CMO of 6sense, taking the guesswork out of predictable revenue growth with the power of AI and insights to uncover buyers already in market.
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As the mom of two teenage sons, I am no stranger to the outsized role fear of missing out (FOMO) can play in daily life. Whether it’s group texts, Snapchats or the latest pickup basketball game, teenagers are single-minded about their FOMO. Whatever they’re doing, some part of their brain is dedicated to wondering if everyone else is doing something even better.
FOMO isn’t unique to teenagers, of course. It strikes even the most well-adjusted adults, too. And for revenue professionals, that’s a good thing. If you can figure out how to harness FOMO for good, it can change your trajectory, especially in this economy.
FOMO like you’ve never FOMO’ed before.
For B2B marketing and sales professionals, a healthy fear of missing out on opportunities has always been an ingredient of success. But these days more than ever, the fear of missing an opportunity should keep you up at night. After all, in an uncertain economy, you can count on having fewer opportunities than you would have had a few months or years ago.
The ability to identify revenue opportunities and seize them before someone else does means the difference between success and struggle. One important way to do that is by connecting with all the good prospects who visit your website.
Unfortunately, many businesses rely on lead magnets and forms to identify visitors, and they miss out on the vast majority of potential customers who are already showing active interest. After all, our company’s research found that only 3.5% of website visitors fill out a form. That means if you’re only using form fills to identify web visitors, you could miss out on 96.5% of potential customers.
If that doesn’t give you a serious case of FOMO, I don’t know what will.
In sales and marketing, every single bit of accurate and complete identifying information will help you discern whether a website visitor is a potential opportunity, a tire kicker or even a competitor. That knowledge informs everything you do from that point on.
Knowing about the party isn’t enough. Get on the guest list.
Knowing who’s on your website requires access to really good data, including first-, second- and third-party intent data. So step one is investing in high-quality data to make sure you capture every revenue moment.
But investing in intent data is table stakes. I see a lot of people with access to plenty of data, but they don’t know how to make use of it. It’s like knowing there’s a party going on, but not actually knowing where it is or procuring an invite.
Talk about FOMO.
Just as important as knowing about the party (or, in marketing terms, knowing that a revenue moment is happening) is knowing how to get there and being welcomed in when you arrive. For marketers, that means developing processes to ensure that as soon as your data points to a revenue moment, you treat it like a revenue moment—not a revenue week or a revenue month. After all, that party is happening at a particular date and time. Not just whenever you get around to it.
So you need to be prepared and ready to act. That means when a potential opportunity arises, you have an automated way to enrich the record, get it into your CRM and buy whatever contact data you need so your sellers can effectively and quickly reach out.
It’s also essential to set expectations for your team about what they’re expected to do when a revenue moment presents itself. I recommend laying out, in minute detail, how your business/sales development reps are expected to treat revenue moments in their service-level agreements (SLAs).
A well-designed SLA should be crystal clear about what happens when a revenue moment arises, including:
• How quickly they should reach out.
• How many (and which) personas on the account they should reach out to.
• What and how many platforms/methods they should use for outreach.
• What defines high-quality outreach for each of those platforms/methods.
How you determine these best practices is up to you, but I’ll put in a plug for letting artificial intelligence (AI) help you figure out what works best for your particular situation. AI can analyze your data to tell you the exact amount and type of outreach required to take a revenue moment to a revenue opportunity.
Make a backup plan.
Whether you’re a high schooler planning his Friday night or a marketer planning to seize the revenue moment, it remains true that the best-laid plans often fail. Having a backup plan is nonnegotiable.
In the revenue world, that means a safety net that deploys when that SLA isn’t met. Even with the best of intentions, sales and business development representatives can’t be in all places at all times. AI, on the other hand, can. Having AI on board makes it possible to respond to every revenue moment quickly, without vacations, workloads or just off-days getting in the way. This AI-powered backup plan gives you the confidence to know that no matter what life throws at you, you’ll never miss out on an opportunity.
FOMO for good
I have to admit that as a parent, FOMO can be hard to watch. Shouldn’t my kids be happy with the pickup basketball game they did get invited to instead of worrying about the one they might be missing?
But as a marketer, I realize that FOMO is the difference between getting by and getting ahead. We need to be afraid of missing opportunities, especially these days. And we need to turn that fear into action—with data, processes and backup plans that help us not only see every revenue moment, but seize upon them before our competitors do.
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