Factors Blog

There’s no doubt that B2B sales is increasingly being conducted in a methodical, scientific manner. Using a wide range of metrics and KPIs, this data-driven sales process ensures minimal revenue leakage and optimized pipeline performance. You may have heard of a few common sales metrics: customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, average revenue per user, etc.

This article focuses on a lesser known, yet enormously important metric to monitor & improve the overall health of sales: pipeline velocity. Let’s explore everything you need to know about pipeline velocity; what it is, how to calculate it, and most importantly, how to improve it. 

What is pipeline velocity? 

In short, pipeline velocity is the speed at which qualified opportunities move through the sales pipeline. 

In other words, pipeline velocity is used to measure how quickly leads are being converted into paying customers. This helps understand the efficiency of the sales process and identify areas of improvement. 

Think of a literal pipeline: if it’s chock-full of debris and leaks, the flow of water will be limited and inefficient. On the other hand, if it’s squeaky clean, a large volume of water can flow uninterrupted at maximum speed.

Similarly, a high-velocity sales pipeline results in a consistent, voluminous flow of leads and ultimately, revenue. You can see why it’s so important to keep track of this metric. 

How to calculate pipeline velocity?

Pipeline velocity is calculated using 4 other metrics:

• Opportunities - how many qualified opportunities are in your pipeline?
• Deal size - what is the average contract value of deals in your pipeline?
• Win rate - what percentage of opportunities will likely convert successfully?
• Length of sales cycle - on average, how many days does it take to close a deal? 

Here’s the most commonly accepted pipeline velocity formula:

Pipeline velocity = (Opportunities x average deal size x average win rate) ÷ length of average sales cycle (in days)

Let’s take an example. Say we have 60 qualified opportunities at various stages along the pipeline. The average deal size of these opportunities is $5000. Historically, we’ve observed a win rate of 20% and sales cycles of around 30 days. Accordingly, our pipeline velocity may be calculated as follows:

Extrapolating this, we arrive at a figure of $2000/day x 30 days for $60,000 per month. 

You may notice from the pipeline velocity formula that there are a few ways to improve pipeline velocity:

• Increase number of opportunities
• Increase average deal size
• Increase win rate 
• Decrease length of sales cycle

Each variable is a lever that may be pulled to ramp up pipeline velocity. Of course, the most obvious way is to increase the number of opportunities/leads and deal size (easier said than done!). That being said, improving the buyer experience is a low-hanging fruit that results in dramatic improvements in win rates and quicker sales cycles. 

But what makes improving the pipeline velocity so important anyway? Here are a few benefits of tracking and optimizing pipeline velocity:

Why is pipeline velocity important?

As HubSpot’s director of sales, Dan Tyre, puts it: 

“Sales managers live in fear that their pipeline is a bunch of fluff. In today’s world of instant gratification, uncovering a sense of urgency and establishing sales pipeline velocity is important because it uncovers a slow-moving, or worse, stagnant pipeline”.

1. Understand the overall health of the sales pipeline

Understanding your pipeline velocity helps keep tabs on the overall health of your sales pipeline. By knowing what works and what needs improvement, you can bring iterative, targeted changes to the sales engine. More revenue, less costs — win, win!

2. Ensure accurate sales forecasting

Measuring your pipeline velocity on a regular basis helps with accurate sales forecasting. For instance, taking the previous example, we have a pipeline velocity of $2000 per day, which can be expanded to $60,000 per month or $180,000 for the quarter. Using pipeline velocity is accurate as it’s based on real-time sales data, not estimates. 

3. Improve attribution & ROI

A powerful use-case is realized when pipeline velocity is used in tandem with attribution modeling. Picture this: each of your pipeline sources, broken down by qualified opportunities, deal size, win rate, and of course, pipeline velocity:

In combination with attribution, pipeline velocity can provide valuable insight into the most effective channels — which in turn can help guide marketing decisions and resource allocation. In this case, we see that even though paid social brings in more opportunities, it’s paid search that results in the most ROI given its larger deal size and better win rate.

Sales cycle benchmarks for SaaS

Pipeline velocity itself varies significantly based on the nature and size of the company in question. Instead, here’s a breakdown of the benchmark of length of sales cycles in SaaS

Length of sales cycle:

• Deals < $2000 ACV: 14 days
• Deals < $5000 ACV: 30 days
• Deals < $25,000 ACV: 90 days
• Deals < $100,000 ACV < 90-180 days
• Deals > $100,000 3 - 9 months

Depending on the nature of your business, your win rate should be anywhere from 5-20%. Of course, the number of opportunities and deal size is specific to your product, marketing & sales efforts. It wouldn’t make sense to maintain or refer to benchmarks in this case.

How to improve pipeline velocity?

In short, improving pipeline velocity involves eliminating points of friction along the customer journey and aligning workflows and stakeholders to ensure smooth sailing. Here are a few tactics and strategies to do so:

1. Make the most of existing traffic

Your website is a goldmine of hidden opportunities in the form of yet-to-be-converted accounts. Use an IP-based account intelligence tool (like Factors) to reveal anonymous accounts already engaging with your website, review pages, and ad campaigns. 

Given that these accounts are already familiar with your brand, they’re far more likely to convert: thereby increasing your “number of opportunities” and “win-rate”. 

2. Let visitors experience your work

As companies increasingly move towards product-led growth, it’s becoming all the more important to show, not tell. While not all products (especially those at early stages) can adopt PLG models, it’s really quite simple and effective to put up an interactive product tour on your website. This gives visitors a chance to know a little more about your work before choosing to book a demo, rather than having to go in blind. 

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Again, this likely increases the number of opportunities, reduces average sales cycle length, and improves your win rate. 

3. Document. Everything. Always.  

There’s no doubt that sales demos and discovery calls are important. But more often than not, buyers don’t have the time to sit through another 30-min. Make life easier for your sales reps, CS team, and of course, the customers themselves by introducing comprehensive documentation on everything they might need to know. 

Use-cases, How-tos, Implementation, etc, etc, etc should be easily accessible to anyone interested in your work — to mitigate the risk of unnecessary back-and-forth friction. This will certainly help reduce the length of the sales cycle. 

4. Align relevant stakeholders

A vital, yet often overlooked step is ensuring alignment across marketing, sales, CS, and the customers. This involves timely handoffs, relevant communication, straightforward pricing and product details, and clear PoCs across every stage of the customer journey. This helps both the customer and internal departments streamline the sales process end-to-end.

5. Stay on top of data & metrics 

The accuracy of your pipeline velocity metrics (and any other metric, really) relies heavily on the quality of your data. Ensure you’re regularly maintaining numbers on qualified opportunities, deal size, and length of sales cycle in your CRM so the same may be leverage for pipeline velocity measurement. 

How Factors help monitor & improve pipeline velocity

As important as it is, it can be a tedious, unintuitive chore to measure pipeline velocity — unless you have the right analytics solution, of course :) 

Factors is an AI-fuelled intelligence & analytics platform that helps teams identify, score, and track accounts across the customer journey. We’re talking about automated sales velocity calculations, flexible conversion funnels, IP-based account identification, multi-touch attribution, and more — everything you need to kickstart and refine your ABM process and…pipeline velocity! 

Cold calls that lead nowhere. Generic pitches that fall flat. And data overload with no clear strategy. We’ve all been there.

But what if you could truly know your target customers, connect with them on a human level and win their business with precision and care?

That’s Account-Based Selling (ABS). 

In this guide, we'll explore ABS and why it's reshaping sales, especially for new SaaS companies. We'll also look at account intelligence tools like Factors that are making this targeted approach possible. 

Sound good? Let's dive in.

TL;DR;

• Account-Based Selling (ABS) treats each company as a unique market, focusing on multiple stakeholders. It's ideal for B2B with complex sales cycles
• Benefits of ABS include greater control over your sales pipelines, personalized messaging, lower acquisition costs, and aligning sales and marketing teams
• Tools like Factors enhance ABS with account intelligence, journey mapping, and attribution
• Assess resources, tech, market, differentiation, and executive buy-in to determine if ABS fits
• ABS offers a more informed, strategic approach vs. hunch-based calling or generic pitching

What Is Account-Based Selling?

Account-based selling (ABS) and account-based marketing (ABM) are quite similar. 

The main difference—ABS focuses on sales while ABM focuses on marketing. 

Account-based selling treats each target company as a unique market. Unlike traditional sales methods that focus on individual leads, ABS focuses on an entire account or business. This means you consider all the possible stakeholders and decision-makers when performing outreach and creating your messaging.

Here's how ABS works:

• Sales and marketing select target accounts that fit the ideal customer profile. This process is called account scoring. These are the companies most likely to benefit from the offering.
• Buyer personas are created to understand the various stakeholders' needs within each account.
• Personalized content is then developed to appeal to the interests of each stakeholder.
• Sales representatives conduct personalized outreach to each stakeholder using tailored content.
• The goal is to nurture and guide stakeholders through the buyer's journey by resonating with their specific needs and interests.

ABS takes time to understand stakeholder needs and creates customized messaging. It's like tailoring a bespoke suit, instead of a premade piece. 

Let’s consider Trello—a project management tool. Suppose they want to target mid-sized companies since those have fewer employees managing multiple functions—a project management tool is perfect. Within those companies, they would create and send the project managers content about efficiency, the IT staff content about integration, and the executives content about ROI. 

This approach, while more intensive, talks directly to the audience and covers a broad range of pain points. The more stakeholders learn about your product, the easier it becomes to get your target accounts to adopt your products.

But is it only applicable to B2B or would ABS also work for B2C businesses?

Is Account-Based Selling Better Suited to B2B or B2C?

Account-based selling is a more targeted and meticulous approach to selling. 

You need time and resources to understand an account’s needs, who the buyer is, what are the pain points, and how the product can be tailored to satisfy those needs. 

The B2C market may not be the right fit for such a high-commitment approach to sales. Let’s look at how ABS suits B2B vs B2C. 

Account-Based Selling for B2B

B2B involves higher commitment and longer sales cycles including multiple decision makers.

• Deals with multiple decision-makers and stakeholders within an organization who influence the buying process. ABS allows sales teams to identify each stakeholder, understand their specific interests and pain points, and tailor messaging to resonate with each person.
• Products and services tend to be highly complex and customized. ABS enables sales reps to take time to deeply understand a client's unique business challenges and craft tailored solutions.
• The focus is on long-term customer relationships versus one-time transactions. Account-based selling nurtures relationships over months or years and emphasizes recurring revenue versus individual sales.
• Sales cycles are longer due to multiple stakeholders and complex products. It is a patient approach focused on carefully penetrating accounts versus rapid product pushing.
• Purchases involve high financial commitment and risk for the client. This approach builds trust to provide a consultative experience and gives clients confidence in major decisions.

However, this complex B2B buyer journey also translates to higher revenue per client compared to a B2C audience. 

Account-Based Selling for B2C

B2C is a numbers game—the more people see your product, the more conversions you have. You can always go deeper within a niche and personalize content for your users. But the ROI on that effort would be much lower than B2B. Here’s why:

• Individual consumers make purchases based on personal interests/needs versus organizational fit. A mass marketing, product-focused approach may resonate more than account-based selling.
• Products tend to be simpler, off-the-shelf offerings requiring little customization or explanation of features/benefits. Less need for a highly tailored, consultative sales approach.
• The focus is on one-time transactions versus building relationships and recurring purchases over time. Account-based selling is inefficient when one sale is the primary goal.
• Sales cycles are typically much shorter and involve little risk for the buyer. Quickly grab attention versus meticulously building account awareness over an extended period.
• Purchases are smaller-ticket items involving lower financial commitment. There’s less need to build a case for purchase through account-based selling techniques.

Because of the higher commitment and upfront cost, ABS may not make financial sense for B2C businesses. 

Benefits of Account-Based Selling 

Account-based selling represents a seismic shift in how many organizations approach sales and marketing. This approach offers several key advantages.

1. Greater Control Over How You Target Customers

Account-based selling allows sales teams to intimately understand each target account. Treating each account as a unique market, your sales reps can dive deep into the specific needs, challenges, and decision-making dynamics within each organization. 

For example, a software company selling to hospitals may devote resources to understanding the typical procurement cycles, IT infrastructure, and patient billing workarounds within a large healthcare system. Equipped with this insight, the sales team can craft resonating proposals for each stakeholder group within the hospital.

2. More Personalized Messaging

This ability to fine-tune messaging also fosters greater personalization. Because sales have rich buyer personas for each decision-maker within an account, they can speak directly to individual priorities and pain points. Instead of generic messaging, account-based selling enables highly personalized outreach. 

This personalization, in turn, helps build meaningful connections and increases sales efficiency. Sales teams no longer waste time cold calling or emailing broad prospect lists. Every communication is targeted and purposeful. Consequently, sales cycles are often shorter, and conversion rates are higher with account-based selling.

3. Can Lower Cost of Acquisition 

Account-based selling also fosters tight alignment between sales and marketing teams. Marketing gains critical insights from sales on customer needs that inform campaigns and content creation. And sales leverages marketing outreach to penetrate and engage target accounts. This unified strategy amplifies results and ensures both teams are working toward the same goals.

When a company leverages ABS, every dollar spent on advertising and content creation is targeted to a single entity. You’re more likely to convert your account with this approach here compared to using a mass appeal approach. 

Also, because you’re targeting a very small set of untapped users, the advertising costs are likely to be lower than your traditional marketing. And with that, you reduce your acquisition costs over time. 

4. Better Alignment with Marketing Team

While account-based selling requires more upfront research and coordination, the payoff can be huge. Companies report larger deal sizes, shortened sales cycles, expanded deal volume, and increased customer retention from the approach. 

And this is one of the few strategies where the marketing and sales teams have to collaborate to create successful strategies. You will notice this based on the roles in an ABM team. 

For instance, if you’re targeting a mid-sized B2B company, your marketing team can identify all the pages and resources visitors from the target account have consumed. With that data, the sales team can create sales collateral like battle cards and pitch decks that better speak to the pain points of the client. 

Account-based selling could very well represent the future of B2B sales and marketing for organizations selling complex, high-value solutions. But is this the right approach for your business? 

How to Decide if Account-Based Selling Is For You?

Account-based selling can be a highly effective sales strategy but requires careful evaluation to determine if it aligns with your organization's resources, market landscape, and overall objectives. 

When assessing the viability, here are some of the key factors to analyze:

1. Sales Team Expertise and Bandwidth

Implementing ABS requires sales reps with the skills to thoroughly research target accounts, craft customized messaging, and build relationships wiith multiple stakeholders. 

Assess whether your team is ready for this shift or if extensive training is needed. Also evaluate if reps have the bandwidth to dedicate time to fewer, high-value accounts.

2. Investment in Technology

Account-based selling relies heavily on technology to coordinate account data, optimize touchpoints, and track progress. Your tech stack needs robust integration, analytics, and automation capabilities to enable a streamlined ABS workflow. 

If current systems are lacking, you may want to look for better tools. Tools like Factors can be instrumental in this process. It provides user journey mapping to understand the customer's path and identify key touchpoints. They can also help you understand your audience better through account intelligence and custom reporting features. 

3. Understanding Your Total Addressable Market

ABS works best when tightly focused on a clearly defined market segment. Carefully analyze your TAM to identify niche opportunities and pockets of high-value accounts to pursue. Take a selective and strategic approach to mapping your target accounts.

Suppose you have created a plugin for Shopify store owners that costs $10/month. In this case, it may make more sense to reach as many stores as possible instead of targeting one. That’s because the maximum revenue will be $10/month. Unless you have higher, more expensive tiers, ABS may simply end up requiring too many resources for negligible returns. 

But flip the script with higher pricing— say $2500/month—and you now have every reason to identify target accounts from your existing website visitors, double down on creating targeted messaging, and make your marketing as personalized as possible.

4. Competitive Differentiation

In saturated markets, ABS can help differentiate you, but analyze whether your product/service offers enough unique value in the eyes of your chosen accounts. Talk to prospects and gauge interest levels and identify areas where you can provide superior solutions.

The more you understand about your product from your prospects and customers, the better it is for your marketing messaging. Through these demo calls, you could even find multiple use cases that you never really thought of! 

5. Executive Buy-In and Patience

Gaining access to and winning over executive-level decision-makers takes time. Ensure leadership understands the longer sales cycles required for ABS success. Sustained commitment to chosen accounts is vital.

The integration of advanced analytics tools like Factors, with its relevant features such as account intelligence, user journey mapping, and marketing attribution, can help you gain deeper insights and improve your ABS processes.

Account-based selling brings strategic focus to sales. But it requires organizational realignment, thorough market analysis, and executive patience. So you may want to consider these points when making your decision about ABS.

Ready to Take the Obvious Next Step in B2B Sales?

Look, I get it. Traditional sales feel comfortable. It's what we've always done—call a lot of prospects, pitch to anyone who will listen, cross your fingers, and hope something sticks. 

But that scattershot approach is starting to feel outdated. Sales have evolved, and it's time to get strategic and targeted, especially if you’re in the B2B space.

Account-based selling helps you play a winning game. 

You research accounts, understand their needs, and craft tailored solutions—making your approach about quality over quantity—finding the right fit instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall.

And tools like Factors make this process so much smoother. You get the intel and insights you need to map accounts, attribute success, and turn sales into a science.

ABS is already here. So why keep playing by the old rules? Book a call with Factors to start your account-based selling journey today.

Get ready for the hottest SaaStr mixers in and around the Bay Area! SaaStr 2023 is back, and it's the place to be from September 6th to 8th. Join the largest gathering of SaaS founders, executives, and industry leaders for three days of learning, networking, and unforgettable moments. With so many SaaStr mixers to choose from, we've got you covered. Check out our curated list of the must-attend events below. See you there!

Tuesday, Sep 5

1. The State of SaaS: Leaders Drinks

Cledara and ChartMogul have teamed up to bring forth an evening of networking in San Mateo, along with several prominent figures in the SaaS industry. It’s an opportunity for you to exchange ideas, build connections while relishing a wide assortment of cocktails, it’s indeed a great start to the event with a little catch-up to warm yourselves up and get familiar with the settings.

When: Sep 5 | 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM GMT-7

Where: Fogbird, San Mateo 

Sign Up Here 

2. Zendesk for Startups has a great pre-SaaStr event “Customers and Capital”

Learn from leaders at startups that have scaled

Two of the most crucial components for startups to scale are customers and capital. In this event, leaders from thriving startups and investors will share their best practices on scaling a customer-centric startup and securing your next round of funding.

When: September 5th, 2023, 4:00pm–7:00pm

Where: Pinstripes, 36 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA 94403

Save a seat

3. Sip, Snack, and SaaStr: The Ultimate Pre-SaaStr Networking Extravaganza

The Dynamic Duo: Dreamdata and Younium Join Forces!! Join us for the ultimate Pre-SaaStr Meet Up and Mingle Party, the perfect kickoff to the much-anticipated conference! 🎉🥂Get ready to mix, mingle, and make connections with fellow SaaStr enthusiasts before the big event. It's the ultimate icebreaker to meet new friends, catch up with old ones, and expand your network in a relaxed and fun atmosphere.

When: September 5th, 2023, 6:00pm–7:00pm

Where: The Refuge San Mateo Restaurant, 66 31st Ave, San Mateo, Californien, US, 94403

Save a seat

4. Pre-Saastr Huddle: Calling upon all CCOs and their post-sales leaders!

​Calling upon all founders, CCOs, and their post-sales leaders 

​Keeping it Real: Baring Post-Sale Truths and Trials

​The best in the business shed light on their post-sale challenges and secrets. Are you ready to dive into the depths of the most challenging post-sale conundrums? 

​Look no further! The stage is set for an electrifying event where post-sale leaders unite to dissect the toughest hurdles they've navigated over the past year.

When: September 5th, 2023, 4:00pm–7:00pm

Where: 28 E 3rd Ave #101, San Mateo, California

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5. The SaaSiest Welcome Bash Pre SaaStr Annual 2023

Come along, mingle with fellow SaaS enthusiasts, and experience a bar transformed into a glamorous experience, perfectly designed for connecting with your peers. ​Your hosts are Avoma (all-in-one AI Meeting Assistant, Collaboration, Forecasting and Intelligence platform for customer facing teams), Allegrow (the #1 platform for inbox placement) and Modern GTM (the leading SaaS consultants for go to market teams).

When: September 5th, 2023, 4:30pm–8:30pm

Where: San Mateo, California

Save a seat

Wednesday, Sep 6

6. SaaStr’s First Wine and Food Festival

Take some time off to try out some of the best wines in the town while mingling with like-minded people from the industry. Pssst! It also has several food trucks too.

When: On Site

When: Sept 6, Starts 5 Pm

7. SaaStr Annual after-party

This after-party is co-hosted by Greenhouse and HiBob. The event is thoughtfully organised to bring together industry leaders and experts to celebrate the worktech solutions that are empowering today’s hiring teams.

But that’s not all, there is a lot of fun accompanying it and this time it’s even better!

When: September 6 | 7-9 pm

Where: The Academy Social Club | 2166 Market St. | San Francisco, CA | 94114

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8. Mission Cloud and AWS After-Party

Possibly the best opportunity for all SaaS professionals to connect with leaders in this industry. In this happy hour, you can mingle with the CEO, CTO, Data Learning and Machine Analytics lead of Mission Cloud.

With a lot of fun packed experience in the waiting, this is a win-win for all!

When: September  6 | 6:30-8:30 PDT

Where: Paul Martin, near Campus 

Save a seat

9. SaaStr Annual 2023 After Party hosted by Workato

Join for drinks, light appetizers & bocce ball after SaaStr Annual 2023 Conference & Expo. Space is limited so register today to save your spot!

When: Sept 6th, 2023, 7pm - 9pm PT

Where: Pinstripe, 36 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA 94403

Sign up

10. Sundowner for the SaaS Soul

​If you are a founder, CCO, or post-sales leader who wants to meet your tribe after the first day of the SaaStr festival, we got you! As the sun dips below the horizon, the SaaS world will come to life at the SaaS Sundowner. Connect with your peers, professionals, innovators, and thought leaders from the post-sale realm with a fusion of delectable refreshments and engaging conversations. Join us to ignite valuable partnerships and meaningful connections, and refuel yourself for the next two days at SaaStr! 

​Let's raise our glasses to innovation, collaboration, and a sunset that mirrors the brilliance of the SaaS industry.

When: Sept 6th, 2023, 6-9pm PT

Where: C Food Crush

251 S B St, San Mateo, CA 94401, USA

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11. Time Capsule SaaStr Afterparty with Toplyne, Paddle, & Common Room

​Step into the Time Capsule Afterparty: A realm where art, music, and celebration collide.

Network, mix, and party with Toplyne, Paddle, and Common Room after Day 1 of SaaStr Annual. ​Your 2023 Time Capsule Party is set among curated exhibits from iconic moments and physical relics of the SaaS Industry's best-kept secrets.

​Featuring exhibits from SaaS's biggest companies and names.

When: Sept 6th, 2023, 6.30PM 

Where: Pinstripes, 36 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA 94403, USA

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12. Finance Unplugged

Join them for an evening of refreshing conversations and drinks. Build your network, expand your expertise, and discover radical strategies to succeed as a modern finance leader. This is your finance community.

When: Sept 6th, 2023, 7.00 PM 

Where: Pausa Bar & Cookery, San Mateo

Save a seat 

13. RevGenius X Hubilo, Bits & Bites: SaaS Comedy Roast

Attending SaaStr? Swing by our SaaS comedy roast! Our lineup is packed with top industry names, and no one is safe from the laughter. Make sure you join us for an exclusive night of networking! This event has been designed for marketing and revenue leaders from B2B space. To maintain an intimate atmosphere, all the submissions are subject to approval. 

When: Sept 6th, 2023, 6.30 PM 

Where: Pinstripes San Mateo

14. Postal and Navan are hosting an Opp-Tober fest 

‍

Guten Tag! Join us Wednesday, September 6 for an Oktoberfest extravaganza following SaaStr, Day 1. Get ready for an unforgettable evening at Wursthall - complete with premium hops-pitality and great company.

When: Sept 6, 6pm - 9:30pm PT

Where: Wursthall: 310 Baldwin Ave, 9440

Save a seat

15. Coastal Therapy Yacht Party

You're the happiest when you're near water. It's true (google it!) So...

Come hang with your fellow SaaStrs and a few interesting guests on the Empress, a 90 foot luxury yacht.

🍢 Hors d'oeurves for your stomach.

🍸 Cocktails for your head.

💃 Jams for the soul.

It's all here.

When: Wednesday, September 6th, 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Where: Oyster Point Marina 95 Harbor Master Rd, South San Francisco, CA 94080

Save a seat 

16. SaaStr After Hours Happy Hour, Rhymetec

When: Wednesday, September 6th from 7:30 - 9:30pm PST

Where: Fieldwork Brewing, 3030 S Delaware St, San Mateo

Sign up here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/saastrafterhourshappyhour7100845320988672000/comments/

Pre-SaaStr morning run with Dreamdata

Get ready for an energizing start to SaaStr as we kick off with a chill morning 5K run. Lace-up your running shoes and join us for a slow-paced jog where we'll explore the sights of San Mateo.

Not only will you get to experience the city, but you'll also have the chance to connect and have a blast with fellow SaaS enthusiasts who are joining this event.

When: Wed, Sep 6, 2023 from 7.30 AM

Where: 974 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, Californien, US, 94404

Memorial | Leo J. Ryan, 974 E Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404, United States

Sign up here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/pre-saastrmorningrunwithdreamda7097643481006780416/about/

Thursday, Sep 7

17. Consensus Hosted After Hours Saastr Event

Join Consensus for a night of bowling, bocce, food, drinks and fun! No presentations, just good old fashioned networking and good times. Join us directly after Saastr’s “Big Party” at Pinstripes, just a mile from the San Mateo Events Center.

When: Thursday, September 7, 2023 @ 8pm - 10pm

Where: Pinstripes | 36 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA 94403

Sign up: https://goconsensus.com/event/consensus-hosted-after-hours-saastr-event/

‍18. Women in Sales Happy Hour

They're hosting a happy hour at 5pm PST on 9/7 and it’s the perfect pre-party before the epic Lavender 💜 event happening later that night!

When: Thursday, September 7, 2023 @ 5pm - 10pm

Where: Toy Soldier, 52 Belden PL, San Francisco

Sign up: https://womeninsalescommunity.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-1yohceoo3-93a3q77D1cGFdFptP4FQRA#/shared-invite/email

‍19. Mutiny is hosting a Party Like It’s the 90s party

Going to SaaStr? Stop by the 90s throwback happy hour with our friends at Chili Piper, Mutiny, 🔮 Pocus, Navattic and Webstacks!

When: Thursday, September 7, 2023 @ 5.30PM

Where: Pinstripes, 36 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo

Sign up: https://www.pocus.com/event-party-like-its-the-90s?utm_campaign=SaaStr-2023&utm_source=Mutiny

‍20. Mutiny is hosting a Party Like It’s the 90s party

Guests will enjoy curated cocktails, great food, and even better networking at Fogbird in downtown San Mateo. The guest list will fill up quickly so please register ASAP; once at capacity we will start a waitlist.

When: September 7, 2023 | 5:00-10:30 PM PST

Where: Fogbird | 144 South B Street, San Mateo, CA

Sign up: https://coda.io/resources/events/saastr-happy-hour-mixer 

‍21. Grow with SAP and Remote are hosting a dinner

Supercharge your global expansion. Join us for an exclusive invite-only dinner to learn new strategies for unlocking global growth.

When: 6pm-9pm sail time | *5:15pm Transportation will be provided to and from the SaaStr conference

Where: The Empress Yacht - San Francisco Pier 40

Sign up: https://remote.com/events/remote-connect-2023/rc23sanfranciscoST?utm_campaign=Event_RC23_SaaStr%20Dinner_Q4%2F2023&utm_source=sap&utm_medium=partners&utm_content=ppsap20

‍22. A Glass of SaaS

​Join NEA and some of the hottest up-and-coming SaaS companies on Thursday, September 7th, 5:00pm-8:00pm for A Glass of SaaS—an evening of beer, bites, and plenty of SaaSy conversation at Fieldwork Brewing Co. We hope you can make it!

When: Thursday, 7 September, 5:00pm-8:00pm

Where: Fieldwork Brewing Company - San Mateo

San Mateo, California

Sign up: https://lu.ma/aglassofsaas 

‍23. Unusual Ventures is hosting a PLG Happy Hour in Oakland from 5-7

Based in the Bay Area or in town for SaaStr? Come mingle with other PLG leaders in downtown Oakland at a casual happy hour hosted by Dopt and Unusual Ventures!

When: Thursday, 7 September, 5:00PM to 7:00PM.

Where: Oakland, California

Sign up: https://lu.ma/plg-hh-unusual-dopt

Friday, Sep 8

24.Vibramium.VC has an early stage founder and investor party

Join Vibranium.VC and partners for an exciting evening of networking and connections! Whether you're looking for funding, mentorship, or simply want to expand your network, this party is the place to be. Mingle with like-minded individuals, exchange ideas, and discover potential collaborations. Don't miss out on this fantastic chance to connect and grow in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Space is limited, so request access now!

When: Sept 8th at 5:00PM

Where: TBD (SAN MATEO)

Sign up: https://saastrearlystagefoundersinve.splashthat.com/

Generating high-quality B2B leads is an art. Unlike blasting consumer ads, B2B requires finesse, strategy...a certain je ne sais quoi. 

You must get inside your prospect's head to understand their pain points and decision-making—create real connections that blossom into sales. 

• So, what is the formula for B2B lead generation success? 
• What are the insider strategies employed by the top B2B marketers? 
• How can you start generating B2B leads without being a pro?

In this article, we're pulling back the curtain on 15 battle-tested methods to power up your B2B lead generation. Strategies that deliver qualified prospects and nurture them into satisfied, lifelong customers. 

Ready? Let’s get started. 

15 Proven Ways to Generate B2B Leads

B2B is different. There are multiple stakeholders involved. And the person you’re trying to talk to is likely not paying. That’s why the approach to B2B lead generation has to be holistic—it has to speak to everyone in the organization while still being personalized.

These 15 methods of generating B2B leads will help you get the hang of the market and create personalized strategies that work for your unique business. 

1. Collaborate With Industry Leaders

When you collaborate with the right partners, it unlocks valuable new opportunities for new business. But how exactly can you make these powerful connections? Collaborate on content. 

You can create a webinar, podcast, eBook, or relevant content asset. You bring your expertise to the table. They bring theirs. Together, you create excellent content that adds tremendous value to your audiences.

A great example of this in action is the Factors podcast episode with Alex Sofronas. Factors collaborated with a well-known revenue marketing expert and tapped into a whole new audience (Alex’s followers) while enabling Alex to reach new people.

Here are some of the benefits of partnering up with industry leaders:

• It lends your brand instant credibility by associating with a well-known authority. People trust companies that partner with experts.
• You gain access to their audience, followers, and network. This dramatically expands your reach.
• Combining your expertise creates richer content, and you'll squeeze more value from each piece.
• It's incredibly cost-effective. You split the work of content creation and promotion.

This is one of the fastest ways to generate leads if you have a well-known brand. It makes finding and partnering with people much more accessible than if you’re just starting. 

2. Optimize Your Website Based on Behavioral Analytics

While partnerships are brilliant, they are slower and don’t provide complete control. On the other hand, your website is entirely under your control—what if you could get more visitors to convert into leads? 

That’s where we bring in behavioral analytics.

Behavioral analytics studies how people use your website—what they click on, how long they spend on each page, what pages they visit, etc. 

It gives you a clear picture of what sections and pages your prospects find interesting and where they drop off. 

Here are some of the benefits of optimizing your website: 

• Increased conversions from an improved user experience
• More informed design and content decisions backed by data
• A cost-effective way to identify and fix issues
• Continuously monitor and iterate to maximize performance

Suppose you notice that your pricing page has a high dropout rate—people leaving your site after visiting that page. This dropout rate shows friction. It could indicate that the pricing does not match the perceived value. You can try identifying a better price through surveys or asking existing customers for a fair idea of the value.

3. Offer a Free Trial or a Freemium Version

Free trials let people try your products risk-free before committing. Zoom is a prime example of a freemium product. They offer an entirely usable free version, reducing the entry barrier for people to try Zoom. People try the app and ask others to install it to attend the meeting. 

The network effect kicks in, and everyone on your team has installed Zoom—it becomes the go-to choice for hosting meetings.  

Now, how can you implement a try-before-you-buy model effectively? Here are a few tips:

• Highlight your core value proposition in the free version
• Set clear boundaries between free and paid features
• Monitor usage and get feedback during trials
• Make upgrading to paid plans frictionless

The benefits of allowing "test drives" are enormous. You generate buzz, reduce barriers to entry, and build trust. 

4. Create and Promote Case Studies

Case studies show potential customers real-world examples of how your product or service can help them. It tells prospects a compelling story of how other businesses within the industry are leveraging and benefiting from your products or services. 

For instance, we talked to Everstage, a sales commission platform, about the results they achieved using Factors. 

After making notes based on the conversation, we wrote a thorough case study documenting their journey to gaining 250% in sales email engagement after using Factors. 

When you create relevant case studies within the industry, you earn brand credibility that allows more people to consider trying you out. 

Here are some tips for making super-effective case studies:

• Find a customer whose story stands out and is relevant to who you want to reach. Think of the type of businesses you’re trying to reach—suppose EdTech. Find businesses that use your product/service and operate in the EdTech industry.
• Bring them on for a case study and lay out their journey - problem, solution, results. Use real numbers to prove it worked. 
• Add in charts, images, or anything visual that will catch the eyes and connect readers to the story.
• Share the case study on your website, social media, and other marketing channels—you could even turn it into a PDF and use it as lead-gen.

5. A/B Test Your Landing Pages

A/B testing is a handy way to figure out how to improve your website, landing pages, ads, and more. It lets you try out two different versions against each other to see which one performs better.

For example, HubSpot tested changing the color of its call-to-action button from green to red. That simple tweak led to a 21% increase in conversions! Pretty wild, right? It shows how vital A/B testing can be.

Here's a quick rundown of how to use A/B testing for your landing pages:

• Pick out the essential parts you want to test—this could be your headlines, call-to-action buttons, or even pricing. Those tend to have a significant impact.
• Next, make two versions of the page with variations in those elements—one with the original and the other with the change you want to test.
• Now, to do a proper A/B test, you need a tool. Some of the major ones are Google Optimize and VWO. Pick one from these or use another tool that works for you to run the variations. 
• Give it a few days or weeks, depending on the traffic you receive to your website. You can achieve statistically significant results faster if more people visit your site daily. 
• If the variant does better, awesome—make the winning variant your live page.
• Repeat tests with different elements and pages to gain more insight and improve your website for the best possible conversions.

The great thing about A/B tests is that you can make accurate data-based decisions based on your audience’s preferences.  

6. Offer Free Tools or Templates

Free tools or templates can be a great way to attract leads in the B2B space. Who doesn't love something valuable for free, right?

It helps build trust and shows you want to help, not just sell to potential customers.

For example, Signals by Factors is a free tool that lets businesses track critical metrics. It gives them a taste of Factors without any commitment. 

Ahrefs also has free SEO tools to help prospects get a feel for the full power of the tool without commitments. 

If creating tools seems like a high investment, businesses can offer free templates everywhere. Hubspot is an excellent example of free templates.

Here are some tips to make it work:

• Identify a real need your audience has. For instance, Ahrefs’ audience wants to perform keyword research and improve their SEO. 
• Then, create a smaller but usable version of that module in your product. In the case of Ahrefs, all free tools are a limited version of their complete tool. For instance, the keyword research tool gives the first 100 keywords at most.
• Also, see if there is a search volume for your creation tools. It will tell you if people are already looking for the tool you’re creating. For instance, according to ahrefs, “free keyword research tool” is searched over 4000 times a month. 

7. Showcase Testimonials

Building trust is so important in B2B. And one great way to do that is by showing off testimonials from happy customers - especially on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn ads with testimonials can boost leads. Salesforce used customer testimonials in their LinkedIn ads and saw a 10% increase in click-throughs. Not too shabby!

Here's why testimonials are so effective:

• It builds credibility when potential customers see others benefit from your product. 
• It provides a personal touch and lets prospects connect with real users of your product. It makes it relatable.
• People like to follow the crowd. New folks will be more likely to try your product if others dig it.

So leverage those raving fan testimonials wherever possible - your website, emails, ads, social posts. Let their powerful stories create a connection and get more leads coming your way.

8. Webinars and Live Events

Webinars and live events are excellent for generating B2B leads. They let you engage with your audience in real time—super powerful.

For example, Factors recently announced a live event on LinkedIn. The event allowed them to answer questions and interact directly with potential clients.

Here are some tips to rock webinars and live events:

• Pick topics that are relevant and interesting for your target audience. Helpful, timely content.
• Promote it effectively on social media, email, and your website - get the word out.
• During the event, engage the audience. Encourage questions, give real-time answers, and make it interactive.
• Follow up with a thank you email, a recording of the event, and any extra resources.

Webinars position you as an expert and allow that crucial human connection. When done right, they can generate solid leads for your B2B biz.

9. Use Interactive Content

Most content marketing is a monologue. Brands want to pitch their products before giving value. But with social media, you must work twice as hard to earn your audience’s attention. It’s much easier for someone to scroll away if you share boring content. 

Instead, try to create content that acts as a conversation starter. Hold an opinion and ask others to comment on their thoughts. Here’s an example of Rand Fishkin stirring the conversation with a relatable question. 

Here’s one by Krispy Kreme that not only makes people interact with content but also reminds them that the new minis are available for purchase

Here are some tips for creating interactive content:

• Use surveys, polls, and quizzes to stir a conversation and allow easy interaction with your content. 
• Host competitions that require people to perform specific actions like sharing your post or comment with a particular hashtag. 
• Provide industry-relevant opinions and open yourself up for a discussion within the communities.

10. Leverage Referral Programs

If your accounts on social media don’t have a large following, it can become challenging to get any engagement. In such situations, you can leverage referrals. Referral programs can be absolute gold for getting more quality B2B leads. 

For instance, ZipWP is a new AI website generator by Brainstormforce, the company behind the most popular WordPress theme, Astra. They created a waitlist, allowing people to climb 100 positions for every additional referral. 

Due to the cool demos of this product shown by WordPress influencers on YouTube, people are excited to get access to the tool. The waitlist currently stands beyond 22,000! 

That’s the power of referrals. 

Another example of this is Deel. Deel helps companies hire employees remotely without worrying about tax compliance in different countries. To help spread the word, Deel offers $200 per qualified client whom you refer to the platform. This bonus incentivizes people to talk about Deel to clients, giving Deel free word-of-mouth marketing even if clients don’t sign up.

Here are some tips to make referral programs work:

• Offer incentives like discounts, credits, or cash bonuses to motivate referrals. But don’t break the bank with it—you need to identify your customer’s lifetime value and decide on the rewards based on that number.
• Make the process super easy for customers to refer others. Provide graphics, text snippets, links, and other information people need to make sharing easy. Make it so easy that people should only need to copy-paste. 
• Promote the program through email, social media, your website, etc. Remind customers it exists!

11. High Intent Keywords

High-intent keywords are search terms that show someone is looking to make a purchase or do something specific. This keyword research guide by Ahrefs can be a great starting point if you’re new to SEO. 

For example, "best lead generation software for B2B" indicates a person wants to find a lead gen solution for their business. 

They have already identified a problem and the solution and are now ready to purchase the best option in the market. Most keywords starting with “best” indicate a buying intent. 

To use high-intent keywords:

• See what search terms potential customers use when they're further down the buying journey. For a CRM company, this could be keywords like "CRM systems for small businesses" or "how to choose the best CRM for your business."
• If someone is searching for the "best" software, give your top 3-5 recommendations for that category and explain why they are the best options. Provide comparison charts, pros and cons, and product walkthroughs.
• Targeting high-intent keywords can drive more qualified leads, but you may need to refine them over time. Review keyword performance every month or quarter and adjust your targeted terms.
• The goal is to show up for searches where people are looking for a solution you can provide. Targeting high-intent keywords can connect you with visitors more likely to convert to customers. 

12. High-Quality Videos

The first quarter of 2023 recorded a global video audience reach of 92%! More and more people are turning towards videos instead of text. 

The reason? They’re easier to consume, and if you can make them entertaining, nothing like it. 

Webflow took branded video tutorials and how-tos to the next level! It has a free web design course with Hollywood-quality production and storyboarding. 

You’ll notice this right from their introduction to the course. 

Webflow for beginners: Webflow 101

While it can be challenging to replicate that quality without the big budgets, you can do a lot with a laptop and a good-quality camera. 

Some tips for impactful videos:

• What topics do you want to talk about? What makes your brand unique? Start with these questions before you begin creating videos. In the case of Webflow, you’ll notice they have an extremely professional yet humorous way of delivering tutorials. 
• Split the topics into chapters or sections you’ll cover over the next 30-100 days. The longer you plan the timeline, the easier it is to create videos. 
• Create consistently. When you’re starting, it’s unlikely that you’ll get any views. But social media algorithms like consistency. The more videos you publish, the better the algorithm understands what you do, helping your videos appear in relevant searches. 
• Stick to a schedule that lets you deliver quality—every single time. There’s no point in creating boring tutorials for your brand YouTube channel. Instead, make a process that ensures every video you create is brilliant and unique to you.

Use keyword research to your advantage here. Add videos about the high-intent keywords you’ve identified. As you develop a library of videos aligned to different stages of the buyer's journey, you can attract more qualified leads over time.

13. Running Ads on Competitor Keywords

Running ads on competitor keywords is a savvy move. When someone searches for a rival's product or brand, they also signal interest in your offerings. They only haven’t seen you…yet.

For instance, Later, the social media scheduling app, is a direct competitor of Buffer. And they leverage Buffer’s popularity by bidding for the name. 

Some tips to get started:

• Research competitors and find relevant keywords people search around them.
• Then, create ads spotlighting why you're different or better. Show your unique strengths.
• Keep watching how those ads do. Tweak bids and copy as needed.
• You can also directly use the brand’s name when possible. However, remember to check for trademarks before bidding on a name. 

14. Perform Original Research

Original research can set you apart as an expert in your field. It shows you have unique insights to share. Conducting surveys, analyzing data, and exploring new trends—create valuable content your audience will love.

For instance, if you’re a CRM software company, you can leverage anonymized customer data to understand the average number of leads, the frequency of new lead creation, the intermediate lead conversion for each industry, etc. 

You can even run surveys asking your customers to provide valuable insights from within their business. 

When such a report is published, you not only provide real value to your audience and become an expert, but you create link-worthy content that earns backlinks from other websites that cite you as a source.

15. Conduct Warm Outreach on LinkedIn

What’s better than cold outreach? Warm outreach. If the person you’re contacting has seen you on LinkedIn providing value, they’re more likely to respond than if you’re an unknown account.

Now, switch it up a bit. 

If you engage with your target accounts and leads individually on LinkedIn—commenting on their posts with valuable insights, liking their tweets, and more—you increase your chances of getting a response even further.  

Some tips for effective LinkedIn outreach:

• Identify leads based on their roles, industries, or interests—go after those most likely to benefit from your offer.
• Spend a week engaging with your prospects on LinkedIn. Like and comment on their posts. Ask thought-provoking questions. Get in front of the people you want to talk to. 
• Then, send a connection request after you’ve engaged long enough. Sending bulk connection requests will rarely lead to a good outcome. If anything, you’ll end up with many connections that don’t care about you. 

This approach may seem like a sales trick. But warm outreach is much like dating in the real world—only in business terms. 

• You become a known face for the person you want to talk to by spending time in the places they hang out (joining similar communities). 
• After a while, you acknowledge their presence with a nod or smile (liking and commenting on posts). 
• The familiarity makes chatting much easier (sending a LinkedIn connection request). 
• Your leads will have fewer inhibitions while talking now since they’ve already interacted with you outside. (DMs or demo calls)

Go from Zero to Hero With These B2B Lead Gen Strategies

And there you have it — 15 tried and true ways to generate and nurture quality B2B leads into happy, long-term customers. I know B2B lead gen can feel tricky sometimes. But, put simply, it’s all about getting to know your audience and using the right strategies to reach them.

We covered much ground here—from sponsoring events to optimizing for buyer behavior and more. What’s left now is finding the strategies that work for you and going all in on them. 

That's where Factors come in handy. 

It tracks the key metrics from all your platforms under a single roof. You can view your prospect’s journey from the first touchpoint to the last, shown visually and interactively.

So, let Factors handle the details. Just focus on making real connections with prospects. Try a few of these methods, and you'll be on the road to lead-gen success before you know it. 

Ready to take your B2B lead gen to the next level? Jump on a demo call with Factors to learn how we can help you scale your B2B lead gen.

In today's hyper-competitive SAAS landscape, generic marketing approaches are becoming a silent killer. They drain budgets, weaken engagement, and often miss the mark entirely, leaving SAAS marketers frustrated and puzzled. 

The days where you could cast a wide net and expect results are over. 

The primary challenge? 

Connecting with diverse audiences who have varied needs and interests.

Think of your last campaign. Did it resonate with all your potential customers? Or did some feel it was too general or irrelevant? 

If you’re nodding, you’re not alone. 

The aftermath? 

Lost potential sales, dwindling engagement rates, and plummeting ROI. And as the SAAS industry grows more crowded, these challenges only intensify.

This is where Customer Segmentation becomes your lifeline. By breaking your audience into distinct, manageable groups based on their behaviors, needs, and preferences, you can tailor your marketing messages with pinpoint precision.

The 2023 toolkit for segmentation is powerful, leveraging AI and advanced analytics to make this process seamless and hyper-accurate. With this guide, you'll get a comprehensive view of how to harness these tools, ensuring you’re not just another voice in the crowd, but the voice your potential customers need and want to hear.

Forge ahead and redefine your SAAS marketing strategy. Dive into this guide, and empower yourself to communicate effectively, resonate deeply, and drive conversions like never before. 

The future of your SAAS marketing starts with understanding and implementing advanced customer segmentation. 

Let's embark on this journey together.

What is Customer Segmentation?

Customer Segmentation, at its core, is the practice of dividing a company's target audience into distinct groups based on shared characteristics. These characteristics can range from demographic data, such as age or income, to behavioral traits and purchasing patterns. 

The ultimate goal of this segmentation is to tailor marketing and sales strategies to resonate deeply with each specific group, optimizing engagement, and conversion rates. In the SAAS world, understanding these segments means better product positioning, more relevant communication, and ultimately, a more successful marketing strategy. 

If you've ever felt the need to fine-tune your messaging to appeal to different users' unique needs, you're already recognizing the importance of customer segmentation.

Reasons You Need to Know Why Customer Segmentation is Important?

In today's saturated SAAS marketplace, having a top-tier product isn't enough. It's about delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. Without a deep understanding of why customer segmentation is crucial, even the most compelling marketing campaigns can fall flat. Not only are you risking financial resources on misaligned efforts, but you're also potentially alienating the very customers you aim to attract.

Personalized Engagement

One-size-fits-all messages rarely captivate. Segmentation allows for tailored communication that speaks directly to an individual's needs and pain points.

Enhanced ROI

By targeting segments more likely to convert, you optimize your marketing budget, ensuring every dollar spent yields a better return.

Improved Product Development

Understanding specific customer groups can guide product enhancements, ensuring you meet genuine market needs.

Increased Customer Loyalty

When customers feel understood and catered to, they're more likely to stay loyal to your brand.

Better Data Utilization

Segmentation makes sense of the vast amounts of data SAAS companies collect, transforming it into actionable insights.

In a world where consumers are bombarded with endless marketing messages, standing out requires a deep, nuanced understanding of your audience. My method, which delves into the intricacies of customer segmentation, positions you at the forefront of this understanding. Adopting this approach not only gives your SAAS company a competitive edge but also paves the way for sustained growth and success.

Step-by-Step Instructions to Start Customer Segmentation

Embarking on the journey of customer segmentation may seem daunting, but with the right steps, it becomes a systematic and enlightening process. We've developed a unique process that prioritizes understanding, actionable insights, and practical application. This method not only segments your audience but also offers a road map to engage them effectively.

Steps to Start Customer Segmentation

• Data Collection: Amass and organize all available customer data.
• Segmentation Strategy: Define the criteria for segmenting your customers.
• Analytical Adventure: Dive deep into analytics to identify patterns and behaviors.
• Persona Painting: Create vivid, detailed personas for each segment.
• Tailored Tactics: Develop marketing strategies tailored to each segment.

With these steps as your guide, you're set to navigate the nuances of customer segmentation with confidence. We'll dive deeper into the first three steps below, ensuring you have a firm grasp on the foundation before we tackle the full tutorial.

Step 1: Data Collection 

To segment effectively, you need a wealth of data. Begin by collecting all available customer data from diverse sources - CRMs, sales records, customer feedback, website analytics, and social media insights. Ensure that this data is organized, cleaned, and stored in an easily accessible format. The more comprehensive and accurate your data, the more insightful your segmentation will be.

Step 2: Segmentation Strategy

Before diving into the data, outline the criteria you'll use to segment your customers. Will it be demographic, based on age or location? Behavioral, reflecting usage patterns? Or psychographic, considering lifestyles and attitudes? A combination of criteria often provides the most nuanced insights. Establish clear categories and ensure they align with your broader business objectives.

Step 3: Analytical Adventure

With your data in place and your criteria set, it's time to plunge into the analytics. Use tools like Google Analytics, customer journey analysis, and even AI-powered segmentation tools to uncover patterns and behaviors within your data. This step will highlight groups within your customer base and offer initial insights into their preferences and pain points. Remember, the goal is to unearth actionable insights that guide your subsequent strategies.

With a foundation in understanding the initial steps, you're poised to dive into the intricacies of persona creation and tailored strategies, which we'll tackle in the next segment of our tutorial. 

Step 4: Tailored Tactics

In the vast realm of segmented marketing, it's crucial to craft strategies that resonate with each unique group. Consider the varied preferences, needs, and behaviors of your segments. Are they driven by educational content, or do they gravitate towards interactive engagement? Maybe they respond best to personalized offers or consistent community interactions? Delve into these intricacies, ensuring that each tactic not only addresses their primary needs but also aligns seamlessly with your overarching business vision.

Step 5: Persona Painting

As you transition from data to actionable strategies, it's essential to humanize and understand your segments deeply. Picture them: Are they young tech-savvy professionals, or are they seasoned experts in their field? Maybe they're budget-conscious startup founders or luxury-chasing corporate leaders? Flesh out these images, painting vivid personas that not only encapsulate their demographic details but also breathe life into their aspirations, pain points, and motivations. Such detailed portraits act as the foundation for any targeted engagement, ensuring genuine resonance with your audience.

Key Practices For Successfully Segmenting your Audience using your CRM & Email Marketing Tool

Diving into the vast sea of customer data can be overwhelming. When blending the capabilities of a CRM with an email marketing tool, certain subtleties can elevate your segmentation game, making it sharper and more impactful. Here are a few insights to enhance your approach:

Data Hygiene

An oft-overlooked aspect is the cleanliness of your data. Regularly scrub your CRM data to remove duplicates, correct errors, and update outdated information. Ensure to create a email marketing checklist so you follow all the action points and maintain accurate data.

Behavioral Triggers

Beyond the static data points, your CRM can provide insights into customer behaviors and patterns. When these behaviors (like a recent purchase or product inquiry) trigger specific email campaigns, it amplifies the relevancy of your communication, making your audience feel genuinely understood.

Segmented Feedback Loop

As you deploy segmented email campaigns, establish a mechanism to loop this feedback directly back into your CRM. Whether it's tracking open rates, click-through rates, or direct responses, integrating this feedback refines your understanding of each segment and paves the way for more personalized future engagements.

Marrying the power of a CRM with an email marketing tool isn't just about the tools themselves but about the strategies that bring their combined capabilities to life. These additional insights ensure that you're always one step ahead, resonating deeply and effectively with your diverse audience.

Taking it to the Next Level: How frequently should you segment your audience?

The dynamic nature of markets and customer preferences means that segmentation isn't a one-time task. As your business evolves and as customer behaviors shift, so too should your segmentation strategies. But how often should you revisit these segments?

Quarterly Check-ins

A general best practice is to assess your audience segments every quarter. This timeline often aligns with typical business review cycles and allows for adjustments based on seasonal trends, product launches, or market changes.

After Major Business Events

If your business undergoes significant changes - such as launching a new product, entering a new market, or undergoing a merger - it's prudent to re-evaluate your segments. These events can attract new types of customers or alter the behavior of existing ones.

Continual Data Monitoring

While formal re-segmentation might happen quarterly or bi-annually, always have an eye on your CRM and email metrics. Anomalies or sudden shifts can indicate changes in customer behavior, signifying a need for segment adjustments.

In the ever-changing world of digital marketing, flexibility and adaptability are key. While this tutorial provides a solid foundation, true mastery comes from continuously refining your approach, staying attuned to your audience's pulse, and being ready to pivot your strategies based on newfound insights.

To Sum Up and My Experience with Customer Segmentation

Navigating the intricate web of customer segmentation might seem daunting, but with the right approach and tools, it's a game-changer for any SAAS marketer. Throughout this tutorial, I've delved deep into the nuts and bolts of effective segmentation, intertwining it seamlessly with a robust email marketing strategy. 

Drawing from my own experience, I've witnessed firsthand the transformational power of adept segmentation within the context of an email marketing strategy. From crafting razor-sharp messaging to achieving unprecedented engagement rates, the benefits are manifold. My journey through countless campaigns and iterative refinements has refined this art, and the results have always underscored the importance of truly understanding your audience.

If there's one thing I'd like you to take away, it's this: Customer segmentation isn't just a strategy; it's a commitment to genuinely connecting with your audience. And when done right, it not only elevates your email marketing efforts but also fosters lasting relationships built on trust, relevance, and value. 

Here's to forging deeper, more meaningful connections with your audience!

ZoomInfo is an industry-leading B2B go-to-market platform that helps teams identify and connect with their target audience through account and contact-level data, but that’s not all. They are actively working on changing their position in the market from a data provider to an end-to-end market software company. Hence, it’s essential to understand the details of ZoomInfo’s latest offerings, prices, and updates. But that raises the question: how do ZoomInfo pricing plans work? What does ZoomInfo cost? And is ZoomInfo really worth it? 

This article highlights everything you need to know about ZoomInfo, including ZoomInfo pricing, overview, alternatives, and more.

ZoomInfo Overview: What is ZoomInfo? 

ZoomInfo is an end-to-end go-to-market software company that is one of the most extensive contact and company-level intelligence databases for sales marketing use cases. ZoomInfo is divided into four broad products:

• SalesOS: Contact & company search, sales automation, conversation intelligence, workflows
• MarketingOS: Cross-channel advertising, buyer intent insights, website chat, form enrichment
• OperationsOS: Data cleansing, data enrichment, lead routing
• TalentOS: Talent search, candidate outreach, employer branding

SalesOS is the most popular product in the ZoomInfo lineup, and with good reason: ZoomInfo's impressive database spans 321 million active professionals at 104 million companies. This, in combination with its advanced search filters, real-time alerts, and integration capabilities, makes ZoomInfo an attractive platform for sales marketing teams. However, it is generally considered a premium product, often out of reach for smaller teams seeking cost-effective intelligence solutions.

New Launch: ZoomInfo Copilot

ZoomInfo has launched Copilot, an AI-powered solution designed to assist sales teams in closing deals more efficiently and effectively. Copilot leverages AI technology to provide valuable insights from ZoomInfo's B2B data, aiding sales professionals in making informed decisions and taking prompt actions. The platform aims to transform sales operations by enhancing productivity and accuracy in engaging with qualified leads at the right moment.

Key Features of ZoomInfo Copilot:

• Buying Groups: Copilot creates buying groups of individuals aligned with ideal customer profiles based on real-time signals from various sources like websites and case studies. This feature streamlines lead prioritization and ensures efficient engagement with prospects.
• Account Summaries: By aggregating first- and third-party data, Copilot provides detailed overviews of specific accounts, including pain points, upcoming deals, and key contacts. These summaries equip sales professionals with a comprehensive understanding of prospective customers, enhancing their preparation for interactions.
• Copilot Chat: This conversational AI system offers instant answers about specific accounts, enhancing the speed and accuracy of decision-making during customer interactions.
• AI Email Generator: This tool assists users in creating personalized and targeted emails at scale, optimizing the outreach process and saving time for sales professionals.

These features collectively empower users to work smarter, predict leads more accurately, streamline processes, and enhance customer engagement. ZoomInfo Copilot represents a significant advancement in sales technology, offering a comprehensive AI-driven solution to help businesses thrive in competitive markets.

Read more about Copilot from ZoomInfo’s CEO, Henry Schuck:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-gtm-ai-introducing-zoominfo-copilot-zoominfo-ef91c/

ZoomInfo Pricing

ZoomInfo's pricing is complex and varies based on several factors. Pricing is not publicly disclosed and is offered through a custom, quote-based structure, making it necessary to engage directly with the company to estimate costs.

Key factors influencing ZoomInfo pricing include 

• features, 
• licenses, 
• credit usage, and 
• contract length and terms. 

The number of features required, credit usage, and contract length significantly impact the overall cost.

Credits in ZoomInfo are consumed whenever an action is performed, such as viewing or exporting contact information—higher credit usage results in higher costs, requiring effective credit management to avoid unexpected expenses.

Comparing ZoomInfo pricing with competitors like SalesOS reveals a custom quote-based structure with an average annual expenditure of around $30,000. SalesOS offers more transparent pricing tiers with lower entry points, but higher-level plans can approach the costs of ZoomInfo's mid-tier offerings.

Use cases have shown that the high costs, sometimes upwards of $30,000 annually, are justified by significant ROI through improved lead generation, data enrichment, and overall sales performance.

How much does ZoomInfo cost?

ZoomInfo's pricing is tailored to specific user requirements and usage, focusing on providing high-quality data and sales intelligence functionalities. Businesses should explore different pricing plans, utilize free trials, compare costs with alternatives, and use diverse data providers to optimize cost and performance in their sales intelligence efforts.

Our teams also spent a considerable amount of time talking to some existing ZoomInfo customers, and we found that the pricing was majorly based on:

• Seat-based minimum pricing
• Consumables or credits which can be bought on an ad-hoc basis

Some customers pay approximately $25,000 annually for about eight seats, while others pay $58,000 for about 21 to 23 seats. We also found that customers usually achieve a 50% discount after negotiations..

Why do businesses use ZoomInfo?

ZoomInfo is one of the most popular B2B sales intelligence and GTM tools today — and with good reason. Albeit not without its limitations, ZoomInfo delivers certain unequivocal advantages over its competitors. Here’s why people use ZoomInfo over alternatives:

1. Robust North America sales intelligence data

With over 320 million business contacts and 100 million companies in its database, ZoomInfo provides one of the most comprehensive sales intelligence platforms today. This holds especially true for data on companies and professionals in North American geographies. Here’s how ZoomInfo’s volume of data breaks down as of Oct 2023:Rest of the World (Excluding North America):

• 104 million email addresses
• 45 million mobile numbers
• 27 million direct phone numbers

North America:

• 70 million email addresses
• 49 million mobile numbers
• 43 million direct phone numbers

Given that approximately half of ZoomInfo’s large data is North America-focused, this is a key plus point for GTM teams with primary audiences in the US, Canada, and other North American regions.

2. Comprehensive go-to-market ecosystem

1. Comprehensive go-to-market ecosystem 

ZoomInfo is an all-encompassing GTM ecosystem catering to a broader range of sales and marketing cases. In addition to providing company and contact data, ZoomInfo offers:

• Sales (Email) Automation
• Conversation Intelligence
• Cross-channel Advertising
• Buyer Intent Insights
• Website Chat
• Web Form Enrichment
• Data Deduplication, enrichment, and cleaning
• Lead Routing
• Talent Search
• Candidate Outreach
• Employee Branding

All in all, this means that unlike other growth-stage sales intelligence platforms, Zoominfo is an all-encompassing GTM ecosystem to cater to a wider range of sales and marketing use-cases. 

3. Industry-leaders and product maturity 

ZoomInfo has been an industry leader in sales intelligence for several years, consistently improving its offering by refining its database, expanding its functionality, and enhancing customer experience. In 2023 alone, ZoomInfo achieved 100+ #1 rankings and 254 Leader Ratings in G2’s Fall Report. For the 11th quarter in a row, ZoomInfo has led the Enterprise grids for Marketing Account Intelligence, Account Data Management, and Lead Intelligence.

Is ZoomInfo worth it?

There’s no doubt that even ZoomInfo’s basic plans are relatively steep. And given the several add-on options, the cost can quickly spiral. Whether ZoomInfo is worth it for you or your organization depends on your needs, goals, and budget. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Data requirements: Do you need contact-level data or account-level data? Do you need high-level firmographics or more granular data? Depending on your requirements, there may be better choices than ZoomInfo.
   ‍
2. Data accuracy: ZoomInfo is known for providing relatively accurate and up-to-date data. However, evaluating the data quality in your specific industry and target market is still essential.
   ‍
3. Features and Functionality: Consider whether the features ZoomInfo offers align with your goals and if they provide a competitive advantage for your sales marketing efforts.
   ‍
4. Cost: ZoomInfo's pricing can vary widely depending on your organization's size, the access level, and the specific features you require. Consider your budget and whether the potential benefits outweigh the costs.
   ‍
5. UX & CX: Ease of use and user experience are important factors. An intuitive and easy-to-navigate platform can increase efficiency and user adoption. Additionally, consider ZoomInfo's level of customer support.
   ‍

To determine if ZoomInfo is worth it for your organization, it's recommended that you request a demo, explore their free trial (if available), and gather feedback from current users in your industry. Additionally, consider your specific goals and how well ZoomInfo aligns with your strategies for lead generation, sales outreach, and business growth.

ZoomInfo Alternatives

ZoomInfo is definitely in the forefront of B2B data solutions. That being said, there are several ZoomInfo alternatives worth considering — each with their own pros and coZoomInfo is definitely at the forefront of B2B data solutions. However, several ZoomInfo alternatives are worth considering, each with pros and cons. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Lead411
• Apollo
• Seamless
• LeadIQ
• Cognism

Here’s how their prices compare per account and per seat:

Zoominfo customer ratings comparison

Here’s a breakdown of how ZoomInfo customer ratings compare to its competitors (As of April 2024).

FAQ

1. Is ZoomInfo free or paid? 

ZoomInfo is a paid product, but they offer a free trial if you’d like to try it out before finalizing your purchase.

2. How much does ZoomInfo cost? 

ZoomInfo’s pricing is largely based on:

• Seat-based minimum pricing
• Consumables or credits which can be bought on an ad-hoc basis

The modern marketer of today can no longer be limited to funnel vision. 

Yup, this means you need to expand your boundaries beyond the most straightforward journey your customers might take on their path to purchase. Every opportunity needs to be seized and every high-intent lead needs to move down the sales pipeline faster. 

And all of this begins in the place your business calls home in the digital realm - your website. 

As one of the first touchpoints of interaction your customers have with your brand, it sets the tone for their evaluation and decision process.

That being said, it is only natural that your website be optimized to convert every qualified lead that lands on your page into a booked meeting with your sales rep. Unfortunately, it is in this crucial window where businesses see a lot of drop-offs.

Which brings us to the most important question: 

Are you converting enough website visitors to booked demos?

Here’s a wild guess - not as much as you’d like to. 

The Metadata B2B Paid Social Benchmark Report found that marketers allocate 80% of their marketing budget to lead generation but only an average of 2-12% of the leads generated get converted into booked demos. 

Not exactly ideal, for all the time, resources, and effort put into creating the perfect campaigns and driving traffic to your website. 

Let’s dig a little deeper and understand what could possibly be wrong or missing. 

Tbh, when it comes to conversion rate, there’s no one-size-fits-all as it depends on multiple factors. But there are a few common and obvious reasons why it might be low: 

1. Qualifying large volumes of leads manually
   (waste of time, effort, and resources)
   
   
2. Providing a not-so-great demo booking experience
   (long forms, weak content, site not optimized for mobile, and slow-loading pages)
   
   
3. Not engaging with leads quickly enough
   (Follow-up within five minutes of a form submission can result in 9X more likely conversion)
   
   
4. Or engaging in a long drawn out email chain to book a meeting
   (possibility of email getting lost in a crowded inbox and not being able to focus/prioritize on high-intent leads)
   ‍
   

5. Not having enough insight into website visitors and sales-ready accounts
   (Lack of insight into buyer intent causes you to lose out on refining and targeting the accounts identified to just those that fit your ICP)

Why having a high conversion rate matters? 

As the difficulty of capturing and retaining customers’ attention increases, it is now more crucial than ever to have a website that can generate qualified meetings.
Every business banks heavily on its vast repertoire of landing pages, which include lead capture pages, trial sign-up and demo landing pages, paid ads pages, and pricing pages amongst many others. But the end goal is the same for them all - provide high-intent prospects with the fastest lane to talk to you. Which translates to having a high meeting conversion rate. 

The conversion rate is like a measuring stick for how well a business moves website visitors down the funnel as potential customers and pipeline. 

Here’s why it matters: 

1. Increased qualified leads: A higher demo conversion rate indicates that more of the leads entering the pipeline are genuinely interested and engaged with your solution/product. This means your marketing efforts are attracting the right audience.
   
   
2. Shortened sales cycle: When leads have a clear understanding of your product's value and how it meets their requirements, they are more likely to move through the sales cycle quickly.
   
   
3. Higher pipeline potential: When you enable prospects to progress quickly from the awareness stage to the consideration stage, and ultimately to the decision-making stage, it can result in more pipeline and closed deals.
   
   
4. Competitive differentiation: In a far too crowded SaaS market, demos can be what makes or breaks it for your business. And this starts right from the demo booking process on your website. Is it easy, simple, and quick? Does it give you the next step of action or leave you uncertain about what’s to come?
   
   
5. Streamlined resource allocation: When your demo conversion rates are high, your sales and marketing teams can focus their efforts more efficiently. It can help them identify what’s working and make necessary tweaks to improve. Plus, it also helps teams prioritize high-intent leads who are more likely to convert.

The essence of it is that a good demo conversion rate has a cascading effect on your sales pipeline. And you should be making the most out of it. 

6 tactics to double down on your demo conversions

Every marketer out there is tasked with accelerating pipeline growth but with a tight budget. Seems to be the norm in today’s economic climate right?

Been there, done that. And it’s precisely why we want to scream it out from the rooftops - do not underestimate the impact of your website demo conversion on your pipeline. 

Here’s the secret sauce to boost your demo conversion rate and in turn grow your pipeline.

1. Provide a kickass demo booking experience on your website

Once you’ve identified a high-intent lead, every second counts. Don’t get stuck in an endless game of email ping pong to confirm meetings, or worse battling for attention in your prospect's crowded inbox and dealing with drop-offs from qualified buyers even before the first call. Help the high-intent leads you’ve attracted through different channels enter your sales pipeline faster.

Do this by letting prospects book meetings instantly with your team by investing in a smart one-click scheduling solution that doubles as a lead qualification and distribution tool as well. 

A great example is RevenueHero which lets you connect high-intent qualified buyers with the right sales rep instantly throughout the buying journey, right from booking meetings on the website to handoffs between sales teams.

When you enable prospects to select their preferred time slot from the calendar of the right person on your sales team in a single click without the hassles of email, your form-fill-to-meeting booked conversion rate is sure to go up drastically. And you’ll pave the way for a great buying experience. 

An added bonus is that you’ll also be saving time spent on manually qualifying leads and assigning them to the right reps. Smoother scheduling also means admin work reduces for your sales team and helps improve meeting show and success rates.

2. Tighten your meeting scheduling process for outbound and retargeting campaigns 

Now this is where it helps to pour extra attention and care. The devil is in the details after all. 

While your website is your #1 source from where you get demo bookings, there are a couple of other touchpoints that you cannot miss. 

Let’s start with outbound campaigns. When your SDRs do a cold outreach to prospects they have a lot of the details already and get the rest through the email conversation. 

In this case, when the prospect is interested in booking a meeting with you, it makes zero sense to get them to fill out a form again which asks for details you already have. This is where it helps in having a meeting link/calendar that can be embedded in the email. Brownie points, if the if it’s that very SDR’s calendar with personalized content and targeted messaging for an enhanced buyer experience. 

What makes you stand out in a competitive and crowded inbox is the little details. Things like adding embedded recaps to your meeting links and personalized meeting reminders help strengthen your brand and add necessary context to the meeting. 

Moving on, let’s talk about your retargeting campaigns. ‍As marketers, if we can pinpoint who hasn’t booked a demo and retarget them with campaigns, why can’t we pinpoint who is returning and give them the fast lane to our sales reps? Why ask them to fill in the same information again? Repetitive and redundant right? 

When you send a nurturing email, include a custom meeting book link to enable the existing leads in your CRM to book a meeting with you faster, without the hassles of filling out a form yet again. 

An important aspect to be noted here is to have all the details synced in the backend, so that you instantly know which prospect of yours clicked the link. This means, when they finally book a demo with you, they get to skip the boring form and are given the fastest route to your sales rep. 

No forms. No drop-offs. No regrets.

3. Fast track your meetings and sales cycle with lead-to-account matching

Picture this. You are running multiple campaigns across channels to grab the attention of various stakeholders within a company since there are bound to be different decision-makers involved in the final buy-in. This means, prospects who show interest in your demo forms and marketing collateral can turn up at different timelines despite being a part of the same company. 

So what do you do then? How do you ensure that there are no lead redundancies among your accounts? And how do you avoid bouncing prospects from one rep to another?

Enter lead-to-account matching. A functionality that is purpose-built to automatically match every lead to the right account owner based on similar prospects, company or any custom property and close deals faster. To be able to fast-track your meetings and close deals faster you need to ensure your leads talk to the sales rep best equipped to convert them. Every time.

It does not just stop there. You need to go a step further and set up your distribution logic to round-robin these leads based on territory, ownership or any other custom logic based on your sales process. Your pipeline will thank you for it. 

4. Make intent data your third eye

In today’s fast-paced landscape, grasping buyer intentions is vital for sales success. And that’s precisely where intent data plays a huge role, in how you can pinpoint, engage, and convert leads. This means you no longer have to rely on plain old cold outreach and spray-and-pray tactics, but instead can implement focussed intent-based outreach and targeted ABM efforts for deal acceleration.  

When used efficiently, intent data can help you maximize the ROI from your existing marketing and sales efforts. You can use a wide range of tools, ranging from intent data providers, enrichment databases, sales engagement platforms, and more to leverage your intent data and drive pipeline. 

5. Leverage your product with interactive demos

Interactive demos are self-guided walkthroughs that give visitors a "hands-on" experience of your product before they choose to sign-up. Embedding an interactive product demo on your website is an effective tactic to eliminate points of friction and close the gap between buyers, product demos, and sales.

It's an immersive, tailor-made approach to show (not tell) your product's strongest features and use-cases without manual intervention. Ultimately, interactive demos has shown to significantly improve lead quality and conversion rates down the funnel.

If you're looking to experiment with interactive product demos, off-the-shelf, no-code solutions are a great place to start. Navattic, for instance, is an industry-leading interactive demo building tool that supports a wide range of functionality and customization across app captures, overlays, and analytics.

6. Use insights and analytics as your north star 

If you’re wondering what could be worse than a pipeline that isn’t converting, it is not knowing why, where, or what the hold-up is. Think about it; if there’s either a sudden drop or surge in meetings booked and you don’t know why you’ll be wasting precious time and resources trying to tweak things with limited visibility.

And that’s why it is absolutely crucial to have 360-degree visibility from form-fill to closed-won. This includes having detailed data on buyer behavior and intent, meeting outcomes and conversion patterns, and performance metrics at form, page, rep, and team levels. But it shouldn’t stop there. You need to analyze the data at hand, drill down on outcomes at every touch point, take prompt action where necessary, and fine-tune your campaigns. 

Wrapping up 

As a modern marketer, optimizing your meeting conversion rate is key to measuring and maximizing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and ultimately driving business growth.  

In a world of intent-driven sales, adapting is thriving. And the secret sauce to it is made up of having the right tools and processes in place. 

Account Based Marketing (ABM) and Demand Generation often go head-to-head as top marketing strategies. But which one is right for you?

The choice isn’t quite simple. You need to understand what makes each strategy unique, how they work together, and what impact they can have on your returns. 

In this guide, we’re discussing ABM and demand gen to understand their differences, similarities, and potential benefits. We’ll also look at how analytics tools help understand the performance of each for better execution. Let’s get started.

TL;DR;

• ABM focuses on targeting specific high-value accounts with personalized content, aligning sales and marketing for a cohesive approach.
• Demand Generation aims to create broad awareness and interest, guiding potential customers through the sales process.
• Key differences include focus, approach, ROI, sales alignment, content strategy, and ideal use cases.
• Metrics for ABM include Engagement Score, Pipeline Contribution, and Conversion Rate. 
• Metrics for demand generation include the Number of Leads, Cost per Lead, and Sales Cycle Length.
• Tools like Factors can enhance both strategies, offering insights into segmentation, user journey mapping, and performance measurement.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-based marketing or ABM is a targeted strategy where marketers prioritize one or a few businesses(accounts) instead of trying to attract their total addressable market. All the marketing resources are allocated to converting just one or a few accounts at a time. This is in stark contrast to regular marketing where campaigns are created for mass appeal. With ABM, you look at visitors as part of an account and create personalized campaigns tailored to their unique needs. Answer questions like: 

• What’s the visitor’s industry? 
• What business are they associated with? 
• What are the pages people within this business/industry have shown interest in? 

Let’s take an example:

Say you want to onboard a SaaS startup as a new customer. You decide to use ABM. With a marketing analytics and account intelligence tool like Factors, you identify the industry and businesses your visitors are associated with. 

As you segment accounts, patterns show that your target accounts repeatedly visit a specific feature page. With this information, you can now retarget the accounts via emails, content, and ads highlighting this feature further.

So, instead of focusing on the entire industry or a persona, your efforts are targeted, and more importantly — backed by data. You can even attribute revenue to your ABM campaigns to maximize the results.

Demand generation, on the other hand, takes a different approach.

What is Demand Generation?

Demand generation is a strategy for creating awareness and interest in your products or services. Rather than collecting leads or targeting accounts, demand gen uses tactics to nurture potential customers through the buyer journey.

It isn't just about attracting leads. It's about mapping out a strategic path to turn interest into action from potential customers from initial awareness all the way to conversion.

Let’s take an example:

Say a B2B SaaS company launches a new software feature. They could use Demand Gen to promote it. They might start with blog posts, webinars, and social media content explaining the feature's benefits. As interest grows, targeted emails and personalized follow-ups help guide prospects toward buying.

The goal of demand generation is building steady demand for a product. By aligning marketing and sales, you create a smooth journey for potential customers. This keeps your brand top of mind when they're looking for a solution.

Account Based Marketing vs. Demand Generation: Key Differences

Before we jump into the details, let’s take a quick glance at the differences between account-based marketing and demand-generation.

ABM vs Demand Gen - Approach

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Demand Generation are two strategic approaches in the B2B marketing space. Although they both aim to generate revenue, their methodologies and goals vary significantly.

Account Based Marketing (ABM) targets specific, high-value accounts with personalized messaging across different channels. With ABM, you are targeting accounts that are already looking for a solution. These are generally near the bottom of the funnel. So, you do not need high-level content. Simply segment your targets by common factors, then craft experiences tailored to each segment.

For example, a CRM SaaS company wants to bring on big healthcare providers. Using a tool like Factors, they can de-anonymize and segment accounts based on the pages and features each account engages with. Then, they can create hyper-personalized content that speaks directly to those accounts.

Demand generation casts a wider net where the goal is driving awareness and interest from a broad audience, not just targeting select accounts. You want your customers to remember your brand when they begin to actively look for solutions. 

If that same CRM SaaS company used demand gen, they'd create content and initiatives aimed at a buyer persona instead of a specific business/account. With the persona in mind, they could host webinars, write blog posts about CRM benefits in general, or launch broad ad campaigns. This attracts a wide range of potential customers.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

The partnership between sales and marketing teams is super important for both Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Demand Generation. But the way they work together is really different.

With ABM, sales and marketing collaborate closely to find, target, and connect with the right accounts. They join forces to create customized plans, messaging, and content that speaks to each account's specific needs and challenges. 

Imagine a B2B software company selling a banking solution to financial companies. The ABM approach would have the sales and marketing teams analyze the finance industry, identify key companies that could benefit from the solution, and develop targeted campaigns. Here, the sales team provides insights into a company's unique needs and marketing creates custom content to ensure a strategy that directly speaks to the target audience.

Demand Generation has a more linear relationship between sales and marketing. Marketing is in charge of building general awareness and interest. Once leads are created, the sales team takes over to go after those opportunities. 

If that same software company uses demand generation, marketing might run broad campaigns about all features or a general benefit of the tool. The content is then catered to everyone that fits their persona and their pain points. When interest is sparked, the sales team steps in to qualify and nurture those leads towards conversion.

Content Strategy

Content strategy plays a central role in marketing, but how it's applied differs quite a bit between account-based marketing (ABM) and demand generation.

As part of ABM, the content is personalized, like a tailored suit stitched to fit an individual client. It zeroes in on the specific needs, pain points, goals, and decision-making processes of each target account. 

Suppose a B2B cybersecurity firm wants to land major banks as customers. Their ABM content would be custom products — whitepapers, banking incident reports, interviews with top bankers, etc. — laser-focused on the unique security challenges and regulations faced by the financial industry. This tailored approach helps the content resonate more deeply, demonstrating an intricate understanding of that particular audience's needs. 

Demand generation creates content with broad appeal, touting general benefits rather than customized solutions. Here the focus is on establishing the brand as a thought leader and go-to industry resource. 

If running a demand-gen campaign, our hypothetical cybersecurity firm would publish ebooks, blogs, and podcasts about cybersecurity trends, best practices, and insights useful to businesses across industries. This positions them as trusted experts, laying the groundwork for future engagement with various audiences across industries.

Metrics for Account Based Marketing vs Demand Generation

Tracking the right metrics gives you real insights into what's working and what needs tweaking. ABM and demand generation measure totally different things since they have different strategies. 

What ABM Metrics Should You Be Tracking?

While there are many ABM metrics that you need to keep an eye out for, here are some of the important ones. 

Engagement Score — This tracks how much your target accounts interact with your content across channels. Are they spending time on your site, clicking links, or engaging on social media? Having access to this kind of information is very helpful for seeing what content resonates so you can personalize more.

With Factors, you have the ability to bring together data from across different platforms on a single dashboard.

The customizable dashboards and reports on Factors can help you understand:

• if your ABM campaigns are reaching the right people 
• If they’re conveying the message well enough so your target accounts interact with the content

Pipeline Contribution — What percentage of sales opportunities come from account-based efforts? This directly connects marketing to revenue. You can see specific deals influenced by account-based campaigns. It's great for understanding ROI and aligning with sales.

Through Factors, you can track specific opportunities that originated or were influenced by ABM campaigns. 

Suppose you have multiple ongoing ABM campaigns including email, paid ads, and social media. 

Factors tracks and provides data give you a full view of your ABM performance and helps in understanding the ROI of ABM and aligning marketing with sales goals.

Conversion Rate — What percentage of targeted accounts move to the next stage towards becoming customers? Are your accounts going from leads to qualified leads? This shows how well your targeted content prompts the actions you want. Critical for evaluating personalization.

With custom reporting features on Factors, you can create a full conversion funnel, identify all the campaigns bringing in leads, and more. 

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What Demand Generation Metrics Should You Track?

Let’s now look at the set of metrics that you need to track for demand generation campaigns. 

• Number of Leads — How many new leads are you generating through marketing? Quantity indicates if demand efforts are working initially. Starts you on lead nurturing and qualification.
• Cost Per Lead — What's the average cost to acquire each lead? Total spend divided by lead volume. Helps weigh marketing efficiency and guide budget.
• Sales Cycle Length — How long does it take on average for a lead to become a customer? From initial interest to closed deal. Shows how smoothly leads move through the sales process. Reflects both marketing and sales effectiveness.

With Factors, you can create unified views of your sales and marketing data.It helps you easily track key demand generation metrics like leads, cost per lead, and sales cycle length. 

With this, you gain clear insights to optimize your campaigns, processes, and spend for maximum ROI without spending time switching tabs or tools. 

Should You Use Demand Gen or Account Based Marketing?

The choice between demand gen and ABM depends on a few key things.

• Business Size: If you're a large company targeting specific high-value accounts, ABM could be a good fit since it's more personalized. Smaller businesses that want broad awareness might prefer demand gen instead.
• Industry: Industries where relationships matter more, like business services, may benefit more from ABM's tailored approach. But industries that need mass outreach could be better off with demand gen.
• Product Complexity: Complex or specialized products that need explaining may also call for ABM's account-specific focus. Products with widespread appeal are likely better suited for demand gen's broad reach.
• Target Audience: It also comes down to knowing your target audience and what will resonate. If you need to cater to particular accounts' unique needs, ABM is probably the way to go. But if you have a more general audience, demand gen can cast a wider net.

You could even use both the strategies together to cover all bases. The key is matching the strategy to your goals and who you're trying to reach so you can create maximum impact with minimal resource wastage.

What Strategy Would You Choose?

We've explored the unique strengths of each strategy, compared their differences, and seen how they can precisely target leads or cast a wider net for brand awareness. 

So whether you want to create personalized experiences with ABM or prioritize brand awareness with Demand Generation, we hope this guide will help you make the right decisions. 

Factors helps you simplify the path to executing successful marketing strategies. You can understand and track demand gen metrics and ABM efforts, aligning them with your unique needs. From segmentation to journey mapping, Factors is your secret weapon to master both strategies and measure campaign performance.

Ready to take your marketing up a level? Check out Factors today and discover how you can leverage ABM and Demand Generation to drive growth and success.

Looking to learn more about Lead Forensics pricing, features, and more? The following article provides a comprehensive overview of everything you need to know about Lead Forensics pricing. 

Lead Forensics is a popular B2B website visitor identification tool that reveals anonymous companies visiting a website and surfaces relevant contact details (Email, Phone numbers, etc) within those companies for outreach and targeting. Lead Forensics is used primarily by B2B marketers, sales folk, and agencies to leverage existing website traffic to drive sales revenue and marketing ROI. 

Lead Forensics Pricing & Plans

Lead Forensics offers two plans: Essential and Automate. Essential is designed for small to medium sized businesses to identify anonymous businesses viewing your website, unlock relevant contact data (phone numbers, mail ID, etc) and manage existing leads. Automate offers all this, plus additional features such as custom workflows, sequence actions (or as they call it, The Orchestrator), advanced CRM integrations and Fuzzy matching algorithm to maintain data hygiene. 

Here’s a detailed feature overview of how the two plans compare to each other:

Source

Note that:

• Lead Forensics offers a 7-days free trial
• Lead Forensics does not offer a free plan

Unfortunately Lead Forensics does not openly reveal its pricing details. You’ll have to reach out to their sales team for an accurate quote based on your requirements and scale. That being said, we’ve dug deep to find what we can about Lead Forensics’ pricing:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Lead Forensics pricing runs between around $250 to several thousand per month, depending on the volume of website traffic. Multiple reviews also highlight that obtaining contact data (phone numbers, email addresses, etc) cost an additional fee on top of the monthly platform subscription fee

To be fair, the few reviews that do provide hints into Lead Forensics pricing are…well, unhappy customers. Ignoring their not-so-great opinions of the product, we can see that Lead Forensics charges these users approximately £209 + vat per month (or $260/mo) and $500 per month respectively. 

“To ensure a right sized solution for each of our clients, our pricing model is based upon relevant B2B traffic to a website or specified web pages. We offer a free trial period to ascertain the traffic volumes over a one week period. After which time, we will produce a bespoke proposal tailored to your business and your visitor traffic levels. We are committed to producing the right package and proposal for your business, which is why we don't have an off the shelf pricing model.” - Lead Forensics

Lead Forensics Reviews

Lead Forensics claims to maintain one of the world’s largest B2B IP-databases. But how do Lead Forensics customers find the platform to be on a day-to-day basis? Here’s what reviews have to say about user experience with Lead Forensics: 

In Summary 

Lead Forensics Benefits:

• Intuitive onboarding 
• Customer support

Lead Forensics Drawbacks: 

• Data inaccuracy
• Cost

Lead Forensics Rating:

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 3.4/5 
• TrustRadius: 2.6/10

Lead Forensics Alternatives

There are several account identification and intelligence solutions out there. Here are a few common Lead Forensics alternatives to consider:

• Factors.ai - for data-accuracy and advanced analytics, scoring, and attribution 
• Leadfeeder (Now Dealfront) - for EU-centric account intelligence
• Clearbit - for accounts and contact level intelligence

Factors is a leading account intelligence solution that helps B2B teams identify, qualify, and convert anonymous website traffic. Factors works with industry-standard data partners to provide accurate, cost-effective account intelligence. Why Factors over Lead Forensics? 

• Better data: Factors identifies up to 64% of anonymous traffic — that’s 27% more accounts than the closest alternatives. 
• Better intent signals: Factors stands out from alternatives in that it captures intent signals (ad views, impressions, page views) from LinkedIn and G2 in addition to website activity for holistic account engagement tracking.
• Better deals: While Lead Forensics doesn't openly reveal prices, internal demos reveal that Factors provides far more cost-effective plans. Learn more here: factors.ai/pricing
• Better analytics: Factors is built upon strong analytics and attribution foundations. As a result, it provides granular website tracking, path analysis, timelines, and more. 

FAQ

1. What does Lead Forensics do? 

Lead Forensics tracks business IPs to identify anonymous website traffic at an account-level. Once a visiting company has been identified, Lead Forensics also shares relevant contact information such as mail IDs and phone numbers to streamline outreach and targeting. 

2. What is the lead forensic code?

The Lead Forensics code is a tiny piece of code placed on a business website. It’s this code that enables users to identify websites visitors’ business IP addresses. This IP is then matched with an IP database to reveal business names and properties.

Ever stare at your website analytics and wonder if you're focusing on the metrics that truly matter? 

You're not alone. 

With the myriad of data points available, it can feel overwhelming to discern which are pivotal to your SaaS success.

Over the past decade, I've dived deep into the vast sea of website analytics. Through a blend of personal marketing experiences, extensive research, and countless success (and failure!) stories, I've distilled the essence of what you really need to be tracking. This isn't just another listicle; this is a decade of my digital marketing expertise boiled down to its most potent form.

Imagine being able to glance at your analytics dashboard and instantly understand your website's performance.

Think about the time you could save, the precision in your strategies, and the boost in your ROI. These aren’t just numbers; they’re the heartbeat of your online presence. And when you can tap into that pulse with clarity, you're on your way to outpacing competitors and delighting your customers like never before.

Whether you're a newbie just starting out or a seasoned marketer looking to refine your focus, these insights will revolutionise the way you interpret and leverage your website analytics.

As I recall my early days in digital marketing, I remember the sleepless nights spent on deciphering analytics reports. One story that always comes to mind is when I was sure that a particular metric was the 'holy grail', only to find out, after a significant campaign spend, that it was a red herring. I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. 

Dive in as I share my hard-earned wisdom, peppered with unforgettable stories from the past decade.

What Are the Best 7 Metrics to Track in Website Analytics?

Over the years, I've designed a unique process, affectionately named the "Analytics Magnifier", which distils complex data down to the most influential metrics. This isn’t about data overload, but about targeted, strategic insight. 

By honing in on these core metrics, SaaS marketers can truly understand the health and potential of their platforms. 

Ready to dive deep? 

Here are the seven key steps, each with real-world examples.

Before we jump in, let me set the scene: Imagine your website as a bustling city. Each metric we explore is like a vital checkpoint in this city, from its busiest airports to its most serene parks. 

With "Analytics Magnifier", you’ll not only see these points but understand how they contribute to the city’s prosperity. Let’s get started:

Traffic Source Analysis

This metric breaks down the origin of your website traffic, categorising it into sources like direct traffic, referrals, organic search, social media, and paid campaigns. By understanding where your audience is coming from, you can better allocate resources, tailor content, and focus on the most effective channels.

For example, after partnering with a tech blogger, a SaaS company sees a 30% boost in referral traffic from the blogger's site over the month.

Pro Tip:

Regularly evaluate the quality of traffic, not just the quantity. A hundred visitors from a niche blog might be more valuable than a thousand from a generic source.

Bounce Rate Assessment

The bounce rate is a window into user engagement. It calculates the percentage of visitors who navigate away after viewing just one page. While it's tempting to label a high bounce rate as 'bad', the metric often needs to be contextualised based on the type of page and the intent behind it.

For example, following a homepage redesign, a SaaS company observes its bounce rate decrease from 68% to 52%.

Pro Tip: 

Bounce rate varies by industry and content type. Always compare your rate against industry benchmarks and adjust accordingly.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

CRO isn't merely about tweaking button colours or headlines; it's a systematic approach to increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a specific desired action. This might mean signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or even just clicking on a particular link. CRO encompasses design, content, and user experience elements.

For example, by streamlining its sign-up process, an e-commerce platform sees its conversion rate jump from 2.5% to 4.8%.

Pro Tip:

Small, iterative changes often yield the best results. Regularly A/B test elements and refine based on feedback.

Page Load Time

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, speed is everything. Page load time measures the duration it takes for content on a page to fully display. A swift site boosts user satisfaction, improves SEO rankings, and can significantly impact conversion rates.

For example, by optimising images and leveraging browser caching, a fintech SaaS reduces its average load time from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.

Pro Tip:

Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to not just measure speed but also get actionable recommendations for improvements.

Behaviour Flow

Behaviour flow offers a visual representation of the journey users take through your website. From the page they enter on to the sequence they follow and where they eventually drop off, this metric provides valuable insights into how content is resonating and where potential friction points lie.

For example, a content marketing tool finds that users who visit a specific tutorial often proceed to the pricing page, hinting at a strong sales funnel.

Pro Tip:

Cross-reference behaviour flow with specific campaigns. The flow from organic search might differ vastly from a targeted PPC campaign.

Mobile vs. Desktop Traffic

As the balance shifts between desktop and mobile browsing, understanding this metric is crucial. It gives a split view of users based on the devices they use, guiding design, and usability priorities. Each platform offers a distinct user experience and caters to different user intents.

For example, an e-learning platform, after noting 70% mobile users, restructures its courses for a more mobile-friendly, bite-sized format.

Pro Tip:

Mobile users often have different priorities, like speed and easy navigation. Tailor your design and content strategy with a mobile-first approach.

Returning vs. New Visitors

This metric provides a balance sheet of growth and loyalty. New visitors indicate brand reach and discovery, while returning visitors signal satisfaction, engagement, and potential brand loyalty. Each segment has different needs, and understanding this balance can help tailor user experiences.

For example, after introducing a monthly webinar series, a data analytics tool notes a 25% uptick in returning visitors.

Pro Tip:

Personalization is key. For instance, use cookies to greet returning visitors with tailored content or offers based on their past behaviour.

These detailed explanations should offer a clearer perspective on each metric’s significance. Each plays a pivotal role in painting a comprehensive picture of your website's performance, user behaviour, and areas for optimization. Armed with this knowledge, you're equipped to make data-driven decisions that elevate your SaaS marketing strategy.

What Is Website Analytics?

Website Analytics is the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting data from website visitors to understand their behaviour and make informed decisions for improving the overall user experience, content strategy, and conversion optimization. Unlike a static report or snapshot, analytics offers a dynamic overview of real-time interactions, from the pages viewed to the duration spent on each, providing invaluable insights into both the performance of a site and the behaviour of its users.

Whether you're running social media ads, influencer collaborations, or email marketing campaigns, your website's data can reveal the direct impact of these strategies, letting you know where to invest more or adjust tactics. 

Furthermore, in the age of data privacy, with increasing concerns about tracking and personal data usage, it's vital for marketers and website owners to ensure they're ethically sourcing and using their website data, always with user consent and in compliance with global regulations.

Lastly, while many focus on quantitative data like click rates and page views, qualitative insights shouldn't be ignored. 

Digital analytics tools that provide heat maps or session recordings can offer a deeper dive into user engagement, revealing not just what users do, but perhaps hints at why they do it, paving the way for a more user-centric approach to website development and marketing strategy.

How Can Website Analytics Benefit You?

For SaaS marketers, understanding user behaviour isn't just a nicety—it's the crux of driving growth, retention, and customer satisfaction. Website analytics serves as the bridge between user interactions and actionable marketing strategies. First and foremost, it helps in pinpointing the efficacy of various marketing channels. 

Are those costly PPC campaigns translating into quality leads? Or is organic SEO driving more engaged traffic? 

By drilling down into source-specific metrics, marketers can allocate budgets more effectively and achieve a greater return on investment.

Beyond mere acquisition, for SaaS platforms, user retention and engagement are equally paramount. Website analytics can unveil patterns in user journeys, highlighting friction points or stages where users disengage. For instance, if a majority of visitors drop off at the pricing page, perhaps it's time to reconsider the pricing strategy or provide clearer value propositions. 

Conversely, if a specific piece of content or a tutorial sees high engagement, it might be worth promoting it further or repurposing it across other marketing channels.

Lastly, SaaS platforms are often dynamic with continuous feature rollouts and updates. Website analytics can be instrumental in tracking user responses to these changes. 

Did the latest update improve session durations? 

Was there an uptick in support page visits post a particular feature release? 

These insights allow marketers to be agile, tweaking their messaging and support structures based on real-time feedback, ensuring that the SaaS offering remains aligned with user needs and expectations.

How to Build Marketing Reports using Factors.ai

Building marketing reports with Factors.ai can be a game-changer, primarily due to its AI-driven insights and seamless data integrations. Rather than manually sifting through heaps of data, the platform's AI assists in pinpointing patterns and insights that might elude even seasoned marketers, presenting a holistic view of marketing performance with just a few clicks.

One of the standout features of Factors.ai is its capability to integrate disparate data sources. For SaaS marketers juggling various channels, from organic SEO and PPC to email campaigns and social media promotions, the ability to centralise and cross-analyze this data is invaluable. Instead of isolated metrics, marketers can view interconnected data, discerning, for instance, how an influencer campaign might have impacted organic search metrics or how email campaigns influenced user retention rates.

While Factors.ai offers extensive automation and AI-driven insights, it's essential for marketers to approach it with clarity. 

Conclusion/Wrapping Up

Navigating the intricacies of website analytics can seem daunting, but with the right tools, approach and a right , it's a treasure trove of actionable insights. 

I've traversed the vital metrics to track, delved into the nuances of website analytics, and explored the transformative power of tools like Factors.ai in shaping your marketing reports. 

The digital landscape is ever-evolving, and staying attuned to these metrics ensures you're not just keeping pace, but leading the charge.

Drawing from a decade of hands-on marketing experience, I've seen firsthand the monumental shifts in data-driven strategies. The insights shared here aren't just theoretical but are born from tried-and-tested campaigns, successes, and yes, even failures. 

As you implement these learnings, remember that analytics is not just about numbers; it's about understanding your audience's story, predicting their needs, and crafting experiences that resonate. 

Dive in, experiment, analyse, and always keep learning. Your website's data has a lot to say, and with the right expert, you'll be perfectly poised to listen and act.

Approximately 95% of the addressable market remains dormant, not actively seeking to purchase a product or service at any given time. This percentage of the market can be tapped with the help of demand-generation tactics. As for the remaining 5%, that can be tackled with lead generation.

Mastering the art of demand generation is critical to the success of any product or service. This systematic process not only raises awareness but also piques customer interest in the product, presenting your product as an irresistible solution tailored to meet the unique needs of potential customers. By identifying the target audience early on in the marketing funnel, businesses can effectively tailor their offerings to meet customer needs and preferences, ensuring continuous improvements in subsequent iterations.

Moving on to demand generation, as we saw above, it focuses on actively engaging with the 5% of potential customers who express interest in finding a solution. By using more direct language and communication methods, lead generation helps businesses capture and interact with these active consumers.

However, generating leads, especially high-quality ones, is no piece of cake. As customer journeys lengthen, advertising costs rise, and alternative channels for customer interactions emerge, marketers must carefully prioritize their efforts to succeed in lead generation.

To put it succinctly, demand generation targets passive customers, whereas lead generation focuses on actively engaging with potential consumers. By employing both strategies harmoniously, businesses can create a robust and successful marketing approach, driving growth and gaining a competitive edge in their industry.

TL;DR

• Demand generation educates, creates awareness, and tailors solutions, while lead generation showcases product benefits.
• Quality leads are vital, and marketers must prioritize efforts as customer journeys lengthen and costs rise.
• Harmonizing demand and lead generation strategies create a robust marketing approach for growth.
• Demand generation sparks interest, while lead generation engages prospects, aiming to convert them.
• A successful demand gen campaign ensures qualified leads, while lead gen nurtures and converts prospects.
• Combining both strategies offers a seamless approach to customer acquisition and business growth.
• In an established market, prioritize lead generation; in a new category, focus on demand generation.
• Understanding lead types (MQLs, SQLs, PQLs) enables effective nurturing and conversions.
• Demand gen educates, and lead gen converts; their synergy drives modern marketing success.
  

Lead Gen vs Demand Gen: Laying the groundwork

What is lead generation? 

Lead generation is focused on finding and attracting potential customers (or leads) for your business. The primary goal here is to procure vital contact information from interested individuals who have expressed an interest in your offerings. So, before immediately contacting eligible leads through sales calls, organizations may educate and nurture prospective consumers through dynamic channels such as landing pages, opt-in email lists, or even insightful content pieces. With these channels, organizations can effectively attract valuable prospects, and pave the way for converting them into paying customers. 

An example of a lead generation strategy could be to offer a ‘free’ e-book in exchange for visitors' email addresses. By providing valuable content, your company captivates potential customers and establishes direct contact for further engagement with the customer.

Key Aspects of Lead Generation

• Targeted Engagement: With precision targeting, lead generation zeroes in on individuals who have already exhibited interest, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
• Conversion Optimization: The ultimate aim is to convert these prospects into leads by capturing their contact details, such as email addresses and phone numbers.

• Data-Driven Strategies: Employ advanced data analytics and tracking methods to measure campaign success and identify high-yield channels and tactics.

How does lead generation work?

It involves two key steps: initiating interactions with interested leads (potential prospects) and subsequently converting them into leads by obtaining their contact information.

To draw potential customers to your website, identify a winning strategy tailored to your business objectives and financial constraints. Some effective methods include:

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Social Media
• Display Ads
• Offline Events

Once visitors arrive on your website, the next step is to convert them into leads using various lead generation techniques. These methods aim to capture consumers' interest in your product or service, encouraging them to provide their contact details, often through the use of incentives known as "lead magnets."

Once a lead expresses interest in your offerings, it becomes a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). The digital marketing team then initiates nurturing campaigns, often leveraging marketing automation to send targeted emails and engaging content. Here, the goal is to educate and persuade prospects to transition into sales leads. This can happen through an inbound purchase on the company's website or by reaching out to a salesperson. In corporate sales, the sales team may directly contact potential customers to finalise the deal.

What is demand generation?

The systematic process of generating interest in a product or a service is known as demand creation. This process involves increasing product awareness and encouraging customers to explore the product or service as a potential solution to their needs. It also helps identify the target market and serves as the first step in the marketing funnel. What’s more, working on demand generation also helps businesses in understanding customer preferences that may be included in the product throughout subsequent revisions.
Let’s look at an illustrative example of Zendek Corp, a leading provider of industrial solutions, and see how demand generation can help even unconventional sectors. When launching its cutting-edge machinery for precision manufacturing, Zendek faced the challenge of reaching a niche audience in a highly specialized field. Unlike conventional consumer products, their solutions targeted a specific set of manufacturers requiring intricate equipment.

To address this, they strategically employed content marketing and industry partnerships to engage potential buyers. By creating informative whitepapers and hosting webinars that tackled the complexities of precision manufacturing, they positioned themselves as experts and thought leaders. This approach proved transformative, as it not only attracted over 10,000 industry professionals but also nurtured strong connections.
The campaign’s success wasn’t just measured in numbers; it led to partnerships and collaborations that further solidified Zendek’s position as an indispensable partner for manufacturers.

So, how are lead generation and demand generation different?

Demand generation primarily operates at the top of the funnel, focusing on raising awareness of your company and generating interest in your offerings. 

On the other hand, lead generation comes into play at the middle and bottom of the funnel, nurturing qualified prospects and guiding them towards becoming customers.

Let’s look at the channels for lead generation
Lead generation channels are focused on capturing and converting interested prospects into concrete leads. 

To understand this better, let’s assume you're a B2B software company specializing in project management solutions. You're eager to capture the attention of decision-makers in the engineering sector. To achieve this, you craft an in-depth eBook titled 'Streamlining Engineering Projects: A Comprehensive Guide to Efficient Project Management.' This resource delves into the challenges engineers face and presents effective solutions using your software.

Upon landing on your website, visitors are greeted with a well-designed web pop-up offering them this free eBook in exchange for their email addresses. This lead magnet not only promises valuable insights but also addresses a pain point specific to your target audience.

As prospects engage with your content, you leverage lead scoring to identify those displaying a high level of interest. This, in turn, triggers personalized follow-up emails offering case studies showcasing real-world success stories of engineering firms that benefited from your software.

Additionally, you employ retargeting techniques, displaying tailored ads across platforms to keep your solution top-of-mind. Now, social proof takes centre stage as you highlight testimonials from engineering companies praising the effectiveness of your software.

With CRM software in place, your sales team can seamlessly manage and nurture leads, ensuring no prospect falls through the cracks. A/B testing of email subject lines and content helps fine-tune your messaging for optimal engagement.

With this holistic approach, every tactic – from the initial lead magnet (eBook) to the nurturing emails – works in harmony to guide prospects towards a buying decision. The result? An engaged and well-informed audience that's not just interested in your product, but also trusts its ability to solve their challenges.

When it comes to lead generation, a few metrics that need to be kept in mind are:

• Lead quality
• Conversion rate
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Total lead value
• Cost of acquisition (CAC)
• Cost per lead (CPL)
  

Channels for demand generation
Effective demand generation involves a mix of strategic channels and tactics to spark interest and raise awareness about your offering. Here's a quick breakdown of the channels where these strategies can be applied:

• Content that resonates with your audience: Craft insightful blog posts, eBooks, and videos that address your audience's pain points.

• Social media amplification: Leverage platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram to engage, educate, and initiate conversations.

• Engaging email campaigns: Reach out directly with personalized email content, nurturing leads through informative sequences.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimize your content for search engines, ensuring your solution is discoverable when prospects seek answers.

• Webinars and interactive sessions: Host webinars to showcase your expertise and encourage real-time interactions.

• In-Person and virtual events: Participate in industry events and host virtual gatherings to connect with prospects.

• Influencer partnerships: Collaborate with industry influencers to expand your reach and credibility.

• Referral programs: Encourage satisfied customers to refer others, tapping into the power of word-of-mouth.

• Interactive content: Offer quizzes, calculators, and assessments to engage and provide value.

• Conversion-driven landing pages: Design landing pages that resonate and drive action.
• Free trials and demos: Offer hands-on experience with your product or service through free trials or demos, allowing potential customers to understand the value firsthand.

With these channels in your demand generation arsenal, you can seamlessly attract and engage potential customers, guiding them towards exploring your solution further.

A few metrics to remember concerning demand generation are:

• Brand lift
• Visibility
• Competitive analysis
• Brand awareness
• Sentiment analysis
• Content performance

While demand generation focuses on website traffic, brand awareness, social engagement, and content performance; lead generation focuses on landing pages, CTA, paid channels, as well as organic channels.

A successful demand generation campaign ensures that the leads generated are not only qualified but also genuinely interested in what your business has to offer. Meanwhile, by implementing lead generation techniques, you can effectively nurture and convert prospective customers into loyal, paying customers. So, naturally, the symbiotic relationship between demand generation and lead generation strengthens your overall marketing efforts and contributes to your business's success.

You may now be wondering, “Which tactic will help me achieve my company objectives the most effectively?”. Well, the answer is: Both! And that’s because you can't nurture quality leads and turn them into customers without first drawing them to your business. That is to say, demand generation directly aids lead generation. 

But we’ll get into that right after we look at some important points of difference between lead generation and demand generation with regard to:

The symbiosis of lead generation and demand generation: Why should businesses focus on both?

As you’ve probably noticed, it’s not lead gen vs demand gen – both are equally valuable. While focusing solely on demand generation may hinder your ability to close sales when your audience is actively seeking your product or service as a solution, working only on demand generation can bring in short-term cash but may not be best for long-term brand recognition, potentially impacting revenue in the long term.

The key to success lies in recognising that demand generation and lead generation are interconnected, and prioritising one over the other is irrelevant (and a disaster for business growth). Instead, businesses must focus on how these two approaches can be used in tandem to create a seamless customer acquisition plan – one that generates demand and nurtures prospective customers to turn them into paying customers.

The most effective approach to optimize marketing efforts is by combining strategies. For instance, offering free educational blogs can generate interest among consumers, prompting them to seek gated content in exchange for information such as email IDs. This way, you can engage and capture potential customers, building a valuable database for future marketing activities.

That said, businesses must seek to test and refine their strategies to achieve optimal results in the buyer's journey and inbound sales.

Does the market context matter?
In choosing the implementation strategy, it's of utmost importance to consider the context of the market. In an established market, if your competitive advantage is pricing, prioritize lead generation since the market demand already exists for the solution your business provides. This existing knowledge of the solution allows you to tap into potential customers who are actively seeking solutions. However, if you're pioneering a new category, focus on demand generation to create awareness and then generate leads.

When selecting your implementation strategy, the market context plays a pivotal role. In an established market, where your competitive advantage lies in pricing, prioritizing lead generation can be effective as the market already exhibits demand for the product. However, if you're breaking new ground in a nascent category, concentrating on demand generation becomes paramount. This approach ensures that awareness is first created, paving the way for subsequent lead generation.

Here’s an example to help you understand this better:
Meet InnovaSys: Elevating Industrial Automation

InnovaSys, a B2B industrial automation solutions provider, is aiming to make its mark in a competitive landscape. With cutting-edge solutions that enhance manufacturing efficiency, InnovaSys is venturing into a space where its technology is novel.

Recognizing the need to first generate awareness and establish thought leadership, InnovaSys embraces demand generation tactics. They host webinars, publish in-depth industry reports, and collaborate with influential trade associations to spotlight the advantages of their automation solutions. With this, InnovaSys aims to position itself as a trusted guide, driving curiosity and inquiry from potential clients.

Meet EngiTech: Transforming Data Analytics

On the other side of the spectrum, EngiTech, a B2B data analytics startup, is entering a market brimming with established players. Their unique selling proposition lies in an upgraded and revolutionary data aggregation and visualization tool that significantly streamlines decision-making for businesses.

In this scenario, where the demand for their tool is evident, EngiTech directs its efforts towards lead generation. They harness the power of targeted LinkedIn outreach, engaging with decision-makers who are actively seeking solutions to their data challenges. Additionally, EngiTech partners with industry influencers to amplify their reach among relevant circles.

In the case of both InnovaSys and EngiTech, the chosen strategy aligns with their respective market contexts. InnovaSys embarks on demand generation to pave the way for recognition and interest in their novel automation solutions. Meanwhile, EngiTech capitalizes on existing demand by focusing on lead generation to directly connect with businesses in need of their specialized data analytics tool

Types of Leads & Their Relevance

Understanding the nuances of different types of leads enables companies to implement targeted lead nurturing strategies, ensuring the right message reaches the right audience at the right stage of the buyer's journey. This empowers businesses to maximize their conversion rates, optimize marketing ROI, and ultimately, achieve long-term success. As you may agree, not all leads are created equal, and each type represents a different level of engagement and readiness to make a purchasing decision. By distinguishing between SQLs, MQLs, and PQLs, businesses can effectively prioritize their efforts, customize their approach, and allocate resources wisely. 

Understanding SQLs, MQLs, and PQLs: Nurturing Leads for Successful Conversions

1. Marketing qualified lead (MQL): 

• MQLs are leads that have been identified as potential customers based on their engagement and interest in the company's offerings.
• They have shown interest in the company's products or services, but they may not be fully ready for direct sales outreach.
• Lead nurturing plays a critical role in converting MQLs into SQLs, as it involves providing them with valuable and relevant content, and guiding them through the decision-making process.
  

2. Sales-qualified lead (SQL): 

• SQLs are leads that have been contacted, evaluated and deemed ready by the sales team.
• They have shown a strong intent to purchase and are likely to be in the later stages of the buyer's journey.
• The sales team can focus on converting SQLs into customers by understanding their specific needs and providing personalized solutions.

3. Product-qualified lead (PQL):

• PQLs are leads that have experienced the product or service through free trials, demos, or other product interactions.
• These leads have already demonstrated an interest in the product's value and are more likely to be ready for sales engagement.
• PQLs can be a valuable source for SQLs since their experience with the product sets them apart from traditional MQLs.
  

As you can tell, these strategies are not mere buzzwords but indespensible instruments that shape how your business engages with its audiences.
Summing it up, demand generation becomes the guiding light, casting awareness and curiosity over a broad spectrum. It's about educating, sparking conversations, and carving a space for your brand to thrive. While lead generation showcases your product's strengths, resonates with a specific audience, and cultivates relationships that turn into loyal partnerships. The intertwined relationship between these strategies defines the success trajectory of modern businesses, drawing potential clients closer and transforming them into valued patrons.

As modern marketers, the true power lies not just in understanding the nuances of these two strategies, but in recognizing their synergy. It's a mix of education and distinction that fuels the marketing engine. 

Ready to enhance your lead gen or demand gen strategy for optimal tracking and performance? Discover how Factors can streamline implementation and drive results. Get in touch and let’s get started today. 

FAQs

1. What is a B2B demand generation strategy?

A B2B demand generation strategy is a comprehensive plan and set of actions implemented by a business to create and stimulate interest and demand for their products or services among other businesses or organizations. This strategy involves a series of marketing and sales tactics aimed at attracting and engaging potential buyers throughout the buyer's journey, ultimately leading them to express interest, make inquiries, or request further information. The goal of a B2B demand generation strategy is to generate high-quality leads and drive business growth by converting those leads into customers.

2. What is B2B lead generation?

B2B lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential business customers (other businesses or organizations) who have expressed interest in the products or services offered by a company. This process involves targeted marketing and sales strategies designed to generate high-quality leads that can eventually be converted into profitable business relationships.

3. What are the three stages of lead generation? 

It's essential to organize your marketing funnels around the three lead-generation phases:
Awareness: This stage involves creating awareness about a product, service, or brand among the target audience through various marketing efforts.

Interest: In this stage, potential leads express interest by engaging with the provided content or showing intent to learn more about the offering.

Conversion: The final stage focuses on converting interested prospects into actual leads by encouraging them to take a specific action, such as purchasing or providing contact information for further follow-up.

With over 750 million users, LinkedIn is by far the largest professional network in the world. 

What started off as a simple platform for like-minded business people to connect, has transformed into a social media behemoth. Today, LinkedIn offers everything from algorithmic news feeds, LinkedIn groups, live streaming, and of course, a wide range of advertising mechanisms. 

What does this mean for us B2B marketers? Opportunity.

LinkedIn’s massive database of professionals, companies, and industries may be leveraged by marketers to reach out to the right audience with the right message and drive high-quality opportunities. 

‍But there’s no hiding behind the fact that paid marketing on Linkedin can be expensive and competitive — especially for Seed/Series A companies looking to make limited budgets go a long way. 

As a result, early-stage teams generally prefer spending on Search Ads over LinkedIn. The former is believed to drive more high-intent leads and in turn, better return on ad spend. Conversely, LinkedIn is thought to be better suited to bigger companies for expensive, top of the funnel branding campaigns.

‍This is not necessarily true. 

When executed well, LinkedIn ads can be an effective channel to generate high-quality leads and bottom-of-the-funnel pipeline  — even for smaller teams. This chapter of our no-nonsense guide explores the Linkedin ads framework we’ve crafted over months of wins, mistakes & learnings as an early-stage start-up.

‍We won’t be discussing the basics of Linkedin Ads given that there’s loads of resources available on this as is. Instead, you can expect to find practical guidelines to pick off low-hanging fruit and drive RoAS. 

‍Linkedin Ads For Series A: Framework & Priorities‍‍

Quick results with limited spend and minimal effort is at the core of our LinkedIn ads framework. With that in mind, we suggest using LinkedIn ads to target the following audiences: 

1. Retarget prospects that are already engaging with your company
2. Target customers of your competitors 
3. Target top of the funnel ICP audience with ABM 

Given that not all accounts are equally likely to convert, It’s important to prioritize the right set of audiences. Here’s an order of priority we’ve been seeing growing success with:

1. Your first priority should be to retarget accounts that are already interacting with your brand — visiting high-intent pages, engaging with G2 reviews, or viewing previous LinkedIn ads. Given that these accounts already know about your product/company in some capacity, we can safely assume that they’re problem, solution AND brand aware. 

This audience is at a stage where they’re researching solutions (including yours!) to solve a challenge that they’re actively facing. This set can also include lost and churned accounts that have returned to engage with your brand. 

In short, this audience is relatively further along the sales funnel and accordingly, will require the least effort (and spend 😉) to convert. 

‍2. Next, look to target customers of your competitors. While this set of audience may not be aware of your brand, they’re certainly aware of the problem and are in fact already using an alternate solution. This implies that they’re ready to buy and may consider switching to your solution if it’s a better fit. In terms of ideal customer profile, it doesn't get much better than this. Use sales intelligence tools like Builtwith or Slintel to generate competitor customer lists. 

‍3. Finally, target your general ICP audience with account-based marketing (ABM). This consists of the set of accounts that fit your ideal customer profile criteria (based on size, industry, revenue range, technographics, etc). Although this set of audience would make great customers, they’re unaware of your brand as well as the problem your product is solving for. Accordingly, these accounts will require the most effort (and spend) to convert. 

With this priority framework established, let’s explore how to build these audience lists, run ads that convert, and optimize paid LI ads.

I. Build Audience Lists

‍For Retargeting…

Here’s a 3 step process on creating an audience list for LinkedIn retargeting

‍Step 1. Identify accounts from your website, reviews, and ad impressions

Use LinkedIn’s website tracking pixel in tandem with IP-based account identification tools to discover anonymous companies engaging with your website, G2 reviews, and previous LinkedIn ads.

Tactical Tips: LinkedIn’s website tracking pixel is limited to the number of visitors who actually accept cookies upon landing. This may be an issue for smaller teams with limited traffic because visitors accept cookies only 11% of the time. This may dramatically shrink your audience list. Luckily, there’s a quick fix: 

‍Use an “opt-out” cookie policy instead of an “opt-in” policy everywhere outside the EU to have cookies accepted by default. Both policies are privacy compliant outside the EU, but an “opt-out” policy will result in far more accounts identified by the LinkedIn pixel.

Step 2. Filter down your targets

Depending on the size of your website, you may identify hundreds or thousands  of unique accounts every week. It’s probably unrealistic to go after each and every one of them. Instead, refine your list by only targeting accounts that visit high-intent pages (Pricing, Landing pages, Comparison blogs, G2 reviews etc) and fit your ideal client profile based on geography, industry, technographic, revenue range, etc. Once complete, you’ll be left with a list of high-fit, high-intent ICP accounts. 

Tactical tips: In order to launch a campaign on LinkedIn, you must target at least 1,000 members. (Or 300 members, with Matched Audience — but we strongly discourage the use of MA). Given that you’re likely targeting multiple people from the same company, a final list of 500 accounts is a good starting point. 

3. Build a target member list:

At this stage, we have a brand-aware and possibly in-market set of ICP accounts ready for targeting. Use a sales intelligence tool like Apollo, Zoominfo, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator to create a list of at least 1,000 relevant members to target based on their roles, seniority, etc. 

‍Tactical tips: We find that it’s valuable to create awareness across the entire company you’re targeting. Accordingly, we strongly recommend targeting at least 2-3 employees from every account: final users, their managers, and the final purchase decision makers. 

‍For Competitor Customers & ABM

The process for creating audience lists in these cases is straightforward. Skip straight to building target member lists using sales intelligence tools like Builtwith, Zoominfo, Slintel, etc. Construct lists of competitor customers and ICP accounts by apply the right filters (technographics, firmographics, roles) so you’re left with the right contacts from the right companies. 

Now, we’re all set to run highly targeted ads that drive conversions.

‍II. Run ad campaigns

At this stage, we have a primed list of high-fit, high-intent audience fit for targeting. It's safe to assume that every member we’re targeting would find the product/service we’re marketing to be, at the very least relevant, if not of explicit interest to them. 

So now, we run great ads! Here are a few point to keep in mind:

‍Define objectives

The objective and approach of your LinkedIn ads should differ based on the audience you’re targeting. For instance, retargeting ads should look to convert brand-aware accounts and accordingly can be far more direct as compared to ABM ads targeted towards brand-unaware accounts. Here’s how to think about it: 

With retargeting ads, ads you’re targeting members that have already visited your website, interacted with your review pages, or viewed a previous ad. We needn’t create brand awareness from scratch. Instead, we should aim for these ads to generate sign-ups. Accordingly, use straightforward lead-gen forms instead of content assets or website redirects here. In this case, leads generated and conversion rate will be the two key objectives. You may also track cost per conversion and cost per lead. Targets for these will vary based on your budget and ACV. 

Tactical tips: Keep the number of form fields to a minimum. Work mail and phone number are plenty. 

With ads targeted towards competitors' customers and ICP audience in general, it’s better to use a 2-stage funnel: the first stage involves running comparison ads or branding ads to create awareness about your solution. The second stage involves converting target accounts with standard lead gen forms. While this is a more elaborate process than a simple lead gen form, it’s sure to drive better conversions as the target audience will be aware of your work, and thus more likely to submit a form. 

‍Make a mark with messaging

You do not want to run pesky ads and have people mute your campaigns. It’s vital to incorporate customer research into your ad copy and designs to capture positive attention. Even little things like line breaks and emojis can make or break your campaign. 

Remember to sell on every element of the ad: the intro text,headline, in-image text, description, etc. Most users won’t consume every part of the ad in its entirety — so ensure that each element is persuasive in its own right:

Depending on the target audience, you’ll want to use different messaging. The two examples shared above are relatively more direct with a clear objective — “let us give you a free trial”. This will probably be better suited to retargeting campaigns. 

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For ads targeted towards competitors, however, comparative ad creatives are likely to perform better. That being said, it’s also important to stay on the right side of the law and respect copyright and trademark policies. Here are a few competitor ad creatives we’ve found success with:

Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.   

Continue to experiment with different ad formats, messaging, and creatives until you identify what clicks. Here are a few examples of ads we’ve found success with:

‍1. Testimonial ads:

2. Before/After ads:

3. Ads with a hook or questions:

And there you have it! Advertising on LinkedIn, when done right, can be a highly effective channel to drive pipeline and revenue. To conclude, here are a few common mistakes to avoid while running LinkedIn ads:

• When using LinkedIn targeting, ensure that job titles are set in inverted commas so LinkedIn only targets users with those specific titles as opposed to related ones. Eg: ‘CMO’, ‘PMM’, etc. 
• Do not use the audience network on LinkedIn as it generally targets irrelevant members resulting in wasted spends.