Filling the Sales Pipeline with Leads
Contrary to popular belief, the key to growing revenues is not hiring more sales people! The key to growing revenues is getting more leads. Sales representatives aren’t going to hit their quotas unless they have enough deals to work. In the old days, sales reps were responsible for generating their own opportunites. But in the modern, 21st century sales organization, reps are focused on managing opportunities through the sales cycle. The job of filling the pipeline falls on BDRs and marketing.
High growth companies don’t just generate leads – they engineer revenue!
The best marketing organizations are building marketing machines that deliver and predictable and consistent flow of new opportunities into the sales pipeline with factory-like precision. Best-in-class companies reach a point where they know for every dollar invested into marketing, N dollars of sales bookings are generated. For each type of campaign, there is an expected number of leads generated as a result.
SaaS Demand Generation – Key Functions
There are dozens of ways to generate leads. The highest performing channels will vary by market and company. Some demand gen teams are going “all in” on digital, while others are taking a more holistic approach across a mix of inbound, outbound, and community marketing. The best approach is to experiment with a variety of campaigns and figure out which work best in your space. The most popular options are:
Search Engine Optimization
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Universal, Image, Video
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Short Head & Long Tail
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Topic Clusters & Keywords
Virtual Events
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Webinar Presentation
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Panel Discussion
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Ask Me Anything
Paid Advertising
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Search Engines
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Social Media
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Radio, TV, OOH
Email Marketing
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Tracking & Analytics
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Privacy & Opt Outs
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Deliverability
Spotlight
Search Engine Optimization
The competition for placement atop organic search results has never been more cutthroat. Not only is Google making it harder, by allocating more real estate to paid ads and SERP features. But Wikipedia and online review sites jump to the front of the line, pushing SaaS websites lower down the page. Marketing’s struggle to rise to the top has never been greater.
Calculating Marketing’s
Lead Generation Target
What is our lead generation target?
It is a question that every marketing organization needs to answer at the start of every year (if not every quarter). Determining the answer is not straightforward. There are many different inputs needed to perform the calculation.
Marketers need to understand the corporate growth targets, historical conversion rates, and changing market dynamics to arrive at the right number.
Spotlight
Account-Based Marketing
Sales teams don’t just want any leads! They want leads with the highest potential – from the accounts that are likely to spend the biggest bucks. To land and expand these “dream” accounts, demand gen teams must orchestrate a series of carefully choreographed plays between BDRs, partners, account execs, and customer success managers. Welcome to account-based marketing!
