How do you approach enterprise demand gen differently at an organization that historically relied more on free trials and word of mouth?

Enterprise demand gen is complex. Buying committees are large, and the buying cycle is long. According to a Google/Bain study, B2B buying committees have an average of 17 stakeholders, and on average, it takes 40 touchpoints for each of these buyers to influence the B2B buying decision. Below are four steps to help you get started.

• Step 1: Start with creating the content by persona mapped to the buyer's journey. Create content for primary and secondary persona. According to Gartner, B2B buyers have six jobs to be done to make a purchase

  1. Problem identification

  2. Solution exploration

  3. Requirements building

  4. Vendor selection

  5. Validation 

  6. Consensus creation  

  Use this as a framework to create content. This will serve as the foundation for your campaigns. Also, in the age of AI overviews and search GPT, consider structuring your website to follow the above framework.
  

• Step 2: Invest in integrated, multi-channel digital campaigns to drive awareness and engagement with an ABM mindset 

  • 1:1 ABM campaigns targeted at 10-50 strategic accounts  

  • 1:few ABM campaigns targeting up to 300 accounts grouped by vertical/industry

  • 1:many ABM campaigns targeting up to 5000 accounts based on ideal company profile (ICP) criteria 

• Step 3: Build a webinar program 

  • Top-of-funnel thought leadership webinars

  • Middle-of-funnel How-to webinars

  • Bottom-of-funnel Demo webinars
     

• Step 4: Plan offline tactics such as highly targeted executive roundtable events and direct mail campaigns to accelerate the pipeline and drive closed won deals

This will require a mindset shift across the organization, so you'll want to be mindful of how it is communicated. Here is a high-level approach to the steps I would recommend:

1. Document your target audience: What is the ideal customer profile (ICP)? What has worked and what hasn't worked well from the perspective of reaching this audience?
2. Craft a demand generation strategy: Develop a target account list in partnership with the sales team. Think through the digital layers of outreach and the complementary touchpoints.
3. Develop sales enablement materials: It's critical to develop a relationship with the sales team. Agree on the assets that the sales team needs to set them up for success (e.g., battle cards).

This is largely dependent on stakeholder management and getting alignment across the team. Speak to the benefits of scaling past free trials and word of mouth and further filling the pipeline. This will enable you to capture a larger yet still targeted audience.