Setting Large-Account Marketing Goals: A Laddered Approach

Large-account marketing initiatives should align to the company’s most strategic business goals. Goal laddering uses business goals to inform account-level goals, which are then used to inform marketing program goals. Goal alignment across sales and marketing works best when sales takes the lead on account goals and marketing takes the lead on program goals.

When B2B planning proceeds from a company’s strategic business goals to the specific objectives of functional teams, activities and plans often become misaligned or uncoordinated. In this report, we introduce goal laddering, an objective-setting methodology for large accounts that matches strategic goals to account goals and marketing program goals.