Let’s face it, 2023 was a slog for many GTM teams. However, with great challenges comes great opportunities. Coming to the end of the year, we were curious — how can GTM teams transform the coal they were handed in 2023 into golden nuggets of wisdom to drive revenue success in 2024? To answer this question, we pulled together key revenue enablement stats to shape our predictions for how organizations will empower their revenue teams in the year ahead.
Prediction #1: Enablement Continues to Expand to Entire Revenue Team
When disjointed buying experiences were the status quo, teams were able to get away with just enabling sales. But the Revenue Enablement revolution has arrived. More organizations are realizing that to provide the seamless, helpful, hyper-personalized experiences that today’s B2B crave, they must enable all customer-facing members of the revenue team — not just sales.
In an ideal world, buyers should not be able to tell when they’re being handed off from marketing to sales to customer success. Embracing a holistic approach to enabling your revenue teams ensures every team is operating from the same playbook and has proven benefits for organizations and their buyers.
- High-performing organizations (those who exceeded their goals in the last fiscal year) are more likely to enable their entire revenue team, more specifically: 10% more likely to enable account managers; 18% more likely to enable sales engineers; 13% more likely to enable customer success roles; and 8% more likely to enable marketing (State of Revenue Enablement)
Prediction #2: The Stakes for Sales Content Get Even Higher
On average, today’s buyers spend only 5% of their buying journey with your seller. That means that your content needs to capture their attention, address their specific challenges, and ultimately sell for you when your sellers can’t be “in the room.” According to Forrester, 89% of B2B buyers say that when choosing a vendor it’s important or very important to receive relevant content at each buying stage. Content needs to stand out from the crowd, address each buyer’s specific challenges, and help them overcome those challenges and objections. Leading marketers and enablers understand the right content at the right time can win deals, and are implementing strategies to optimize their sales content for the greatest impact.
- High-performing organizations are 37% more likely to track the success of their content using data and insights to understand what works, when it works, and the personas it works with. (State of Revenue Enablement)
- 77% of companies using direct one-to-one personalization observed an increase in market share. (Forrester)
Prediction #3: Unified Datasets Lay The Foundation for Real Revenue Insights
Buyers today leave behind a trail of valuable data through all their digital interactions. Gartner estimates that by 2025, 80% of B2B buyer-seller interactions will occur in digital formats. Whether on Zoom, over the phone, or through other channels, the data buyers leave behind is a goldmine that can help revenue teams get smarter about every buyer engagement and be true consultative partners. It’s not groundbreaking to say you need to collect that data, but with so much data available where do you start, and how do you make the most of it?
In the coming year, revenue leaders will recognize the power of having all their revenue data in one place. If you’re thinking about leveraging AI, this is a prerequisite. If you’re recording calls, capturing seller activity and more – take a careful look at where your data is held and how you’re generating insights.
- By 2025, 70% of all B2B seller-buyer interactions will be recorded and/or transcribed to extract competitive, deal and market insights using AI, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP).(Gartner)
- By 2025, 75% of B2B sales organizations will augment traditional sales playbooks with AI-guided selling solutions. (Gartner)
Prediction #4: As Caution Lingers, Value Selling Remains Critical
In 2023, B2B buyers were extremely cautious. With reduced budgets, every purchase was scrutinized, deals were stalled and sales cycles extended. Buyers wanted clear proof that a new purchase would bring the value they were expecting — which is why we saw a rise in revenue teams adopting value selling methodologies.
While inflation is expected to ease in the year ahead, the economic outlook remains uncertain — which means value selling is here to stay. The ability to provide an accurate economic justification for a purchase is a powerful tool for revenue teams and can help sales teams cut through the noise. According to Gartner, “an interactive tool that enables buyers to create an internal business case can jump-start the purchase process, especially when a large buying team is involved.”
- According to buyers, value assessments or content that helps develop a business case were the most valuable content they receive during the sales cycle. (Gartner)
- High-performing organizations are 19% more likely to use a value-based selling methodology and 38% more likely to use business value assessments in their sales process. (State of Revenue Enablement)
Prediction #5: Organizations Embrace GenAI to Fuel Revenue Intelligence
We’re at the precipice of a whole new way of working. In 20 years, we’ll be sitting around the dinner table talking about how Generative AI (GenAI) changed the world. The future of revenue enablement is intertwined with GenAI, and we’ve only just scratched the surface. With every new technology there’s always some trepidation, but now is the time to experiment and implement your best practice policies. Those using or experimenting with GenAI are already reaping the benefits – and yes it helped me craft this blog. Don’t just take my word for it though.
- High-performing organizations are 44% more likely to be using or experimenting with GenAI to accomplish tasks. (State of Revenue Enablement)
- GenAI can result in a 50% jump in lead-to-sale conversion rate, a 2X lift in cross-selling and upselling rate, a 2X increase in the number of leads generated, and a 2X advancement in a sales rep’s productivity. (Boston Consulting Group)
- Players that invest in AI are seeing a revenue uplift of 3 to 15 percent and a sales ROI uplift of 10 to 20 percent. (McKinsey)
The path to success in 2024 involves a strategic shift. One that focuses on using data to optimize content and buyer experiences, harnesses the power of a unified dataset, leans on value selling to provide reps with the tools they need to seal the deal and embraces the transformative potential of Generative AI. By integrating these insights into your revenue enablement strategy, your organization won’t just be adapting to the future – you’ll be shaping it.
Want more Revenue Enablement insights to shape your 2024 strategy? Check out our State of Revenue Enablement report.
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