Coverage gap

A coverage gap is a target account that will be present at an event and that your team hasn’t given an owner or planned outreach for, visible in the account plan before the event.

It puts the pre-event failure where you can see it. Most operators find out which target accounts came to the show after it’s already over. They hope the right people happen to be at the booth, or they dig through lists by hand. Spot the gap before the plane takes off, and your reps still have time to book the meeting.

“You just have to hope and pray that like the people who are at the booth recognize that’s a VIP situation. Not ideal.”

A director of events at a large software company running about 200 events a year

How do you identify a coverage gap?

First, match the attendee list to the accounts in your CRM and their owners. Where the organizer shares no list, use past attendance. Then look for target accounts at the show with no owner, or with an owner and no outreach started.

The same match also shows you the accounts to leave alone: those a suppression or protection rule covers, and those already in an open opportunity.

Why does it matter?

You win or lose your reps’ trust on coverage. When reps don’t trust a marketing target list, they re-research their own accounts for weeks. They start outreach so late that prospects already have plans for the evening.

Give each account a tier your reps can inspect and an owner before the show, and they start early. Then close each gap with an owner, or with drafted outreach that the account owner reviews and sends. See both in FieldXM’s account planning on the How FieldXM works tour.

How do you measure it?

Count the coverage gap at departure: the number and share of target accounts at the show with no owner or no outreach on the day your team travels. It’s a leading indicator of the show’s yield.