If your B2B SaaS company is sales-led, building the right partnership program can rapidly accelerate your growth and long term success. But not every software company succeeds at partnership marketing! If you have a lack of resources, not enough strategy or just poor execution and enablement, this powerful go to market motion will go nowhere. On Episode 71 of the B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast, host Brian Graf interviews a special guest: Antoine Vial, an Associate CMO at Kalungi, who is an...

The B2B SaaS buying journey isn’t linear – it is much more complicated than that. At any one time, only 5% of your addressable market is actively in-market and seeking a solution. These prospects are ready to click that “schedule a demo” button after seeing your paid search ad or visiting your website’s pricing page.  But what about the 95% who aren’t ready to buy? This is where demand creation comes into play. Allocating resources and time to create demand will help you be in the top 3 when...

If you are under 30 and your career isn’t skyrocketing in marketing, should you move to product or supply chain? A recent episode of Scott Galloway’s celebrated podcast, Prof G Pod, made the claim that the true innovation and differentiators today for companies are on the product side and not on the marketing side. Galloway is an American public speaker, author, podcast host, entrepreneur, and clinical professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. In Episode 69 of the B2B SaaS...

For any new B2B SaaS company, the product launch is a critical moment in time. Done correctly, you gain traction and jumpstart getting revenue in the door.  For more mature companies, it’s an new opportunity to connect with the market, bring excitement to your new product or product evolution and celebrate your users.  Either way, a successful launch requires planning, coordination, and focus. In Episode 68 of the B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast, Brian and Stijn break the ideal SaaS product...

With AI now baked into nearly every software solution, how can you get the most out of it to grow your SaaS company?  Used wisely, smaller teams can achieve more with less effort.  However, AI isn't a magic solution for SaaS marketing. Used unwisely, it creates generic content, adds inaccuracies, and provides a negative impact on your brand in the mind of your ideal customer. If you're a marketer, SaaS founder, or executive wondering how to use AI effectively in your strategy, this discussion...

Don't let a badly chosen or implemented acquisition TKO your software company's success trajectory. In Episode 66 of B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks, we tackle how to make sure a potential acquisition is the right move and, most importantly, how to get the most out of it. Growth by acquisition can be a powerful way to accelerate your go to market approach. Acquisitions allow you to:-quickly enter a new market-buy your way deeper into a market you already service-fill a team or product gap-generate...

Strategy, growth targets, messaging, and funnel focus: get ready to solve four of the biggest problems that B2B SaaS marketing teams face on a daily basis. Identifying and eliminating problems in these areas for your organization needs to be a top priority.  In Episode 65 of the B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast, we discuss how to unlock new levels of performance by fixing these common issues: How big should your GTM strategy be?Balancing strategic vs technical executionWhen to diversify your...

Innovative products are the bread and butter of SaaS companies, and it can be tempting to try new things. But when it comes to launching new products, many B2B businesses can stumble at first. Episode 64 of the B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast is the third and final episode in our Ansoff Matrix series. We discuss the right side of the famous Matrix: product development and diversification (“the pivot”) for B2B SaaS. We show you how to find the most efficient and authentic path to true new...

Selling an existing current product or service into a new group of software customers can be a big challenge. Today we dive into strategies for marketing expansion for your SaaS company using the wisdom found in the upper left quadrant of the famous Ansoff Matrix. In Episode 63 of the B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast, we talk through the indicators you should look for when considering a marketing expansion strategy and what new initiatives you can take to effectively sell into a new group of...

The secrets to greater market penetration for your software company can be found in the lower left quadrant of the famous Ansoff Matrix. In Episode 62 of the B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast, we show you how to use Ansoff's Matrix to make the most out of what you already have. You can expand your share of an existing SaaS market using your existing software products and/or services.  You will need to attract new customers in the space, defend the customers you already have against rising...

As a SaaS investor, how do you predict how fast a company will grow? You need to know if you're looking at a rocket – or a tugboat – in terms of potential speed and growth. What are its chances to expand fast in the market? Can it really take hold and nail a niche? In Episode 61 of the B2B Marketing Snacks podcast, we talk through all the factors to look for in a company that show it is primed for exponential marketing growth. This is relevant for: • Investors doing due diligence on software...

As a SaaS founder, hiring the right marketing leader for your startup is one of your most important yet tricky tasks. The wrong choice means lost time, revenue and resources when you need speed, scale and skill. How much experience is enough? Will they fit your culture? Are they going to get the growth results your investors demand, quickly enough?  In this episode of B2B Marketing Snacks, our experts cover all the factors to consider before you go about hiring a B2B SaaS CMO, including: •...

As a SaaS founder, the pressure to move too fast can be relentless. It can be tempting to cut corners and try and gamble on your scale through quick wins and growth hacks.  More often than not, these initiatives become distractions that end up wasting time, money, and resources only to deliver subpar results.  In this episode of B2B Marketing Snacks, we detail the right foundation for a B2B software company – for both the quick wins and the long term scaling goals. Growth is much more likely...

You have all the experience, connections and drive needed to crush your next top marketing role. Now, what is the best path to getting hired today as a chief marketing officer? Like the famous fable of "the cobbler’s shoes" (in which the cobbler’s kids had no shoes because he was too busy working for others), too many potential CMOs spend too little time on their go to market strategy. They hope social media posts and thought leadership alone will attract clients over time.  To get ahead, any...

Congratulations, you’re the new CMO for a B2B SaaS company! What do you do first? Learn the ins and outs of “making moves” as a new marketing leader: how fast to move and how to tackle all the big and urgent issues you'll face early on. It’s vital to avoid pitfalls and maximize your impact in the short term while building for the medium and long term too. Getting hired as marketing leader at a software company – whether fractional or full-time – means you are probably inheriting a strategy...

The best B2B SaaS marketing teams are built, not bought.  For any software marketing leader, CEO or founder, a crucial part of your job is to teach the new, young, relatively inexperienced people on your team. Small software companies don’t have the big HR budgets that large companies have to hire A-level players. They have to rely on their ability to bring in less experienced, highly motivated people and teach them well according to proven playbooks.  Offering support and training develops...

If you’ve tried outsourcing marketing for your B2B SaaS company, you know managing several agencies at one time can be more than a headache. It can mean significant coordination, time, and effort spent even just to get started. Every agency has its own onboarding process, internal project management approach, reporting cycle and more.  As a result, founders can suffer what’s known as “agency fatigue.” Symptoms include extreme frustration and feelings of being overwhelmed from the time and...

How do you stand up a marketing team fast? Where do you find the best marketing talent? How far and how fast should you expect these experts to go?  Today’s software founders have an array of choices for rapid growth: internal hires, fractional hires, agencies and/or tactical specialists – but you can’t (and shouldn't) have it all. Typical startups have one of three needs when it comes to getting customers: Emergency triage: There is bleeding that must be stopped before we can worry about the...

In B2B SaaS, the expectations for a $10,000/mo marketing team are totally different from a $100,000/mo one.  As a Founder, CEO, COO or CMO, you need a way to know: • How do I forecast the amount of lead gen and revenue results to expect? • How large a marketing team do I really need? B2B SaaS companies move through predictable stages of marketing focus, cost and size (as described in the popular T2D3 book). With people cost being a majority of the cost involved, every hire needs to be well...

Many sales forecasts are inaccurate. Let's make yours more predictable: 1. Ground your projections in actual data instead of feelings.  Many forecasts are based on opinion rather than actual data. If you’ve been in business for 3 or more months, you likely have access to data you can use. Let’s say you had 20 demos and 2 closed-won deals in the past three months—with this information, you can start to build a picture of your conversion rates. Roughly 10% of your demos convert to closed-won...

A simple 4-step approach to get your goals back on track: Define the problem. Write it down—be specific. Make sure everyone agrees on the problem. This step is incomplete until everyone interprets the problem in the same way.Uncover the ~real~ root cause. People often jump too quickly to conclusions and favor obvious explanations for symptoms. Most problems are nuanced with many contributing factors. Try to unpack all of the potential causes.Document all possible solutions. Once you’ve...

Jason Fried (37Signals) recently published an open challenge to the software subscription model—their stance is that customers should once again be able to buy and own software products. To pay for them once and own the source code. We discuss both models' pros and cons and speculate why Jason and the 37Signals teams introduced this strategy and manifesto. Here are some of our key takeaways: In the last few years, many software companies were able to get away with neglecting the second “s”...

Google has always guarded its search ranking factors. But thanks to the recent antitrust suit between the DOJ and Google, we now get a glimpse into the inner workings of their ranking systems through previously confidential internal documents.  Here’s what we’ve confirmed about the process so far:Whenever new content is published and indexed on the internet, Google’s goal is to (as fast as possible) understand how relevant it is for searchers using its engine. Google uses three main factors...

Our best practices for presenting your marketing plan to the board of directors as companies are in the thick of 2024 planning. General guidelines: First, there are general guidelines you should always keep in mind when presenting your plan to the board: Come prepared - Don’t present plans that aren’t pressure tested. If you ask for money, be ready to answer questions about the specifics—results, how you’ll get there, data behind your hypotheses.  Lead with the red - You’re not...