Competitor"

• Highlight Why you vs. Competitor X? 

1. Product advantages
2. ROI comparison
3. Employee experience
4. Engagement model

3. "I Don’t Trust You / You Are a Small Player"

• Build credibility by showcasing social proof

1. Awards and industry recognition
2. Global presence
3. Customer Logos 

4. "No Budget / Project on Hold"

• Create urgency and FOMO by emphasizing:

1. Impact, customer stories showcasing before and after
2. Why taking action NOW is important

5. "Stakeholders Not Aligned"

• Build trust and credibility  by:
• Targeting multiple stakeholders and engaging more- decision-makers, influencers via LinkedIn
• Doing in-person events, meet-ups, Lunch and learns

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A targeted segmentation and comms strategy can’t alone cut it. 

Well curated, niche, personalized segmentation and communication can only work when you leverage multi-channel engagement strategies to engage, nurture and convert prospects while tracking how well each channel is doing. Make sure you’re measuring the impact of your efforts with a robust engagement scoring model personalized to your campaign.

Track engagement scoring to measure:

• Interaction with content
• Responses to outreach
• Participation in offline events
• Stakeholder engagement levels

Your scores will skyrocket if  you’re sharing persona-specific content & generating thought leadership across multiple channels to engage leads. Think-

• Industry-focused success stories
• In-depth guides addressing pain points
• Live calls/webinars with existing customers
• Exclusive events
• Gifting strategies to strengthen relationships

But while you do this, maintaining frequency is key too- otherwise the law of diminishing marginal returns might just kick in.

 Imagine being bombarded with a gazillion content pieces, invites and calls from different functions everyday- regardless of how personalized they are that’d be enough to turn a potential lead away.

Here’s also where seamless sales & marketing collaboration comes in.

The Final Score

Winning isn't about having the best individual players—it's about having the best team. By implementing ABM strategies that align your sales and marketing teams, personalize engagement, and leverage data-driven insights, you're not just changing your tactics-you're transforming how your entire team plays the game.

Remember: In both sport and B2B sales, champions are made when every player on the field works as one, executing a unified strategy with precision and purpose

This can make sure you target the right accounts with the right messaging and initiatives at the right time in a co-ordinated fashion so that each touchpoint, each action has maximum impact.

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The Power of Sales and Marketing Alignment: Playing as One Team

A winning ABM strategy isn't just about marketing- it’s Account-Based Everything (ABE)!

Just as a football team's success depends on the seamless coordination between offense, defense, and the goalkeeper-ABM thrives on perfect synchronization between:

• Sales
• Business Development 
• Marketing 
• Sales Operations

Each player must know not just their role, but how it fits into the larger game plan. When everyone executes their part of the playbook impeccably, in harmony, magic happens.

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