Hando Sinisalu, the founder of Marketing Parrot, with extensive experience as an event organizer, and over the years, he has noticed that some companies tend to use their speaking opportunities during sponsored events to deliver sales pitches, which often end up frustrating the audience. This missed opportunity could have been used to build trust and establish relationships with potential customers. In this conversation, we discuss why this happens and explore strategies for maximizing the...

The USA stands as the world’s largest and most lucrative market. However, it is also a market characterized by intense competition and some of the highest marketing costs. In this conversation with Kristine Lamberga, CMO of SAF Tehnika, we delve into her insights about the US market. SAF Tehnika specializes in the development and manufacturing of a range of high-end equipment, with its wireless data transmission technologies being its flagship offerings. Over the years, the company has...

In this episode of #FriTalks, our guest is the founder of Mailigen and former VP of Product at Pipedrive - Janis Rozenblats.He is joining us to share his valuable experience of building an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and the practical aspects of using it to optimise marketing execution and ROI. In our conversation, we discuss the following topics:- How should we understand the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and what value it can provide to SaaS companies- How to build an ICP and what data...

Marketing often feels like an endless uphill struggle. Moreover, marketing managers often complain of poor internal alignment, conflicting and ever-changing priorities and pressure for short-term results. In this episode, Andrejs and Rolands explore the marketing planning framework that they tested and improved in well over 200 campaigns. Their framework stands on four solid pillars: alignment on revenue goals, comprehensive audience research, strategic Go-To-Market (GTM) planning, and...

The decision-making process of B2B buyers has undergone significant changes.Over the past few years, there has been a notable shift in the behavior of B2B technology buyers, marked by reduced trust in new vendors and their sales representatives. Present-day buyers exhibit a preference for conducting independent research, forming their own conclusions and using self-service options.- In this episode, we explore the following topics:- The shifts in buyers' behavior since the onset of Covid-19-...

Increasing pricing is the single best and most straightforward way to increase business profitability.Pricing is so important, that companies would be well advised to spend a lot of time and effort to set optimal pricing.Yet, according to research, SaaS companies only spend 6 hours on pricing. No monthly, not annually, ever.In this episode of FriTalks, we are joined by pricing strategist and founder of Soft Fight Emanuel Martonca.We discuss: Why pricing is so important for SaaS? How an...

In this first FriTalks of 2024, Andrejs and Rolands look at key trends in B2B marketing and discuss what challenges and opportunities they bring for lead generation in 2024.

Did you know that marketing and sales alignment is the most significant roadblock to business growth? According to Gartner, companies with strong marketing and sales alignment are 3 times more likely to meet their new customer acquisition targets. In this #FriTalks episode, we discuss: How does marketing and sales misalignment hinder business growth? What are the key issues companies face? And what are the first necessary steps to reduce conflict and build trusted...

In the rapidly evolving digital economy and with the changing customer behaviour, marketing's role in B2B organisations is being redefined. Marketing teams are now expected to facilitate and enable growth more than ever before. We invited Jens Tinapp, VP of Marketing and Communication at Diehl Metering, to talk about the path of building a future-proof marketing team.We discussed:- How has the role of marketing evolved- How have the CEO’s expectations changed- What are the must-have...

In today's era of customer-driven buyer processes, the role of salespeople is evolving. What exactly are customers expecting from salespeople today and how can salespeople stay relevant to their customers while achieving long-term success?Listen to an insightful conversation with Bostjan Strazer, a business trainer and ice pilot at Hansen Beck, where we address these questions and more.We discussed the following topics:- How have buyer’s behaviour and priorities changed- What do they expect...

This time, our guest is Frank Sondors, a B2B sales veteran with over a decade of experience at Google, Black Crow, SimilarWeb, and Whatagraph.He recently launched his own company, Salesforge, to address a challenge he deeply cared about: templated communication.Just within three months company grew from ground zero to fifty paying customers by leveraging low-cost lead generation strategies and channels.Listen to our conversation with Frank to uncover his remarkable quick-win approach and...

Zabbix is a widely known software system used for IT monitoring by thousands of companies around the world. Despite being open-source and free to use, the company has established a thriving business and a global community of dedicated IT professionals, all with minimal marketing investment. To uncover the secret of their success, we invited Zane Lasmane, Head of Marketing at Zabbix, to share her secret source.

Data centre business is often viewed as a commodity market with a few global players dominating, leaving very little room for profitability, especially if you are a small player.Similar is seen in other sectors of IT business.So, how can small players still differentiate their value proposition and grow profitable business? We discuss it with our guest, Marija Bergere, Head of Marketing at DEAC, the company which seems managed to find its recipe for success.During our discussion, we cover the...

We are back with B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks and kick off the new season with a conversation about how to make webinars successful.Webinars are one of the most often used marketing tools and for a good reason.Buyer's surveys mention webinars as the most valuable marketing content and research shows that webinar registrations increased by over 80% in 2022. Moreover, webinar participants are closer to purchase decisions than those who register for text content, such as whitepaper.In this...

In this episode, we discuss marketing and sales to highly technical buyers, such as engineers.Research shows that highly technical buyers have very specific buying behaviour. They are willing to put extra effort into product research, and, compared to business buyers, they are rather averse to anything they perceive as being marketing or marketing prepared information.Nevertheless, there is a clear path to market to this audience that we share in this episode.

In this episode of Sales and Marketing #FriTalks we talk through insights from ‘Brand to Buyer’ the LinkedIn B2B Technology Buyer and Marketer Survey 2022/23 with more than 4,000 professionals in technology surveyed from North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific.In particular, we discuss the top investment priorities and challenges of tech buyers, the latest trends shared by global tech marketers, and how we can apply these insights in our local go-to-market...

In this episode, continue talking about expansion to international markets.Our guest is Aldis Erglis, VP of Technology Strategy at Emergn, a global software development company that operates in various markets, including financial services, healthcare, retail, government, and technology. Their clients include large multinational corporations as well as smaller organizations. Emergn has offices and teams located in North America, Europe, and Asia, and they have a global network of partners and...

Most growth in the technology business is coming from as-a-Service business model. In this episode, we discuss how to move from the traditional one-off sales model to recurring revenue or as-a-Service business. While highly attractive in the long term, this is by no means a simple journey requiring good planning, a strong ability to invest and a true obsession with pleasing your ideal customers. In this episode, we talk about the following: - Key metrics of SaaS business, such as LTV, CAC,...

In this episode, we discuss the costs of expansion to international markets and other key metrics that tech company founders need to consider before planning growth in global B2B markets.

In this B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks our guest Olha Olifirenko, Product Marketing Lead at Newage.io, share the key learnings from her first-year journey of scaling a SaaS product to the global market. She also provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that come with scaling a SaaS product and how to overcome them. This episode is an opportunity for anyone who is interested in taking their SaaS product global.

In this episode of our B2B Sales and Marketing FriTalks, we delved into the world of AI and its impact on B2B marketing. We examined how AI is revolutionizing the way businesses approach marketing strategies and how it's helping them reach  their target audience more efficiently. From chatbots to personalized content, we explored the latest AI technologies and their applications in B2B marketing. Join our conversation with Andriy Burlitky, Head of Business Development at Profisea, a seasoned...

It has always been a bit of a mystery for B2B companies to understand what actually drives their revenue. More specifically, how exactly does marketing contribute to the sales pipeline growth and which strategies, programs, channels and tactics to prioritize and which to drop. Our guest, Steffen Hedebrandt, Co-founder of Dreamdata.io, joined us for a B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalk, to share his insights from the recent B2B go-to-market benchmark study. And helped us understand “how can B2B...

Despite being a relatively small player on the global landscape, CloudServices became one of the leading Microsoft partners in the region, with hundreds of clients across Europe and Central Asia. Our guest Iryna Moiseyeva, CEO of CloudServices, a company out of Ukraine that specializes in Microsoft Data and Analytics technologies talked about her experiences, challenges and success factors. We will also answered the following key questions: 1. What are the main challenges while scaling to...

We will be discussing our experiences, mistakes and learnings from over 200 campaigns and how our approach has changed, with the environment becoming more complex and demanding. We will be highlighting the top 5 mistakes made and how they have impacted us and our business, how to avoid them and how to use them to your advantage.