Jonathan Bland’s Post

People who download e-books don't want to talk to sales. They just wanted to learn about the topic. Many SaaS brands still run this play:: 1.) Create E-book 2.) Gate it 3.) Promote it on LinkedIn, Google Ads, and Facebook 4.) Lead Score (maybe) 5.) Send to SDR 6.) SDR calls and emails to get a demo The above leads to: - Poor lead to opportunity conversion rates - Buyers feeling pressure and frustrated - Doesn't build long-term relationships If they wanted to talk to sales, they'd click one of your 5 get a demo buttons on every single page of your website. (it's not that hard) The issue isn't about gating content, it's about matching the appropriate intent level with the appropriate follow-up. Instead of passing to sales: - Do a content collaboration - Invite them to future events - Add them to your newsletter - Retargeting with Paid Ads - Connect on social TL;DR: Match the intent behind the form with the appropriate follow-up. If it feels uncomfortable reaching out, it's likely because it's too early.

"It shows $1.43M in pipeline created in Q1, not $1.73M" - CEO 😕 Reporting discrepancies happen ALL the time. Why? Most of the time, it's because you are using different filters, your x and y don't match, the time period is different, or you are using a different attribution model. 📈 Filters - You filtered out non-ICP fit leads; they are looking at all inbound leads 📈 X and Y - You're recent conversion date, they set the date as the opportunity was created 📈 Time period - You're looking at April 03 - April 21st; they are looking at April 1st - April 21st 📈 Attribution model - You're using 1st touch; they are using a multi-touch model I say this to my team all the time, "we all need to be reading from the same sheet of music". As soon as someone says I have a different number than you, then your first question should be: ---- "Please send me a link to your report." ----- That way, you can dispense with all the back and forth and get to the bottom of what they have done to their report to get xyz answer. Ideally, everyone at your company shares ONE executive dashboard to review # of high-intent leads, inbound opportunities, etc., but sometimes, it's just fun creating one-off reports. ;) TL;DR Align on the way you want to report (the tough part), then stick to those sets of reports when reviewing performance. P.S. There is a time and a place for ad hoc reports, using different attribution models to get different questions answered, but if we change how we look at the data every week, it becomes hard to understand how things are performing. #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

In 2024, every SaaS brand should start rethinking the following 5 things: ❌ Don't push webinar/e-book/guides straight to sales ✅ Do invite them to a content collaboration and build a relationship ❌ Don't optimize for the lowest cost per lead on Google Ads ✅ Do optimize for the lowest cost per opportunity on Google Ads ❌ Don't push the benefits and outcomes of your product ✅ Do promote what your product actually does first ❌ Don't have a marketing focus on accounts that aren't aligned 1:1 with sales ✅ Do use the same target account list to warm up the accounts on LinkedIn ❌ Don't target all geos and all industries to keep options open ✅ Do target specific geos and industries that show historical success Danny L. invited me to her podcast, "How to Build an Empire," to discuss all of the above. If interested, check it out in the comments. Or search Spotify for "How to Build an Empire by Danny Lev" #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

95%+ people that hit your website for the first time won't convert. To nurture, engage, and convert that traffic, you need to retarget those people. That means running paid ads on channels like LinkedIn, Meta, Reddit, Google, etc. On LinkedIn, you can retarget by: 🎯 Visited a page on your website 🎯 Engaged with a single-image ad 🎯 Engaged with a document ad 🎯 Viewed a video ad 🎯 Opened or submitted a Lead Gen Form 🎯 Opened a conversation or clicked on any conversation ad call-to-action (CTA) 🎯 Engaged with your Company Page 🎯 Responded to your LinkedIn Event Each of the above has differing levels of intent. For example, someone who watched a video of you on LinkedIn likely has a lower intent level than someone who has visited a few pages on your website. If you have a big enough audience, you can segment by high-intent pages on your website, like your pricing, success stories, or demo page. If you don't have a big enough audience to segment this way, then start with all pages on your website, minus your careers page. Once that is setup, you can add other audiences like ad interactions, video views, and visits to your LI company page. Ever heard of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, people forget 50-70% of what they learn within 24hrs. So your job is to remind them of who you are, what you do, and how you can help. 🚪 Enter retargeting. Thanks for being my victim, Dooly ;) #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

7 things you can do today to make it HARDER for buyers to buy. 👇 Remember, it's about you and what your company want, not what they want. It's your job to control every step they take across the buyer's journey. The more you can control it, the better you can predict it. Start with: 1.) Remove pricing from your website or better...have a pricing page without pricing on it 2.) Don't let them book a demo directly with your sales team....chase them with emails and calls. 3.) Hide your product; don't let them see it; their curiosity will lead them to reach out. 4.) Pass them around like a baton...SDR > AE >...and make sure you don't share information with the AE, better to ask the same question twice. 5.) Add more form fields, rev ops said they need more data for lead routing. 6.) Spend all your money promoting gated TOFU content that is unrelated to your product. 7.) Give them TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content in that order. I read my content from top to bottom, after all. This is the way. ;) What am I missing? #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

🛑 Don't over-index on targeting decision-makers. 🛑 👉 Focus on the people that feel the problem. Everyone sales team wants to talk with the "decision-maker," but often, the decision-makers aren't the ones who decide on the product. Any good "decision-maker" will trust their team to advise them on the best product/vendor. You first need to convince the champion/end users, the person who feels the problem or has been delegated to solve the problem. They are searching on Google, talking to friends about how they solve the problem, clicking on ads to learn more, engaging in communities on Slack, etc. Run a report for yourself: 1.) Pull data on the last 90-180 days of inbound leads (high-intent, not content downloads) 2.) Pull in all the titles that came inbound and opened opportunities within a time period. Now you know the titles you need to win over. Does that mean you drop all the C-level titles from your campaigns? No, but it means you ensure the titles in the report you ran are in your paid campaigns. P.S. The smaller the company, the more the "decision-maker" is heavily involved with the day-to-day operation of the company, meaning they likely feel the pain and are trying to solve it; adjust your targeting accordingly for the SMB folks. P.P.S. The GTM strategy will certainly alter what you see below.... For example, brands like Zapier, Slack, Tableau, Udemy focused first on converting end users, then leveraged salespeople to follow up with enterprise accounts. #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

When I hear, "I've been following you for months" It's almost a sure thing we will work together. These are the comments you want your salespeople to hear when they first talk with a prospect. ❤️ "I love content" ❤️ "You guys are everywhere" ❤️ "Love your POV" ❤️ "I see your ads all over the place" When you hear, "Yeah, I don't know much about you, could you walk me through what you do" You know it'll be a rough call. You want to create the same thing for your brand. Maybe it's: 1.) Running a killer webinar series with practical information on how your ICP can do better at {topic} 2.) Delivering value packed newsletter that comes out every Friday 3.) Helping them understand the core problems you solve and how you do it through advertising. There are endless ways to create and distribute great content; the point is you don't want sales to get on the first call and hear, "Yeah, I don't know much about what you do..." You should 🤮 ...that's a failure. You want them to know: ✅ What you do? ✅ What outcomes you drive? ✅ How your product works? ✅ Who else uses it? ✅ How much it costs? The more you can derisk it from them upfront, the faster your sales cycle, the higher your close rates, and the happier your sales team will be. Who does most of this work? Marketing. #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

"Is my audience active on {insert_ad channel}?" There are 3 ways to determine if your audience is active on a channel. 1.) Run a targeting ad campaign to the audience Whether it's Reddit, LinkedIn, Meta, etc. you can log into the campaign manager and quickly create an audience of people that match your ICP, then run an ad campaign against them. If they click, engage, or even convert on your campaign, then you know they are active. 2.) Talk to your customers This is the most universal advice for every situation, but at the end of the day, the answers lie in talking to customers and future customers about where they spend time, how they do research, what groups they are part of, what podcasts they listen to, etc. 3.) Get active in the channel BEFORE you spend on advertising, try spending some time on the channel organically. Get involved in groups, connect with influencers, comment on others' posts, and post your own thoughts that help answer questions your buyers have. The reality is everyone in your ICP isn't having a party on ONE channel; they are on multiple channels. However, you need to start with one. The easiest one to get going on is LinkedIn. Even if you don't reach 100% of the audience (impossible), you'll still reach a large % of people who could be a good fit for your company. #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

You can bid on the software category or what people want to "DO" with your product. The cost difference will surprise you. 1.) Software Category is the category your software operates in 2.) Capabilities are the things that people do with your product When you spend money on Google Ads, you want to focus on the people with the highest-intent first. Think of keywords with "tool," "platform," "app," etc. vs. keywords that start with "what" and "how" Zapier falls into the category of "workflow automation tool," so you would naturally want to spend money on that keyword. However, if you want to connect Hubspot and Salesforce, would you type in: 1.) "workflow automation tool"? OR 2.) "Hubspot to Salesforce integration"? Most would type in the latter. After typing in "workflow automation tool," I get: 1.) IBM - Does everything 2.) KarbonHQ - workflow management for accounting firms 3.) Unito - A data connector From an end user's perspective, this could be frustrating. While bidding on "workflow automation solution" isn't wrong, you don't want to exclude your end-user searches (especially in PLG motions). For Zapier, that might be: ✅ "Hubspot to Salesforce integration" ✅ "Google Sheets to Salesforce integration" ✅ "Mailchimp to Hubspot integration" TL;DR High-intent category keywords can make sense, but consider your end user searches, especially when targeting end users. #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas

Does anyone actually send messages on LinkedIn company pages? Many LinkedIn company pages have "messaging" enabled by default. That means the button leading back to your website will be pushed into a dropdown menu. Aka, they won't have an easy button to "learn more" about what you do. You can click on the URL provided in the home section or about section, but why not make it easier for them? If you want to drive more traffic back to your website, do the following: 1.) Go to LinkedIn Company Page 2.) Edit page 3.) Go to buttons 4.) Disable messaging 5.) Activate custom button 6.) Choose CTA (learn more, register, etc.) 7.) Add URL 8.) Save Now, when they land on your company page, scanning from top to bottom, they'll see an easy CTA to learn more about your company. All love for accessiBe :) #demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #b2b