The end (of Q1) is nigh

03/21/23 • 7 min

SaaS Marketing Bites from Powered By Search

Only a handful of SaaS marketing leaders I spoke to in Q1 expected that they'd even be close to their pipeline goals

And almost certainly, CMOs, VPs, Directors, Heads of, will be asked by the higher-ups what happened

The answers will be simple:

Whether it's the relentless cutting of teams and budgets, deals taking longer to move through pipeline or a decrease in demand across the market

It has been... unpleasant

I've been reflecting on my own performance this quarter and I'm OK with admitting I'm behind what I'd normally expect in Q1

But I'm also not beating myself up and here's why:

1. The client-product fit is extremely strong

We've been talking about how bad this period will be since Q2 last year! So as a team, we decided to focus on revisiting the quality of our pipeline

By refining our targeting and our messaging, we were able to attract more perfect-fit prospects than ever before

And because the messaging was pain point focused messaging for right now, those prospects are converting into customers at an extremely satisfying rate

2. The infrastructure we built in Q1 is future-focused

It's likely going to be a bad Q2 compared to historical performance too. Maybe even worse than we expected because of aftershocks from the emerging banking crisis

That said, we fully expected it to be uncomfortable in Q2 too and made the choice to focus on building out foundations for new channels that would pay dividends in Q3 and Q4 when everything (we hope) picks up again

What does that look like?

– Building a total addressable market audience – I personally reviewed thousands of companies for fit

– Built systems for getting in front of those companies today

– Built systems internally for managing the different kinds of companies who we are already seeing fill our pipeline (it's a trickle, but it's an early sign)

3. We got problem focused and scrappy again

We've been in years of plenty and that breeds an attitude of entitlement: "we do x and we get y"

But the past 90-120 days have been all about trimming the fat in what we do

We removed heaps of stuff that wasn't serving us in reaching our best customers, redistributed investment to channels that we're building, tried stuff that made everyone feel uncomfortable (see basically any post I've done since Jan 1 on LinkedIn 😂)

It's been great to approach a bad year with positivity and proactivity

Let's do it!

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SaaS Marketing Bites is produced by B2B SaaS marketing agency Powered by Search. It's hosted by Head of Growth Marc Thomas. You can follow @iammarcthomas or Powered By Search CEO Dev Basu @devbasu on Twitter for more updates and marketing insights.

If you enjoyed this episode, you can do the following things right away:

1 Claim your Free SaaS Scale Session. If you’d like to work with us to turn your website into your best demo and trial acquisition platform, claim your FREE SaaS Scale Session. One of our growth experts will understand your current demand generation situation, and then suggest practical digital marketing strategies to double your demo and trial traffic and conversion fast.

2 If you’d like to learn the exact demand strategies we use for free, go to our blog or visit our resources section, where you can download guides, calculators, and templates we use for our most successful clients.

3 If you’d like to work with other experts on our team or learn why we have off the charts team member satisfaction score, then see our Careers page.

4 If you know another marketer who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via email, Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.

Only a handful of SaaS marketing leaders I spoke to in Q1 expected that they'd even be close to their pipeline goals

And almost certainly, CMOs, VPs, Directors, Heads of, will be asked by the higher-ups what happened

The answers will be simple:

Whether it's the relentless cutting of teams and budgets, deals taking longer to move through pipeline or a decrease in demand across the market

It has been... unpleasant

I've been reflecting on my own performance this quarter and I'm OK with admitting I'm behind what I'd normally expect in Q1

But I'm also not beating myself up and here's why:

1. The client-product fit is extremely strong

We've been talking about how bad this period will be since Q2 last year! So as a team, we decided to focus on revisiting the quality of our pipeline

By refining our targeting and our messaging, we were able to attract more perfect-fit prospects than ever before

And because the messaging was pain point focused messaging for right now, those prospects are converting into customers at an extremely satisfying rate

2. The infrastructure we built in Q1 is future-focused

It's likely going to be a bad Q2 compared to historical performance too. Maybe even worse than we expected because of aftershocks from the emerging banking crisis

What does that look like?

– Building a total addressable market audience – I personally reviewed thousands of companies for fit

– Built systems for getting in front of those companies today

– Built systems internally for managing the different kinds of companies who we are already seeing fill our pipeline (it's a trickle, but it's an early sign)

3. We got problem focused and scrappy again

We've been in years of plenty and that breeds an attitude of entitlement: "we do x and we get y"

But the past 90-120 days have been all about trimming the fat in what we do

It's been great to approach a bad year with positivity and proactivity

Let's do it!

===

If you enjoyed this episode, you can do the following things right away:

3 If you’d like to work with other experts on our team or learn why we have off the charts team member satisfaction score, then see our Careers page.

4 If you know another marketer who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via email, Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.

Previous Episode

[Replay] How to Diagnose a Sudden Drop in Leads in B2B SaaS

July 2021 was one of the worst months in recent memory for B2B SaaS marketers. Almost everyone in my network was sharing horror stories about sudden drops in leads.

In this episode, I’ll walk through the same 5 common reasons for seeing sudden drops in conversions, and expand on each of them in more detail.

Accompanying blogpost: How to Diagnose a Sudden Drop in Leads in B2B SaaS

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If you enjoyed this episode, you can do the following things right away:

Claim your Free SaaS Scale Session. If you’d like to work with us to turn your website into your best demo and trial acquisition platform, claim your FREE SaaS Scale Session. One of our growth experts will understand your current demand generation situation, and then suggest practical digital marketing strategies to double your demo and trial traffic and conversion fast.
If you’d like to learn the exact demand strategies we use for free, go to our blog or visit our resources section, where you can download guides, calculators, and templates we use for our most successful clients.
If you’d like to work with other experts on our team or learn why we have off the charts team member satisfaction score, then see our Careers page.
If you know another marketer who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via email, Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.

Next Episode

How to avoid hiring a bad SaaS marketing agency

Accompanying blogpost: 12 Best SaaS Marketing Agencies (And an Evaluation Criteria)

Choosing a B2B SaaS marketing agency is tricky because, on the surface, they all seem similar.

So when you Google “best SaaS marketing agencies” and see a list of 20 or 30 different options, how do you distinguish a world-class agency from a mediocre one?

Unfortunately, most clients don’t figure out the answer to this question until after hiring an agency and wasting thousands of dollars – not to mention all the missed sales opportunities a more effective agency could have helped you win.

To help you avoid hiring the wrong agency, here’s what we’ll cover:

How most clients evaluate agencies (and why the method is flawed)
An alternative agency evaluation method that can help you better gauge an agency’s ability to produce an ROI
A concise list of SaaS marketing agencies and a detailed overview of how they measure up to the evaluation criteria.

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If you enjoyed this episode, you can do the following things right away:

3 If you’d like to work with other experts on our team or learn why we have off the charts team member satisfaction score, then see our Careers page.

4 If you know another marketer who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via email, Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.