- Pipeline: A. quality over quantity, B. the right metrics (win rates not demos)! Too often pipeline volume becomes a focus versus leads that convert. A good exercise is looking a Loss Reason in your CRM data for lost deasl closing in later deal stages. If you are seeing a lot of "customer not interested", "has no budget", or "solution not a fit for customer's needs", that means you are pushing more unqualified leads into your sales cycle than you should. This simply wastes the valuable time of your sales team. It indicates you should be doing more upfront marketing and sales qualification before connecting leads to sales associates. And more vetting of the quality of leads you collect from marketing initially.Too often, a Demand Generation team will measure its success for leadership based on the volume of the pipeline. I know you need "shots on goal" to score, but I'd rather have 5 high-probability penalty shots than 100 low probability shots from the red line. Remember, it's all about revenue. The #1 metric for any leads generation team is "leads converted to won deals" and associated revenue.
- Events: I love the story of an event Ceridian once held. Great promo of on-site t-shirt printing. Hundreds of people attended their booth. When asked "have you seen their solution" or "do you know what this company does?", 80-90% of the attendees had no idea. They were their for the promo gift. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do large events, but be aware they can be expensive and are mostly a branding exercise. Successful is measured by won deals, but quantity of leads collected. Figure out your ROI for any events you decide to attend (ARR won / cost for event). For large events, branding ideas to make your booth more effective include: require a demo sit through before giving out your promo gift. One vendor once gave away $100 every hour for people wearing the shirt they gave out. By the end of the event, everyone was wearing the company's name and logo. One of the best branding exercises ever.Alternative higher-ROI events to run might be more personalized, smaller group events with buyers who have already expressed an interest. Their decision makers with your senior leaders. A great way to show you care about winning their business.
- Importance of collateral: thought leadership, trusted advisor to buyers on deals, more important with longer sales cycles as you move up market; should be core focus on product marketing teams
- Case Studies: creating and posting, or sending over to buyers is not enough. Better to have 5-10 studies that address top issues for buyers, and everyone in sales is trained on how to consistently present and walk them through than hundreds of case studies that just get posted, or shared out of context.
- Customer References: Existing customers are a vendor's top asset for helping close additional business! Few SaaS vendors however do a good job of consistently providing customer references to potential buyers. And sometimes, when provided if not done right, they can hurt you more than they can help you. Most buyers do understand that the references a vendor provides are most certainly their "best customers" and positively biased. This still doesn't mean you shouldn't provide them. Experiential information from other customers on what it is like to work with you, what onboarding and migration was like, using your product, and getting support over time can be invaluable. Some do's and don'ts for references...* Proactively provide references vesus being asked* Provide references early in the sale cycle not at the end* Ensure references provide are a strong fit with the buyers company size, industry, and most importantly use case. If the buyer has to perform a migration, connect then with a reference who had to perform a migration. If the buyer has to integration with a specific CRM or ERP, provide a reference that integrated with that same platform.* Ask the buyer what they would like out of the reference so you can ensure the fit.* Don't assume the buyer will automatically connect with the reference. Follow-up to ensure they have, and if not, facilitate the connection.* Don't rely on your CRM or some automated process as the mechanism for sales finding appropriate referencing. This is a process that needs to be staffed, managed and properly maintained. Good quality reference shouldn't be overly use. Suggested references need to be vetted for their satisfaction and quality of reference they can potential be.
- Partner marketing: vendor profiles on partner app stores and directories as critical as content on your own websites; often forgotten and out of date. Need to maintain, nuture reviews and staff partner marketing team to own for your top integrations and partners.
- Analyst Relations: changing landscape for SaaS, review sites more important than traditional analyst reports, buyers do 65% of their own research before even reaching out to the vendor; review sites are critical to curation, maintain, drive reviewer, response to negative reviews, have strategy around which sites you plan to nuture. Decide which review sites you plan to maintain, foster reviews on, drive buyers to and create collateral around. You cannot manage them all. A good best practice... categorize your company profile on review sites, but do not create multiple products. Each listing requires maintenance and its own set of reviews. It's much better to have a single profile with a strong market presence and review response that multiple product pages where customer usage and reviews look scant.
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