The document discusses operational lessons for aligning inbound marketing with B2B sales, emphasizing the importance of strategy, customer targeting, and collaboration between marketing and sales teams. It outlines three key lessons: understanding your approach to market, optimizing marketing efforts for your strategy, and aligning incentives and measurement between teams. It also highlights the need for targeted lead nurturing and the pitfalls of poor communication between marketing and sales.

1. Inbound Marketing &
B2B Sales Alignment:
3 operational lessons in 10 minutes
@ DFJ Esprit Portfolio Meeting
Alex Shevelenko
ALEX@GLOCALPARTNERS.COM
for
Knowledge Change Your Growth

2. Alex Shevelenko: professional background
for
Knowledge Change Your Growth
Change the way start-ups grow globally
Change the way professionals learn
Change the way 15 million employees
and 5000 companies work
Change the way we sell / work with IT
Change lives. Change organizations.
Change the world
Change business models with ‘outside-
Communications
Media in’ growth and marketing strategies
Technology
Change knowledge worker productivity
Knowledge to Action

3. ‘Obvious’ go2market lessons learned for
B2B enterprise start-up in new category
1
Know
your
strategy
2
Optimize
marketing
for
strategy
3
Align
incentives
and
measure

4. ‘Obvious’ go2market lessons learned for
B2B enterprise start-up in new category
1
• Inbound is just one of many channels
Know • Not all customers are created equal: who is your target?
your
strategy • Design to profitably find, sell and serve target customers
2
Optimize
marketing
for
strategy
3
Align
incentives
and
measure

5. 1
Know
For complex B2B sales org targeting
your
strategy
senior execs at large enterprise – inbound
not a priority
Sales Levers
1. Rep
Prospecting 1. Field Sales
2. Outbound lead 2. Installed Sales
gen team 3. Inside Sales
3. Micro-events
Later Now
1 Lead qual. team
2. Outbound 1. Joint Deals
activities 2. Influencers
3. Inbound 3. Resellers
demand gen
Non-Sales
Levers

6. 1
Know
B your Business Model  Sales Process  Marketing Tactics
strategy
Seasoned field sales culture
Business
Similar effort regardless of deal size Execution
Complex, long
Focused reps = high productivity sales cycle
Talent &
Performance
Management
Account coverage Goal and
Weak New Performance
Qualify hard traditional products Management
Get in early, often buyer & category
Performance
Reviews
Largest SaaS sales by users Tactical HR deals not ideal.
Touching everyone SaaS only Marketing must help gain
business sponsors or help
Adoption key to success align HR with business buyers

7. ‘Obvious’ go2market lessons learned for
B2B enterprise start-up in new category
1
• Inbound is just one of many channels
Know • Not all customers are created equal: who is your target?
your
strategy • Design to profitably find, sell and serve target customers
• Not all leads are created equal: referral vs. unknown
2 • Leads ‘can’ waste resources and loose you business
Optimize
– Not well qualified  high total customer acquisition cost
marketing
– Not right buyer  wrong entry point
for
– Not target account  low lifetime value / high cost of service
strategy
– Not on message  HR lingo to CEO gets you back to HR
• Targeted inbound nurturing helps in long sales cycles
3
Align • Marketers can operate in own silos and rarely ‘get’ sales
incentives • Sales don’t care about marketing until it’s too late
and
measure • Data dump: Garbage In  Garbage Out  Bad Decisions

8. Questions
about how to optimally design sales
and marketing for your business?
Alex Shevelenko
ALEX@GLOCALPARTNERS.COM
for
Knowledge Change Your Growth