Demand Conversion

Our annual State of B2B SaaS Demand Generation report has just gone live! ?? Over the past 2 months, the team has interviewed dozens of senior B2B SaaS marketing leaders in the US and Europe to uncover how buyer behaviour has shifted since COVID – and more importantly, how marketers are responding. If you’ve been trying to improve your revenue pipeline, this report is for you! ?? ????Link in the comments

Shoutout to our first Paris SaaS growth meetup last night co-hosted by Demand Conversion x Skale ?? A few highlights: 1?? 2 competitors sitting side by side (battling it out ??) 2?? Sharing true experiences about the real highs and lows of building on social media and going viral 3?? How to land a Hermès Birkin…iykyk Thanks to everyone that came???? Jake Stainer Stan Stojanovic Roxana Irimia Mihaela Cicvaric Stephanie Hagen Ma?lys Debatisse Laura Patricia Lucas Carval Vincent Plassard

Hi Folks in Paris! ?? We're hosting an in-person SaaS Growth Leaders Meetup on Oct 30th in partnership with Skale ?? This will be a small, intimate event where you can connect with fellow leaders and share the good, the bad, and everything in-between about scaling SaaS in today’s world. If you’re in Paris and want to join us, secure your spot here ?? https://lu.ma/lei666dv Event details: ?? Date: October 30th ?? Location: Marais (3eme) ??? Light food and drinks will be provided! Looking forward to seeing you there! PS. This event is exclusively for SaaS marketing leaders (VPs, Directors, Heads, & Senior Managers) PPS. Only 8 places left and filling fast :)

Selling is hard. But in this day and age, buying can be even harder. The typical buying group in a $5-$50 million revenue SaaS company involves six to 10 stakeholders, where they’ve each consulted ~5 sources of information that they then have to discuss together (and argue about). Make life easier for buyers. Here’s 3 key buyer enablement resources you could have ready: ??Buyer guides and checklists ??TCO calculator (Total Cost of Ownership)? ??Segmented case studies, uses cases, and testimonials 1?? Buyer guides and checklists: - Help folks figure out exactly what they need from their solution Guide them with best practices they might not be aware about, and build trust for your brand 2?? Total Cost of Ownership calculator Buyers need to know how much something will REALLY cost over its lifecycle (e.g. implementation costs, migration costs, maintenance costs, training resources etc) By doing this calculation for them, you reduce their assessment time and friction for your solution 3?? Segmented case studies and use cases E.g. If you’re targeting FinTech, don’t just stop at general ‘FinTech case studies’ Segment based upon the most relevant criteria like vertical, company size etc. This way buyers can easily see the value they’ll be able to derive from your solution.

The harsh truth: 90% of your audience isn’t ready to invest in your product yet. They’re not even in-market to buy your software category. However, we see a lot of SaaS companies focused on the 10% in-market. For example: ?? An overinvestment in Google Ads ?? Counting all content consumption emails metrics as “MQLs” and immediately pushing them into conversion sequences ?? Outbound LinkedIn messages that ask strangers if they’re interested in purchasing their solution then and there How can we tweak these tactics to build trust and educate 90% of our target market? ?? Allocate 20%-30% of paid spend to brand awareness / nurturing relationships ?? Focused on brand awareness metrics (e.g. don’t look at leads, MQLs or won deals as the success metric) but rather look at relevant metrics such as reach, engagement, content consumption ?? Tweak outbound messaging to offer value first. Provide a useful resource or special offer, and build relationships so that when they’re ready to buy they’ll just come straight to your site and purchase

I had to buy a new toilet in Paris. One thing’s for sure: We’re officially in the age of information overload. Having the world in the palm of our hands was supposed to make our lives easier. But today, every buying decision is the most complicated it’s ever been. Compared to buying software, toilets are simple. But I spent days doing research. (There are literally 5,000 options) You can spend $100 or $6,000. Water-saving or power-flushing. 1-piece, 2-piece, in-wall, floating. Some are even Bluetooth-enabled. And you’d be amazed how many people leave detailed reviews. Then there’s the purchase timing: French “Black Friday” happens in May. Plus discount codes or special offers: “Sign up for the club and get 10% off your first purchase.” Bottom line: There’s an infinite amount of information available. And the research is important when you’re buying something you’ll use every day. Actually, it’s even more complex for SaaS buyers. There are an estimated 20,000 SaaS products available globally. And an abundance of high-quality information is available on many of them. But it gets worse. Research shows: The typical buying group involves 6-10 stakeholders. And each of them consults 4-5 sources of information. Worse still: 95% of buying groups report having to go back and revisit decisions at least once as new information emerges. Bottom line: Buying is hard. And that’s why Buyer Enablement is important.

"Marketing is easy – anyone can do it." ??

We asked B2B marketing leaders how they are responding to customer acquisition challenges… Here’s what we found: The problem: ?“Customers are harder to acquire. The cost of Google Ads has increased. The cost of everything has increased.” ?“It’s harder to control some of the channels that were easy to own in the past, like organic traffic. Now it’s become very unpredictable. A lot of things that have worked in the past, don't work anymore.” ?“There’s so many products vying for your time and space, contributing to decision paralysis.” The solutions: Here’s how marketing leaders are responding: ?Refining account targeting from hundreds to dozens per quarter, supported by specific outreach tactics and tailored 1:1 communications with key decision-makers. - AI SaaS ?Doing a lot of experimentation, including running small experiments and being as lean as possible. - Sales Tech SaaS ?Talking to a lot of customers and performing win/loss analysis to better understand buyer behavior. - Tech ?Spending more time articulating differentiation in messaging and positioning. - Tech Talent Marketplace ?Creating partnerships with influential industry leaders on social media, as buyers are following them on LinkedIn. - Tech Talent Marketplace ?Trying to understand stakeholders better so vendors can show up prepared to anticipate and overcome sales objections. - HR SaaS Interested in more insights from B2B marketing leaders? Give us a follow ??

POV: Sales calls with Millennial buyers ??

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