You Need Customers.
The Thankless Job of the B2B Marketer
Our product will sell itself.Every founder with a great idea
Budgets are often focused elsewhere and teams are either generalized (managers, executives) or deeply specialized (engineers, accountants, IT). And even with those limited resources, everyone wants to do everything they’ve ever read about, and right now.
So where do you start?
- A message.
- An understanding of your ideal customer and their purchasing process.
- A well defined sales funnel, with specific exit criteria.
- Some great content.
- Systems to measure performance.
- The ability to follow up on leads.
- A high performing website.
- Marketing channels.
Easy right?
Companies that that map marketing investments to revenue are 212% more likely to have YOY revenue growth greater than 20%Bizible’s 2018 State of Pipeline Marketing Report
Here’s an example of ARR improvements with just a 10% improvement at each step:
| Metric | Before | After |
| MQLs | 1,000 | 1,100 |
| MQL > SAL Rate | 20% | 22% |
| SAL > OPP Rate | 20% | 22% |
| OPP > Win Rate | 50% | 55% |
| Average Deal Size | $10,000 | $11,000 |
| Revenue (Deals) | $200,000 (20 deals) | $322,102 (29 deals) |
$112,000 in additional revenue with only incremental (10%) improvements at each step. When considering whether or not these growth investments are worth it, don’t just think about the lost revenue, think about the lost valuation:
SaaS companies with projected 12-month revenue growth of 20% or more were acquired last year at an average valuation/projected revenue multiple of 6.7%, compared to 4.3x for those below the 20% threshold.Axios Prorata, January 11, 2017
We’ve seen this before
Most marketing teams have limited budgets, so you have to spend wisely, otherwise future budgets will be more difficult to justify.
During my private equity years, I was introduced to a team that created a relatively portable self contained product that turned raw sewage into clean water.
Game changer right?
Like so many others before them, they thought the product will sell itself. It should have — but it didn’t. The founders refused to accept marketing support under any circumstances and the company ended up selling their technology for a small fraction of its potential.
Testing, testing, testing
You need flexibility and a team of experts.
What works for everyone else may not work for you. You need the ability to dip your toe into the water of many lakes without jumping all the way in. We see a content marketing strategy accompanied by paid and organic search and social work for nearly all of our b2b focused products.
Two strategies
Very generically speaking there are two methods of marketing software in the 21st century. Account Based Marketing and Inbound Demand Generation.
It’s important to note that the two strategies can coexist and a balance, while difficult, should eventually be sought to fully take advantage to maximize both inbound and outbound channels. Unless you’re exclusively selling to the Fortune 500, a mix of ABM and Inbound is likely the right strategy. It captures your target accounts with Outbound and those with high intent with Inbound.
You can read more inbound vs. outbound strategies here.
Who we are
You are the same today that you are going to be five years from now except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read.Charlie “Tremendous” Jones (1927-2008)
Our customers
Financial Services
Enterprise Software
Venture Capital
SMB Software
Biotechnology
Manufacturing
Almost everything you need to know about how we think about the problem of creating revenue out of software can be found in our Marketing to the Enterprise document, a comprehensive look at enterprise marketing in the 21st century.