Section 5: Lead-to-account matching Lead-to-Account Matching: Segmentation and Smarketing Productive sales efforts vs. dead ends Lead-to-account matching is a subtle but Person At Your Company].” There are several with the wrong person, causing high-value important way to tighten sales and marketing issues that might cause this problem: “new” opportunities to stall. alignment and increase sales productivity, as leads might appear that actually roll up to an well as a key component of account-based active opportunity that belongs to a different These problems are costly at the enterprise marketing (ABM). Lead-to-account matching sales team member; partner-targeted leads level, where deals frequently involve a [13] is easy to define: An automated process that that should belong to your company’s partner committee of 6-7 decision-makers , which matches (and filters out) any incoming leads to channel erroneously end up in front of sales; means an increasingly higher likelihood of existing accounts. It prevents your sales team leads from target account lists from ABM or losing deals with longer delays. Delays can from actively prospecting leads that are already outbound campaigns also erroneously end up also significantly change the impact of your part of accounts that are either already part of in the wrong place; and in some cases, leads marketing budget on sales pipeline and active opportunities or are already customers. might be duplicates. marketing return on investment (ROI), as well Sadly, this functionality is typically limited as on sales productivity. in most cases, particularly within standard Prospecting the wrong accounts takes up marketing automation platforms (MAPs) and hours your sales team could’ve spent pursuing other broad marketing solutions that offer no net-new opportunities (or legitimate account customization or flexibility. expansion opps). Reports suggest that although the top sales priority for 75% of companies is Sales professionals pitching to existing still, predictably, closing more deals, 48% of accounts is obviously an embarrassing mistake companies are concerned with improving the that leads to confused prospects or customers efficiency of the sales funnel. This includes who might reply, “yes, we already know your making sure the leads your sales team receives company and are talking to [Some Other aren’t dead ends, or that they don’t end up 14