Why B2B revenue teams often struggle to achieve growth

In many B2B organisations, a recurring issue persists: marketing teams generate a high volume of leads that look impressive on dashboards but fail to convert. Sales teams pursue these cold leads, and Revenue Operations (RevOps) teams retroactively adjust reports to explain missed targets.

Each department operates effectively within its silo, yet the overall system fails to deliver sustainable growth.

The importance of target account alignment for revenue growth

Growth isn't achieved through sophisticated forms or intricate nurture campaigns. Instead, it stems from constructing a revenue engine where marketing, sales, RevOps, and customer success teams are aligned on prioritising the right accounts and working cohesively.

You've likely encountered the 95/5 rule, suggesting that only 5% of your market is actively in a buying cycle at any given time. While this provides a general direction, it's an oversimplification.

Buyer behaviour is more nuanced. A more practical segmentation might look like this:

• Approximately 40% are unaware of your company and its solutions. Building brand awareness is essential here.

• Another 40% are familiar with your offerings but aren't currently in the market. Maintaining engagement ensures you're considered when their needs arise.

• Around 15% will likely never consider your solution. Identifying and deprioritising these accounts prevents resource wastage.

• The remaining active 5% are actively in the market and should be targeted promptly.

Identifying the active 5%

Begin by nurturing the 80% who are either unaware or not yet ready to purchase. Allocating about 20% of your new customer acquisition budget to this group can build brand recognition, ensuring you're top-of-mind when their needs change.

To pinpoint the active 5%, develop a revenue engine that surfaces, scores, and routes in-market accounts based on genuine signals:

1. Integrate intent data:

   • Utilise third-party data sources (e.g., Bombora, 6Sense, G2) to detect spikes in relevant topics.

   • Monitor buying triggers such as funding rounds, leadership changes, and technology stack updates.

   • Track the "dark funnel" using attribution tools like Dreamdata or Factors.ai.

   • Observe behavioural patterns, such as multiple individuals from the same company engaging with your content.

   • Analyse first-party signals, including visits to pricing pages, return website sessions, and high-intent email interactions.

     
     

2. Align signals with actual accounts:

   • Examine past successful deals to identify patterns that occurred 2–3 months before closure.

   • Highlight previously stalled sales-qualified leads (SQLs) that are re-engaging.
     

Addressing friction in the buying process

Engaging with sales can feel like a significant commitment for buyers. Coordinating meetings, involving internal stakeholders, and preparing questions requires time and effort. If your solution doesn't align with their needs, it wastes time and diminishes goodwill.

Buyers prefer to conduct thorough research before engaging with sales. According to McKinsey, B2B buyers now utilise an average of 10 touchpoints before reaching out, up from five before the COVID-19 pandemic. It's crucial to provide clear, accessible information across all these touchpoints.

Key strategies include:

• Optimising content: Ensure buyers can find answers independently. Consider how they conduct research and optimise content for generative tools like Chatgpt.

• Reevaluating gated content: Only gate content that offers substantial value. Prospects are unlikely to complete a form if they aren't ready for a sales conversation.

• Enhancing website performance: Aim for a site load time under two seconds to improve search rankings and conversion rates.

• Providing multi-channel social proof: Showcase customer satisfaction across platforms like G2, Capterra, LinkedIn, and through video testimonials.

• Reducing reliance on form tills: With only 3–3.5% of website visitors completing forms, it's essential to identify engaged visitors through other means. If forms are used, avoid requesting the same information multiple times.

  
  

Integrating sales effectively

When intent signals indicate readiness, ensure the sales team has comprehensive context, not just contact information. Understanding the prospect's interests and behaviours allows for tailored messaging and approach.

Generic, templated emails are no longer effective. Outreach should reflect the buyer's specific behaviour, role, and timing. Leverage your revenue engine to provide dynamic lead lists based on ideal customer profile (ICP) fit, intent data, and behavioural signals.

Avoid premature outreach to accounts lacking intent signals. Contacting these accounts can waste resources and potentially alienate future prospects.

Operationalising your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Many companies define their ICP once and neglect to update it. However, market dynamics and buyer behaviours evolve, and theoretical ideal customers may not align with practical experiences.

Effective revenue teams treat the ICP as a dynamic model, regularly updating it based on:

• Analysis of closed-won and closed-lost deals

• Sales velocity and engagement levels within buying committees

• Trends in renewals and expansions

• Churn data and post-sale customer health

  
  

The ICP should reflect the market subset you can successfully engage and retain now.

Achieving unified revenue team performance

True alignment goes beyond surface-level coordination. It involves shared focus and execution. If marketing and sales aren't collaborating on the same account lists, utilising consistent data, and pursuing aligned signals, the revenue engine falters.

Top-performing teams consistently:

• Agree on the current priority accounts

• Define clear ownership and timing responsibilities

• Execute with shared context and mutual accountability

By fostering this level of integration, you eliminate the need for new acronyms or platforms. Instead, you establish a revenue engine that functions effectively.

If your team is struggling to align around the right accounts or convert interest into revenue, I can help. I work with B2B companies to build revenue engines that actually work, grounded in data, not dashboards.

Get in touch today to find out how we can support your team.