B2B tech marketers have to like a recent Gartner report forecasting $4.6 trillion in global IT spending in 2023—an increase of 5.1% from 2022.
Even in a climate of economic uncertainty, enterprises appear resolute in pushing through digital transformation and modernization initiatives that are all but required to stay competitive and drive innovation.
Here's how to reach those enterprises and their buyers.
B2B tech marketers, leave manual processes in the past
The relative abundance of potential enterprise software buyers emphasizes vendors' need to deploy finite marketing resources efficiently. For B2B tech marketers, that means accurately identifying and focusing on audiences most ready to buy.
The ABM method of manually assembling a list of targets and then ranking their priority by size or revenue is no longer enough, however. That's especially the case for marketers at fast-growth tech vendors, because their investors want to see more efficient, high-quality growth replacing growth at all costs.
Marketers at companies still practicing the broad "look for buyers under every big rock" ABM strategy will waste countless hours delivering marketing materials to enterprises that simply don't constitute any kind of realistic opportunity:
- Maybe those companies aren't going to buy anytime soon because they've committed to a different solution relatively recently, and they're on the equivalent of the far side of the moon in the buying cycle.
- Or maybe their technology stack is incompatible, or it just doesn't align with what marketers have to offer.
- Or maybe marketers do have their sights on the right opportunity, but their efforts aren't trained on the correct decision-maker within that organization.
- Or maybe marketing content speaks to the wrong features and pain points because marketers are blind to the enterprise's unique context and struggle at that moment.
B2B tech marketers need to dump their approximated, manual tactics that lob marketing materials at ABM prospects; instead, they must equip themselves with data-driven insights that make it possible to vet and pursue targets with incisive and surgical precision.
Recognize enterprises that are ready for a change, and offer it
Enterprises aren't making sea-change commitments to new technology solutions every day. Those moments are rare—but they do come with signature telltale signs that marketers with the right insights can pick up on.
If a relevant internal team or department has a newly appointed leader or a brand-new, fully budgeted initiative to pursue, that's a darn nice moment of opportunity for marketers to introduce a helpful offering. Marketers can then target specific marketing content to approach highly relevant potential customers with solutions that are better matched to their needs at the moment.
For instance:
- A new CMO actively streamlining a company's customer experience may find it serendipitous to be approached by marketers offering unique advanced tooling for doing so.
- A business amid a Cloud migration may be receptive to adding Cloud-based solutions targeted to its wheelhouse.
- Business model changes—adding new subscription services, for example—are often accompanied by changes in technology as well.
When marketers have the high-definition visibility into changes within target prospects as they develop, account prioritization suddenly becomes much more straightforward.
Perform a 'find and replace' on prospects' technology
Smart B2B tech marketers have a deep understanding of their market position. Whether they're at a high-growth startup with a hot product that's winning market share away from established legacy players ,or at a heavyweight grappling to outshine other incumbent enterprise solutions, it's clear who their rivals are.
As a technique, it makes sense for marketers to focus on prospects actively using technologies that their solutions can easily—and advantageously—replace. Studying prospects' current technology stack also goes a long way toward understanding their pain points and needs in context. If a B2B tech vendor's solutions need certain foundational prerequisite technologies or processes to be in place—such as Cloud infrastructure or devops practices—marketers can save their energy by prioritizing only those audiences that could realistically adopt their offerings.
Prospects with technologies complementing and functioning alongside a vendor's solutions are also strong candidates for marketing prioritization. Technology with the ability to hit the ground running on Day 1 and make a transformative difference, with no infrastructural changes necessary, makes for a heck of a compelling ABM campaign (if, of course, it goes to the right person).
Use marketing insights to go whale-watching
To prioritize marketing audience targets by revenue potential, marketers should use insights to gauge the size of relevant internal teams and the number of users a solution would affect. Understanding the internal initiatives and leadership mandates driving the new technology adoption can also paint a picture of future revenue and growth expectations.
Organization size and other broad ABM metrics often steer marketing campaign prioritization in the wrong direction. Granularity (driven by having the right data) is necessary for efficiency.
Enable marketing vision
When B2B tech marketers are equipped to know their prospects inside and out and efficiently prioritize targets, their outreach campaigns become vastly more efficient, lucrative, and successful.
B2B tech marketing leaders should be trying to get their ABM to a deeper level. Doing so will accelerate conversion and make the most of their market opportunities.
More Resources on B2B Tech Marketing
New Channels, Better Targeting: How B2B Tech Marketing Is Changing
