THE FUTURE OF SAAS SALES: THE INSIDE TAKE

As a Strategic Account Exec, this budget-beholden behavior concerns me. Yes, marketers need to show they’re putting their budget to good use, but not by sacrificing quality for quantity. High lead numbers do not show a return on investment – they just show a high number. These numbers could represent squirrels for all a spreadsheet glance tells you.

From a sales perspective (especially SaaS sales), we would much rather have one high-quality lead with an interest in – or need for – the product or service, than 1,000 leads who simply filled in a form to claim a discount or gain access to a hefty 18-page whitepaper PDF that’s fueling inbound lead generation (🤦), or simply because they felt pressured to by incessant targeting because their profile “fits the bill.”

When you solely focus on the numbers game, you can end up attracting leads who aren’t really interested in what you have to offer. And guess what happens when these leads enter your sales funnel? They clog it up. They take up valuable time and resources, and the majority don’t cross the conversion line.

Quality is everything.

B2B buying isn’t an event that can be categorized as a lead gen form fill – it’s a journey requiring nurture and education. The best B2B experiences are being presented by those who are consistently providing content and insight, which meets the buyer where they’re at.

This can only be achieved when marketing and sales teams join forces – sharing knowledge and insight, and agreeing next steps. They shouldn’t be working separately or be forced to box-tick when it comes to proving ROI.

Generating demand and building a loyal customer base is a longer-term engagement process that requires a mix of marketing touchpoints, sales engagements and helpful, personalized content.

How can marketers be expected to attribute ROI per channel when the whole concept behind demand gen is to use a variety of marketing strategies and tactics to stimulate this demand? For example, a lead’s last touchpoint might have been from a form on LinkedIn, but they could have been initially engaged through email or a search engine result.

And on the off-chance that the lead source was in fact through a form on LinkedIn (with no prior engagement elsewhere), do marketers believe that this is the type of lead that’s ready to be engaged with by a sales team – without any prior knowledge of the business or offer in question? It’s the equivalent of going on a first date then the next day, you’re being proposed to.

It’s disjointed, unrealistic and particularly problematic for sales teams who are trying to get to the bottom of why exactly this lead is in the funnel in the first place. It’s too much, too soon.

It’s definitely important to have lead generation KPIs and metrics that prove that your marketing is making an impact but I honestly believe that businesses who hold a suffocating ROI cloche over their marketing team need to remove it to give marketers the breathing space and tools to refocus their efforts on better collaboration and transparency with the people they’re handing the buyer baton to: the sales team. Getting on the same page is an absolute game-changer.

But this is a two-way street – sales teams are just as responsible for improving this process and need to play a proactive part.

It’s time to stop obsessing over the sheer volume of leads and start prioritizing the ones more likely to convert. Get to know your target audience inside out – grasp their pain points, needs and goals – and serve them tailored messages that resonate with them on a deeper level, rather than casting a wide net and hoping for the best. In an industry like SaaS sales, where the pool of best-fit prospects is often small and the competition large, it’s invaluable to really understand who you’re targeting and know exactly what to say to get their attention.

By taking pressure off marketers to prove ROI per channel/campaign. By championing lead quality over quantity. By improving collaboration and transparency between marketing and sales teams. By better understanding audience behavior and tracking a more comprehensive set of data points to inform next steps. By delivering a bespoke sales experience and tailored sales enablement content to each prospect that’s relevant, resonates and builds trust.

By enabling the above!
With Turtl, you can:

• Attract, educate and engage leads through compelling, informative, interactive content

• Nurture these leads by tracking and understanding audience behavior through a more comprehensive set of data points in your CRM (fed into by Turtl Analytics)

• Quickly resonate on an individual basis through personalized content to turn leads into prospects who are well-informed and ready to buy

• Prove marketing ROI by delivering quality prospects to sales who are likely to convert into customers

• Increase sales by receiving quality, transaction-minded prospects into the sales pipeline

Quality leads flow in, you’ll see serious sales pipeline acceleration, the data produced refines engagement, businesses better connect with individual prospects, and conversions go up.

And what about marketing ROI? It’s a by-product of the process. Not the limiting dictator it once was.

So, please –  stop trying to force buyers down your sales funnel, especially when all they’re getting is a boring, static, 18-page PDF in return. Marketers – push back when pressurized to prove ROI per channel/campaign. Communicate with those setting the targets that lead quality is more valuable than lead quantity.

Sales professionals – if you’re not getting the lead quality you’d like, be proactive and work collaboratively with marketing to understand the root of the cause. Join forces, partner with the right platform and you’ll be flying