Kerry Cunningham
VP, Principal Analyst
Author Insights
Blog
Your Buyer Is A Group, Not A Person. What Are You Doing About It?
Nearly all B2B buying decisions are made by groups. So why are so many marketers still oriented toward leads? Learn why, and see how Forrester's B2B Revenue Waterfall can give you better insights and results.
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Why We Have A New Waterfall For 2021 (And Why You Should Care)
At next week's B2B Summit North America, Forrester will debut a brand new waterfall model. Get a preview now of the value it will bring to B2B organizations.
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The Birds and the Bees Do It: Introducing the B2B Buyer Signals Model
We are now at a crucial point where organizations must have an explicit, thoughtful approach to identifying and acquiring the signals they need to survive and thrive. This year at Summit EMEA, we are introducing our new B2B Buyer Signals Model.
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Three Principles and Two Best Practices for Teleprospecting in Times of Crisis
- Reaching people by phone is always hard — and it’s even harder when they are working at home
- Revenue development representatives must be especially sensitive during times of crisis; however, these best practices also apply in normal times
- Listening for signs that a prospect is unable talk at the moment and being respectful will pay off in the long run
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Blowing Up Marketing — How Buying Groups Change Everything
- Buyers are nearly always groups, not individuals — this has been true for as long as there has been a B2B marketplace
- The systems and processes developed to enable organizations to participate in the B2B marketplace have operated as if the buyer were not a group but an individual
- Many organizations have already evolved or are evolving processes and technologies to account for buying groups; those organizations have a meaningful competitive advantage over those who do not
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Introducing the SiriusDecisions Buying Groups Manifesto
- Buyers nearly always buy in groups, not as individuals, and this has been true for as long as the B2B marketplace has existed
- The systems and processes organizations have developed to enable participation in the B2B marketplace have operated under the assumption that the buyer is an individual
- Many organizations are already evolving processes and technologies to account for buying groups, and those organizations will have a meaningful competitive advantage over those that don’t evolve
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A Lead Is Not a Good Lead to Me: The Lead Quality vs. Quantity Discussion, Featuring Henry David Thoreau
- Although lead quality is important, most discussions about what constitutes quality fail to consider the most important dimension
- Organizations are right to focus on quality over quantity, but unless they correct their definition of quality, they are likely to end up with fewer leads, and those leads will not provide opportunities and revenue
- To be a useful discussion, the quality vs. quantity debate must include an understanding of buying groups
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Linguists, LOL, Literally and Lead: Why Your “Leads” Really Aren’t Anymore
- Word meanings change, and one critical word in the B2B lexicon — “lead” — has changed in important ways recently
- Leads used to be potential selling opportunities, but now refer to specific individuals who respond to marketing tactics
- B2B organizations should focus on and use the word “opportunities” instead of “leads”
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When Tele and Sales Start Low, Revenue Engine Performance Goes High
- The Demand Unit Waterfall™ is not just about measurement, but also about planning
- Think of intent signals and leads as layers of evidence about where to invest tele and sales efforts
- When tele and sales teams start their outreach lower in the Demand Unit Waterfall, they are more effective
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What Escalating Hen-on-Hen Violence Can Teach Us About B2B Buying
- Animals that live in groups must be understood not just as individuals but as members of those groups
- When B2B buyers operate in groups, treating buying group members only as individuals may produce unintended consequences
- Identifying and improving your understanding of your buying groups will lead to better business results
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Total Addressable Market and the Importance of Scale
- Failure to comprehend the scale of an addressable market can lead to revenue engine failures
- Goals that are not created within the context of the available opportunity may be unrealistic or even impossible to achieve
- Using the varieties of addressable markets appropriately allows organizations to effectively plan, set goals and measure progress
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(Not Even) Six Degrees of Interconnected Buyers and Sellers
- Global interconnectedness has grown immensely, and the pace of interconnectedness is accelerating
- In B2B, interconnectedness means that buyers and sellers send and receive signals continuously, exchanging information about needs and solutions in real time
- To survive and thrive, demand marketing systems, processes and organizations must adapt to this level of interconnectedness
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Tapping Into Your Buyers’ Hive Mind: Are You Missing the Swarms’ Signals?
- Buying is a group activity in B2B, but most B2B organizations can’t identify the groups that are already on their website
- Collective or group behavior is likely to be a more reliable buying signal than the behavior of any one member of the group
- Buyers are already working as a team before you interact with them
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Many Things You Can Do, AI Can Do Better
- The current revolution in artificial intelligence (AI) is not the first of its kind experienced by humanity
- Where human ingenuity flags, machine intelligence is (again) stepping into the breach to make us more productive
- Companies that are already implementing AI solutions gain a competitive advantage, while others are forced to play catchup
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Intent Monitoring: Investigating Buyer Behavior
- The interest in intent (prospect behavioral) data is surging in the B2B market
- There are many types of behavioral data – truly understanding a prospect’s intentions may require more than one
- Intent data is the evidence of interest, and the more evidence marketers compile, the stronger the case for following up
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Reach Beyond Named Contacts for Inbound Telequalification
- Automation qualified leads (AQLs) represent opportunities to prospect in target accounts
- Many organizations treat AQLs as if the only person they are allowed to contact in the AQL’s organization is the person named on the lead
- Best-in-class organizations improve conversion rates by getting out of voicemail hell and finding a live human being to talk to early in the process
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Blindsight: How Gut Feeling Is Not Knowing
- Those with blindsight can detect and respond to visual stimuli around them, but they’re not aware of and can’t really know what they’re seeing
- Without advanced analytics, B2B professionals receiving information still don’t really know what works and what doesn’t
- Advanced predictive analytics is the part of the B2B brain that turns sensory data into usable information to drive high-functioning businesses
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Predictive: “Ride-Sharing Solution” for Marketing
- Everyone’s favorite analogy for disruptive technology today is ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft
- When high-powered analytics are applied to complex logistical problems for which there are available resources, great things can happen
- Predictive analytics is a better way to arrive at solutions that would otherwise require excessive resources – just like ride-sharing
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Predictive Segmentation: To Lump or to Split?
- Total addressable markets (TAM) should be subdivided into useful segments
- Predictive analytics allows for the creation of useful segments by lumping and splitting TAM
- Lumping provides opportunities for achieving scale, while splitting enables precision and efficiency
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It Slices, It Dices: Problems Predictive Can Solve
- When marketers need to narrow their focus, predictive applications help by defining segments and personas and prioritizing prospects for followup
- When marketing and sales don’t have enough good prospects, predictive applications can intelligently source net new high-propensity targets
- Predictive applications identify and prioritize the best prospects and reveal buyer preferences to improve conversion through the Demand Waterfall®
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