Create and Capture More Demand

Find the right target market and value proposition.

This is the first step in unlocking revenue performance.

Sometimes called product-market fit, this is the ability to solve a business problem for a target market.  You don’t need a large ‘TAM’, or total addressable market.  Think bottom up.  If you want to add 20 new customers a year, how many companies do you need?  It’s not that much, do the math exercise below.  You should go as narrow as you can to start, because this makes your marketing and sales efforts that much more efficient.

What target do you pick?  Break down the demographics such as industry, size, revenue, and geography.  Add in technographics like maybe they run on a competitor today.  They are not a target if you can’t research them, or reach them.

Don’t forget the buyers.  You’ll need to identify the job titles or roles of people who buy your product.  These may be users, influencers, decision makers, or economic buyers.  Not every CEO cares about what you are offering even though they may be the decision maker.

You can research in a number of ways.  Industry association members, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, data services like ZoomInfo, or DemandBase, or aggregation apps like Clay.

The math to hit 20 deals

The table below shows how many companies need to be in a target market to hit 20 customers.  It’s using Forrester’s B2B Revenue Waterfall definitions and industry average conversion rates.  You could underperform or outperform these metrics. It assumes an account centric approach which is recommended when selling B2B.  Don’t forget, with a market of 20,000 companies, you’ll be able to get 20 customers every year as companies come in and out of buying cycles for your product.  The trick is to keep them engaged so when they do come back they remember you are an option for them.

Building a Value Proposition

It helps to have some experience in the target market you are selling in, but your value proposition should be written in a way that sales can easily recite, and marketing can copy/paste for their guides, videos, websites, social posts, etc.  It should contain the following:

• Market Problems. What are the problems your buyers are facing? (Problems)
• What happens when these problems are solved (Benefits)
• How do you solve these problems better than your competitors (Features)
• Why your company is best suited to solve these problems (Credentials)
• Examples where you’ve helped companies before (Proof)

Creating the marketing assets

You’ll need to evidence to buyers that you are a real option, and they won’t lose their job selecting your company.  It helps to have some professional looking presence.  A basic package would include:

• Website, complete with homepage, call to action, contact information, about us, product section, and some social proof like a logo parade of customers, testimonials, or a case study section.  Make sure the buyer recognizes the problem you solve.  If your website is going to be used to attract multiple targets, have an industry type section so they buyer knows you do work in their segment.
• Product/Overview Video.  Short video between 1-3 minutes.  These are easy to produce and can mix media like product stills, demo video, stock video, video with audio, animation, and other.  There are ways to get the vision across even if you are camera shy, or if your product’s UI isn’t the sleekest.
• Buyer Guide or Sales Slick.  Something someone can download.  It doesn’t need to be gated content on the website, just something that people can read in a document format.  Guides offering an industry perspective are a great tool to start with.  Over time, you’ll develop dozens of these assets, but start with one.

Get your Tools & Processes sorted

• Where are you storing your account and contact information (CRM)
• What are you using to reach out to prospects 1:1 (Outbound Sequencing)
• What are you using to communicate to prospects en masse (Email Marketing)
• How are you connecting the website forms to your CRM, and tracking visitors
• How do you flow an interested buyer to one of your sellers?
• What is the criteria for accepting a ‘lead’?
• How is marketing able to identify where a buyer is in their process (engaged vs pipeline)?
• What metrics are you going to track to identify if you are on the right pace?
• There are many more processes and tools to consider, but this is a good starting point.

Run the Programs

Lets assume you can get one third of your deals through customer or partner referrals, how are you going to get the other 13 each year?  That’s 30 opportunities you need to find, or roughly three new opportunities per month.

Well that’s one half of the battle, the other half is planting seeds so that this work is easier for next year as well.  This becomes the flywheel that makes marketing so powerful.

Break down a big problem into chunks.  To hit 20 deals a year, you’ll need about six new opportunities per month.  Split the six across three channels and build programs for each.  The goals are more attainable this way.

Below is a diagram that identifies a number of sales outreach and marketing programs organized by quadrant.  Start with the ‘cheap & cheerful’ methods first before reaching into the high cost programs.

Conclusion

The first step to improving revenue performance is building the activity to create and capture demand for your service. The best way to start is by identifying a target market that is no bigger than what you need to hit your growth goals.  The smaller you define it, the more focused your messaging and outreach can be.

About TekStack

TekStack empowers B2B technology companies.  We provide the tools and marketing services you need but may not have in house.  All for less than the annual cost of one new hire.  We get the technology space and have helped dozens of companies achieve their growth goals.