Hi, .

Here is what happened in Trenches last week.

Pitching ABM to execs and leveraging market research for lead generation

We've hosted 2 roundtables last week. The first one was dedicated to pitching ABM programs to execs.

One of the core insights - you'd create a small scoped pilot program with a minimal list of Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts, a clear timeline, and a sales activation playbook. The results should come fast to get buy-in and sponsorship.

Feedback from fellow Trenchers.

Access the recording here. Password: C=Hs0%&%

The second roundtable was about leveraging market research for lead generation. We had Erin Balsa who shared how she generated 194 SQOs, 92 closed-won opportunities and $557k revenue from market research.

All came with a bunch of questions on orchestrating market research, questions to ask, creating the report, etc.

Access the recording here. Passcode: R2jVG#Xm

Upcoming events

We are collecting questions and topics for the upcoming events. Please, leave a comment here on what topics you're interested in.

Free Crash Course on ABM

We've created a free email crash course on ABM that reveals:

• The ABM Good, Bad and Ugly
• 5 keys to ABM success
• How to warm-up accounts before outreach without display ads
• How to get a 40-60% reply rate to outreach campaigns
• 3 ABM campaigns on a Ramen budget

All come with actionable advice and Fullfunnel.io case studies.

Sign up here.

Questions from fellow Trenchers

Let's help each other. If you can contribute or answer any question below, just click the link and share your thoughts.

• What’s a good success to failure ratio for marketing agencies by Hasita
• How do you approach measuring the results of LinkedIn paid social programs that are focused on education and problem/solution awareness, not lead gen? by Tatyana Commerot
• How you’ve mapped out your sales process in Notion by Noah Green?
• What display, platform or partner have you used for geotargetting in Europe (not country or region, like 100m radius or smaller)? by Jaime Santafe

LinkedIn Inbound Marketing Ebook + Workshop on AppSumo

We also launched our bestselling ebook "LinkedIn inbound marketing" + the recording of our workshop in Valencia on Appsumo.

You can purchase it for $49 instead of $99 here.

Post Of The Week

We talk a lot about dark funnels, but here is my honest opinion on why the majority of companies will never care about dark funnels.

1. Lack of clear strategy, and, as a result, support from execs.

If there is no strategy with leading indicators, execs will be asking:

- What are you going to do in the communities? How do you plan to generate awareness and demand?

- How are you going to capture the demand?

- How will this demand be converted into opportunities?

Marketers should be well-prepared to address these concerns. 

Unfortunately, I've seen many marketers just hanging out in the communities jumping from thread to thread or jumping in community events without creating demand. 

2. Execs don't understand the dark funnel and the ways customers are buying for many reasons:

- Company never interviewed their customers about their research and decision-making processes

- Lack of marketing knowledge and background

Marketers should share the insights and get buy-in.

3. Lack of clear leading indicators.

Demand can't be directly attributed to revenue, but it can be measured by leading indicators like:

- Strategic accounts engagement

- Sales-qualified opportunities

- Sales cycle length

- ACV

- Media coverage 

Next step is witching the marketing efficiency evaluation from CAC and leads to ROMI. That's the only way to evaluate marketing efficiency in a complex B2B.

TLDR:

There should be a clear playbook on creating demand in a dark funnel + dashboard with leading indicators.

Otherwise, the programs will either suck and be canceled asap or never launched.

Best Shares From Trenches Community

• The most important discussions happen OUTSIDE your funnel by Vladimir Blagojevic
• Some useful takeaways I noted from a demand gen roundtable hosted by Chris Walker and Dave Gerhardt by Paul Denham
• What are your tips to become a company operating on a low-touch sales model by Wiebke Arendt 
• Where should you spend your marketing budget? What should you do with your advertising money? by Dan Renyi

See you in Trenches 😉

Andrei

P.S. If you didn't join Slack community yet, here is a link.