As a content leader, your mission is to pioneer content that propels your company's objectives by showcasing your product. However, you may find yourself in a situation where despite trying various content types, the traffic to your sales and demo pages remains unsatisfactory. If you're considering a product-led content approach but unsure how to execute it, this guide is for you. Product-led content is a powerful tool to engage with existing customers and attract new ones, and it's all about presenting your product as the natural, optimal solution to a problem. A perfect example of this approach is Warmly, an AI sales software that helps convert more website traffic into qualified opportunities.

Understanding Product-Led Content

Businesses don't generate content just for the sake of it. The ultimate goal of content is to facilitate product sales. This is where product-led content comes into play. It's content that discusses problem-solving using your product, and it's a potent tool for customer retention and acquisition. Warmly, for instance, identifies the most valuable visitors that you want to sell to and scores accounts based on buying intent signals. This allows you to focus your efforts on the most promising opportunities.

When to Use Product-Led Content

Product-led content should be the cornerstone of your content strategy from the get-go. Why would you create content that doesn't promote your product in the initial stages? Random content won't generate revenue. Your objective is to subtly guide customers towards the product aware stage. Content focusing on other aspects, such as thought leadership, is crucial, but it can be introduced later.

Crafting a Product-Led Content Strategy

The primary channels for product-led content are SEO and your Sales Team.

SEO

Conduct keyword research using tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Letterdrop. Look for "how to do X" queries where your product can assist in accomplishing X. Prioritize topics based on their search volume. You can also delve deeper, exploring related topics that don't have a "how to" modifier yet. This allows you to fill content market gaps with product-led content.

Sales Enablement

Identify the questions your Sales Team frequently receives from customers and document answers to those questions, highlighting how your product assists. Here, you should prioritize creating content on features that customers inquire about or refer to the most. This way, your Sales Team can leverage your content instead of repeating themselves. You might want to obtain transcripts and marketing insights from sales calls, which can be done with Warmly or a tool like Fathom.

Examples of Product-Led Content

Warmly: Warmly helps identify anonymous traffic and ties them to real opportunities and target accounts in your CRM. It scores accounts based on intent signals and uses this data to focus effort on opportunities in your CRM and inform outbound and advertising. It also allows for more timely and relevant outreach by greeting ideal buyers with AI chatbots when they land on the site or auto-prospecting hot accounts and sending an email using AI.

Ahrefs: In a blog post, Ahrefs suggested some Top-Of-The-Funnel marketing tactics for readers to try, including writing blog posts. The writer subtly promoted Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer as a way to find high-volume topics to write on.

Metadata: In a comprehensive blog post, Metadata provides a detailed guide on what to look for in a demand generation tool. The post emphasizes the importance of automating repetitive tasks, precise audience targeting, customizable campaigns, efficient lead enrichment, and robust campaign optimization tools. It also warns against tools with confusing pricing models, those that don't prioritize lead quality, and those that focus on too many irrelevant metrics or specialize in only one marketing funnel. 

The Power of the Soft Sell

Product-led content provides a refreshing alternative to aggressive marketing tactics and sales pages. It enables you to naturally incorporate your product into content that already discusses solutions. With this approach, you can demonstrate to readers how your product is the best solution on the market without being overly forceful.

If you have any questions about how Warmly can help you convert more website traffic into qualified opportunities, feel free to reach out to us.

In the world of marketing, keeping up with the latest trends, tactics, and technology is crucial. One of the best ways to stay at the forefront of the industry is by attending high-profile marketing conferences. These events provide valuable insights, networking opportunities, and the chance to explore new tools and strategies. With so many events happening each year, selecting the right ones to attend can be a challenge. To help, we've curated a list of the must-attend marketing conferences in 2023.

MozCon 2023: Aug. 7-8, 2023

MozCon, hosted by Moz, is a three-day event of forward-thinking, actionable sessions in SEO, brand development, CRO, the mobile landscape, analytics, and more. MozCon's speakers are selected for their expertise and willingness to share the tactics, strategies, and forecasts that you can't get anywhere else.

Content Marketing World 2023: Sept. 27-28, 2023

Content Marketing World is the largest content marketing event on the planet. The conference offers over 100 sessions presented by the leading brand marketers from around the world covering strategy, storytelling, ROI, demand generation, AI, and more.

CMO Summit 2023: Oct. 3-5, 2023

The CMO Summit is an invitation-only conference for top marketing executives. The event focuses on critical marketing challenges and trends, featuring in-depth roundtable discussions, case study presentations, and plenty of networking opportunities.

ANA Masters of Marketing 2023: Oct. 24-27, 2023

The Association of National Advertisers' annual Masters of Marketing Conference brings together the top CMOs in the industry. It's an excellent opportunity for marketers to learn about the latest in marketing strategy from leading companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Look for More Events

Each of these conferences offers unique benefits, from gaining new insights into the latest marketing trends to networking with industry peers and thought leaders. While these five events represent some of the most anticipated marketing conferences of 2023, there are numerous others out there that may cater to your specific niche or area of interest. Make sure to consider your objectives and areas of focus when choosing which events to attend.

Our CEO, Max Greenwald, once tried to capture audience attention at a sales conference by wearing a $100 yard sign of Warmly. Sales are notoriously hard to break into, so it’s vital that you stand out. Here are some of the most effective ways we ensure that you stay on top of sales-focused conferences.

Salesforce Dreamforce '23

The annual Dreamforce conference by Salesforce, the world's leading CRM platform, is a must-attend event for all sales leaders. The conference features keynote speeches from renowned sales and business experts, hands-on training sessions, and opportunities to network with other sales leaders from around the world. With its wide range of panels and workshops, Dreamforce offers something for everyone, regardless of the size of your sales team or the industry in which you operate.

The Sales Development Conference 2023

The Sales Development Conference is solely focused on sales development, the vital front-end of the sales process. This conference is perfect for sales leaders looking to refine their prospecting strategies and learn about the latest tools and trends in sales development. The event combines thought leadership with practical, actionable sessions.

SaaStr Annual 2023

As the largest non-vendor conference for SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, SaaStr Annual is an event that any sales leader in the SaaS space should consider. SaaStr provides a perfect environment to learn from the biggest names in SaaS, explore new market trends, and network with potential customers and partners. The event is renowned for its thought-provoking discussions, workshops, and Q&A sessions with industry leaders.

AA-ISP Digital Sales World 2023

The AA-ISP (American Association of Inside Sales Professionals) Digital Sales World is a conference dedicated to the issues and challenges faced by virtual sales forces. The conference provides actionable insights and strategies to help sales leaders navigate the increasingly digital sales landscape. With a focus on remote selling, digital tools, and virtual sales team management, this conference is especially relevant given the continued growth of remote work.

INBOUND 2023 by HubSpot

While INBOUND by HubSpot is not solely a sales conference, it offers valuable content for sales leaders given its comprehensive approach to marketing, sales, and customer service. It's an annual event that brings together thousands of marketing and sales professionals from around the globe. The conference provides a unique blend of inspiration and education, including powerful keynote addresses, innovative talks, educational breakouts, hands-on lessons, and tons of networking opportunities. It's a fantastic event for sales leaders seeking to integrate their sales strategies with broader business goals and customer engagement strategies.

Refine Your Sales Strategies

Attending any of these top sales conferences in 2023 can give you a significant advantage in leading your sales team to new heights. They provide a unique opportunity to gain insights from the brightest minds in sales, learn about the latest industry trends, and network with other sales professionals. Each conference offers a unique perspective, so consider your team's needs and challenges as you decide which events to attend. Remember, the knowledge and connections you'll gain from these conferences can be invaluable in refining your sales strategies and driving your team's success.

Why use AI Chat

🎆 Catching buyer interest when they're hot on your site is like trying to capture the perfect picture of a firework right when it explodes.

⚡️ Or it's like catching lightning in a bottle.

The timing needs to be perfect. You miss it; it's gone.

That's why we created AI Chat.

We've found that proactively engaging with target prospects live on the website can cut sales cycles by 30%+ and increase pipeline 2x.

Especially when prospects are visiting high-intent pages like pricing and case studies, you know they're thinking about you. If you catch them when their interest is piqued, you could skip the form fill → meeting booking → actually have the meeting in a week.

By then the prospect might've gone with your competitor.

Instead, compress the sales cycle by having the meeting right on the site.

"You're free, I'm free, let's have a conversation right now"

Didn't even need their number to cold call.

The main problem is your sales team only has so many working hours. There are potentially thousands of qualified prospects visiting your site every day. It's not always feasible for a human to interact with every visitor.

A machine doesn't have the same limitation.

Arm AI to the teeth with context, and it can deliver the first 1-2 human messages faster than any rep, with the same degree of relevance and authenticity. It never sleeps. It doesn't get discouraged (yet). It scales infinitely.

The moment the AI gets a qualified chat response, it can loop in the right seller.

Let AI line up conversations for you.

Step-by-step instructions to set up AI chat

Step 1: Make sure you're on the right plan

AI chat is only available for customers on our paid plan. If you have any questions, please contact our sales team at [email protected].

Step 2: Enable AI Chat under your Settings tab

Step 3: Select the person you want the AI to send messages on behalf of

Step 4: Configure your AI Chat prompts

There are two proactive chat messages your AI can send. Right now you can't configure the delay of when the messages send (we're working on this toggle right now).

Turn on AI Generated for the two chat prompts then click Edit to edit the prompts.

You will see a prompt playground pop up where you can test out prompts for AI generated messages that will automatically sent on a rep's behalf. See the results on the right-hand side

Step 5: Configure your AI chat fallbacks

If the AI is unable to generate a chat message, write the text to that the AI will fall back to

Step 6: Set up the segments and conditions for which the AI Chat is triggered

Under Triggering select + Add trigger and select from the dropdown which action should trigger the AI chat.

For example you can select Lands on page for the AI to message when the visitor lands on a specific page. Then set the conditions for which the AI should proactively chat.

You can also specify the pre-defined segments for which you want the AI to proactively chat. For example, you could create segments based on ICP companies or target accounts that are open opportunities

Step 7: Set up Slack notifications when a visitor responds to your AI

You want to be notified when a visitor actually responds to your AI so you can respond in real-time.

Head over to your Slack Integrations and add a new notification

Scroll down to the Slack notification segment called Respond to Chat and select the Slack channel you want to be notified when a visitor responds to your AI chat. We recommend creating a new channel in Slack dedicated to visitor responses to your AI.

You'll start to see notifications flood in of people responding to your AI chat like in the example below where Brian Luppert from Flip CX was on our case studies page and responded to a message our AI sent on behalf of Katherine, our AE.

AI Chat Prompt Best Practices

Keep the messages human

We recommend you keep the AI-generated messages short, casual, and less than 15 words to emulate real human messages.

Imagine texting a friend (in a professional context). Preserve that style.

Include examples of messages you would send to embed your voice.

Example prompt for the first message:

Say hey, their name (if you have it), and make a comment about the page the person is currently on. Don't say "Need any

‍

Keep it to 11 words or less. Keep the tone casual. Lowercase the first letter in the sentence. Don't include any notes,

‍

Examples of text to use:

1. hey Steve! Saw you're on our pricing page. LMK if you have questions?
2. hey Steve! Saw you're on our case studies page. Anything interesting?
3. hey Steve! Saw you're checking out our blog page. What do you think?

Always test in the sandbox environment to see what kinds of responses you'll get.

Consider the three levels of visitor reveal when creating the prompt

1. You know the person (~6-10% of site traffic)
2. You know the company (~60% of site traffic)
3. Unknown

Attributes you can personalize if you know the...

Unknown:

1. Most recently visited page URL

Company:

1. Company Name
2. Company Domain
3. Company Location
4. Company Description
5. Company Founded Year
6. Company Employees
7. Company Category
8. Company Industry
9. Company Sub Industry
10. Company Timezone
11. Company Employee Count
12. Company Tech Stack

Person:

Everything in Company plus:

1. Name
2. Email
3. Role/Title
4. Company Name
5. Company Description
6. Location
7. Bio
8. Seniority

These attributes are typically sourced from LinkedIn

Consider the attributes of the person the AI is reaching out on behalf of when creating the prompt

We also feed in context about the person the AI is reaching out on behalf of when sending the message that you can use when writing the prompt.

1. Name
2. Email
3. Calendar Link
4. Role/Title
5. Company Name (your company)
6. Company Description
7. Location
8. Job Description

These are a combination of attributes sourced from LinkedIn as well as inputted by the person in Settings

Additional FYIs

• You have 15,000 AI-generated messages a month. Once you run out the static fallback messages will start to kick in. You can monitor this in settings

• We don't yet pull in CRM fields. We're working on this

Let us know if you have any more questions!

This article is Part IV of the 4-part series on the shifting landscape of B2B buying and selling, how revenue teams have adapted, and where we think the market is headed.

Here, you can read Part III, which goes over what AI-powered revenue orchestration is and why it's important in the age of AI and automation.

As Part I of the B2B SaaS evolution explained, the world's digital transformation also transformed the importance of the website.

Some studies have noted that 70% of the buyer journey is completed by the time the prospect speaks with a salesperson.

Dark social, through the internet's scale and maturity, has created tons of word-of-mouth channels for recommending products that don't get tracked by attribution software and don't create intent data. 

These channels include social networks like LinkedIn, content platforms like podcasts, internal communications like Slack communities, DMs, and text messages. Word of mouth through dark funnel activities increasingly plays a more influential role in buying decisions.

The trickiest part is knowing when to reach out to the right person with the right question since buyers' attention always changes.

Sending out unsolicited emails and making random phone calls is like taking a shot in the dark, hoping to catch the buyers at the perfect moment. But people don't answer their phones these days, and their email inboxes are overflowing.

At some point in every B2B SaaS buyer's journey, they may not see our ad, they may not read our email, they may not see our G2 reviews, but they will go to check out our website. And for ~8 seconds when they hit our site, we know they're just thinking about us.

“The average digital attention span is 8 seconds, according to media analysts and data scientists,” says Aydin Senkut, Warmly Series A investor, Founder and Managing Partner at Felicis. “So the opportunity to catch a prospect while they are actively engaged with your content is fleeting. There is no time to chat to the visitor, upload a lead into a CRM, enrich the data, and add to a follow-up sequence. Warmly provides real-time orchestration of these tasks within that 8-second window.”

From: Press Release: Warmly Series A Announcement

How do you ensure the right follow-up actions happen at this exact moment in time, every time?

We call the solution signal-based revenue orchestration.

The Issue With Most GTM Teams 

How often have you heard one of your sales reps use the phrase, “I just don’t have time for that.”?

This is one of the biggest issues among sales teams.

We’ve got all of these fantastic tools and a ton of great data to dig into, but we don’t really seem to get value out of it all.

Between firmographic data, conversation intelligence, and buying signals, sales reps have so much information to look at that it could take as much as an hour to absorb enough data to respond to a prospect with a sufficient level of context.

And by that time, a competitor has already responded and won the deal.

There is always a tension between speed-to-lead and contextual, personalized responses.

In most cases, speed wins out, especially since reps have lofty sales targets and activity goals. So they make mistakes. They don‘t do research as much as they could (or should). They stop personalizing outreach.

And, of course, conversion rates suffer.

The Last Defensible Marketing Moat Is Brand

In the hyper-saturated environments in which most companies operate today, brand is the last defensible marketing moat.

Competitors can copy and implement new features in weeks, if not days. Messaging can be replicated and improved upon even faster. So can the majority of your sales and marketing tactics and channels.

Brand is what distinguishes you from competitors. It's what creates an emotional connection with prospects before they are ready to buy. It's what allows you to influence buying decisions and to tap into the world of dark social and word-of-mouth referrals.

In our deep dive on warm leads, we spoke about a three-step process for driving qualified, high-intent leads to your site:

1. Build a media brand (investing in content creation and distribution to position your brand as a leader)
2. Create brand partnerships (working with likeminded brands in a similar space to increase reach and borrow brand equity)
3. Engage with prospective buyers (get out there and talk with customers, rather than talking at them with outbound marketing communications)

All of these efforts lead back to one place:

The website.

Website As The Choke Point To All GTM Investments

The opportunity lies in the fact that as the world becomes more digitized, the website serves as the digital store, while the landing page acts as the digital shopfront.

Imagine you are the marketing team for your store. You invest significant money to attract foot traffic, hoping that people will pass by your store (website) and take a closer look at your shopfront (landing page).

If we have done a good job designing our shopfront, some people may enter our store. Some who enter may be our target buyers.

Our target buyers walk through our store daily, showing interest in what we offer. But no one's there to greet them. 

Instead, they are instructed to write down their information on a post-it note and wait for a response in a few hours or days, only to get a call from a rep who asks many questions but answers none of theirs. This is the typical process of filling out forms.

Or they are directed to a kiosk where they can provide their information and receive automated answers. Most chatbots operate in this manner, but this is not how people make purchasing decisions.

It's not surprising that, on average, only 3% of website visitors fill out forms.

Step one of maximizing marketing spend is figuring out which qualified accounts are visiting our website, and from there, the accounts are actually in-market for our product but not raising their hand.

Otherwise, how do we know what marketing efforts are working and where to double down?

~3% of your site traffic converts (and not always the traffic you want)

Quality Data Delivers Qualified Leads

When it comes to B2B buyer intent data, first-party data is always the most reliable source, followed closely by best-in-class third-party intent data from the likes of Bombora.

With these warm buyer intent signals in hand from website visitor behavior, you’re going after the lowest-hanging fruit because these are the companies that are familiar with your brand.

That’s why we’re starting with website intent because only 3% of website visitors fill out a form, so you’re missing out on a huge chunk of what could be qualified prospects,

As the state of signal-based revenue orchestration develops, we’ll be adding additional data sources like job change alerts and job posts.

Introducing Warmly: AI-Supported Signal-Based Revenue Orchestration

Warmly is our signal-based revenue orchestration, born out of the need to respond to warm leads fast and to ensure that as much context and personalization as possible are present at every touchpoint.

Warmly is designed specifically for the SMB, with a flexible pricing structure to suit. Most ABM and revenue-focused solutions are out of range for this market segment; they’re targeting enterprise buyers.

As such, those platforms generally take a human-first approach since enterprise companies with enterprise budgets for enterprise tools also have the budget for a huge GTM team.

SMB buyers don’t have that luxury.

So, we built Warmly with an AI-first approach. This way, you get the best out of what modern machines can offer (speed, scale, and data-driven contextual communication) and only loop your reps in when the human touch is needed to close the deal. This allows humans to focus on what they do best which is building relationships and being strategic.

These tools are also largely forcing customers into a specific ecosystem. ‎Salesloft acquired Drift and is focused on building an all-in-one GTM solution. Same thing is happening with ZoomInfo, and with the HubSpot acquisition of Clearbit.

But SMB buyers need flexibility. 

So, our approach to revenue orchestration is about being the middleware that orchestrates the best-in-class tools that you choose so you can have flexibility. 

How Signal-Based Revenue Orchestration Works

You Run Demand Gen As Normal 

All of this begins with the various demand generation strategies you’re running.

Remember, only around 5% of your total addressable market is actually ready to buy. By the time they get to one of your lead generation devices, they’ve already done the majority of their research.

If you’re not present during that whole customer journey, educating the prospect and guiding their buying decisions at every turn, you’re unlikely to be in the final consideration set.

So, keep on doing what you’re doing. Build that content machine, publish and distribute, and drive traffic back to your website so prospects can learn about how you solve their common problems.

Warmly Deanonymizes Visitors To Your Website 

Once a potential buyer lands on your website, Warmly kicks into action.

This begins with website visitor deanonymization.

We can uncover 65% of the companies who visit your site and 15% of the actual people without you having to do anything.

In some cases, we can provide LinkedIn accounts and even email addresses for these buyers, all of which are then quickly synced back to your CRM and sales engagement tools.

Best-In-Class Data Integrations Help Identify Buying Committees 

We then pull in firmographic data from best-in-class sources such as Clearbit and 6sense, both at the company level and at the contact level.

This helps you to identify who might be on the buying committee and who else at that company might be responsible for the purchase decision.

For example, a marketing associate might have visited your website, but Warmly has identified (based on your ICP information) that the CMO would more likely be the decision-maker here.

This data is also routed to your sales tech stack, helping to build out the account and allowing you to understand more about who you need to talk to in order to influence a purchase.

This comes from a proprietary data waterfall strategy designed to ensure you have the best coverage and accuracy (better than anyone else). We layer together the best data for you so you don’t have to go through the headache.

Warmly Orchestrates Multi-Threaded Omnichannel Outreach 

Here’s where the power of AI really kicks into gear.

We’ve enriched your CRM and sales engagement tools with all of the account data related to the prospect in question. We’ve combined metadata and tech stack data with best-in-class buying intent data to translate buying signals into meaningful and actionable sales actions that can be automated.

We call this multi-threaded outreach.

By multi-threaded, we mean that our AI engine isn’t just communicating with one person.

It’s using powerful sales and marketing automation to push personalized email and LinkedIn messages to multiple stakeholders, all of which appear to be coming from a member of our sales team.

As all good revenue teams know, each stakeholder in the B2B buying team has different buying motivations. The CMO is going to want to see results or proof of concept that are different from what the marketing associate might see.

So, our AI outreach engine crafts contextual messaging based on those roles and the value your product can provide them.

All of this is orchestrated via a single platform connected to your existing sales engagement tech stack. It’s high-value work being done in the background that your reps don’t have to worry about.

Use Case Examples For Signal-Based Revenue Orchestration

Top of Funnel Orchestration

If a qualified ICP account visits the website for the first time without any associated CRM deal, we automatically create the account in the CRM. Then, we enrich new CRM fields to track the account's digital footprint and analyze trends. We automatically source the buying committee via Apollo, PeopleDataLabs, and ZoomInfo integrations.

The contacts are then synced to the CRM, assigned the appropriate account owner, and automatically added to an educational nurture sequence sent via email and LinkedIn (via our Salesflow integration).

As the buying committee members engage with the content, the signal on the account strengthens. Over time, we may see the account transition from the awareness stage to the consideration stage of the buying journey. And instead of just searching for your category in Google, they're searching for your brand.

Middle of Funnel Orchestration

The account's buying committee has started to show interest in your offering, as evidenced by repeat visits to your website from multiple IP addresses. They have shown interest in case studies and pricing pages and have recently engaged with marketing nurture emails. We bilaterally sync web activity associated with each buying committee member into the CRM, including the referral source, time spent on each page, and specific pages visited. This synchronization helps prioritize accounts, tailor experiences, and involve relevant parties.

As committee members are directed to your site via nurture sequences, we will send personalized messages through our AI chat. These AI chat messages are contextualized to the content consumed and the account's surrounding context. As the conversation progresses, your human seller will be notified through Slack and can engage with the prospect in real-time via video call on the website.

Bottom of Funnel Orchestration

When an account is in the decision phase and on your website, we alert the assigned Account Executive (AE) both audibly and via push notifications when these accounts visit our site. This enables the AE to meet the visitor where they're at, on the website via our live video chat. If the AE can't act immediately, the notification provides the phone numbers of the buying committee (when available) for a direct call.

Simultaneously, we draft personalized emails or LinkedIn messages using GPT and relevant data pulled from all integrated systems. The AE would approve these messages before they're sent, ensuring timely and relevant follow-ups with the prospect.

Lead Scoring & Revenue Orchestration

Signal-based revenue orchestration can (and should) be set up to run different playbooks based on the level of intent and warmth the prospect demonstrates.

Here’s how we score and route leads at Warmly, for instance:

As you can see, leads we judge as cold receive simple inbound chatbot workflows, whereas hot and medium prospects get a proactive AI chat playbook.

These distinctions are made using our proprietary warm lead scoring matrix.

A combination of ICP filters (for example, the size of the company) and intent signals (from third-party site activity and engagement on our own website) determines how hot the lead is, automatically filtering prospects into the relevant workflows.

PS. Our full-length article on Warmly implementation goes into detail on how to set this up.

Advantages of Signal-Based Revenue Orchestration

We only loop in sellers when an account is ready for a human conversation. Otherwise, we're continuing to deliver multi-threaded, omni-channel experiences across all your accounts automatically.

We think that human systems are inherently difficult to scale, especially as deals become more complex and involve more stakeholders, each with individual nuances.

The difficulty is in holding attention long enough to synthesize all the information collected on an account/individual to craft the right experience before their attention goes elsewhere. It takes time to research, time to draft, and time to send. When a rep reaches out, the window of opportunity might have closed, and the prospect is visiting a competitor's site. Or the rep never reaches out, and we would've missed an opportunity to build a relationship with the prospect earlier in their buying journey.

Orchestration's ability to reduce the relevant information from your systems into the right multi-threaded actions, combined with AI's ability to generate personalized messaging, has the following advantages over traditional Account Based Marketing:

• Fit - To ensure that the best-fit companies (based on your ICP) get high-touch workflows, stopping low-intent leads from clogging up sales pipelines and speeding up sales cycles by acting as a filtering mechanism and stitching together various data inputs. 
• Speed - To engage with the prospect through the right channel, with the right message in that ~8-second window when they're thinking about you
• Scale - To engage with all accounts visiting your website across all stages of the buyer journey and across the entire buying committee, not just the person visiting the site at that moment
• Consistency - To immediately mobilize and scale up an army of AI SDRs to deliver consistent messaging that would resonate with the right buyers so you can test and iterate what works best at scale
• Personalization - To deliver the right messaging at the right time, via the right channel, AND being human while doing so
• Reduction - To measure the value of each of the dozens of buying signals you have access to, and weight them based on how strongly they indicate intent, and reduce it to an overall intent score

Consolidate Tools to Create a Seamless Buyer Experience

To stitch together these event-driven systems, you would need ZoomInfo or Clearbit to enrich the data, 6sense to gather the website intent, and Drift to engage with them live on the website. Now you can do it all in one.

Layering data from disparate systems and reducing the complexity through orchestration leads to derived insights. You can skip analysis done by a human toggling between three screens and pinpoint critical moments in a buyer's journey. You don't need to ink deals with 6-7 vendors and spend time getting systems to talk to one another. You can focus on one core vendor and push them to innovate to create seamless buyer experiences.

That will allow you to save money on tech spend, repurpose reps' time on more strategic problem-solving for the customer, and have robust data to run models and AI against to automate processes further.

Setup Warmly in Minutes, Not Months

Larger platforms may require weeks to months to set up correctly, involving multiple teams, onboarding sessions, and alignment meetings. The hidden cost of setup starts to eat away at the ROI.

For Warmly, you can begin receiving hard ROI in 20 minutes by:

• Adding a code snippet to the site
• One-click authenticating into your systems (Hubspot, Outreach, Apollo, Slack, LinkedIn, etc.)

You can immediately start to improve conversion rates by de-anonymizing and enriching the traffic coming to your site, sync this data back into your CRM, and then routing hot accounts to the right rep.

Then we would set you up for an onboarding call with our CSM for 30 minutes to help you define your ICP accounts and buying committee personas in Warmly so that we can set website prospecting on auto-pilot by turning on AI chat and AI prospector. This would run all hours of the day to line up conversations for reps even as they sleep.

An example: within the first 8 minutes of turning on AI chat, Kandji was able to book two qualified meetings. You can read more about Kandji's case study here.

Read more about what our customers have to say about us:

• How Behavioral Signals sourced $7M in enterprise pipeline since using Warmly
• $80,000 In Revenue From Warmly In 12 Days for D2D Experts
• How Inbox Pirates Closed a 4-figure deal in just 2 weeks with Warmly

This article is Part III of a 4-part series on the shifting landscape of B2B buying and selling, how revenue teams have adapted, and where we think the market is headed.

You can read Part II, where we introduce account-based marketing and how it improves the buyer experience to get past the noise explained in Part I.

In the previous two parts, we talked about the problems facing revenue teams today and how we got there. Account-based marketing is a step in the right direction, as it adapts how companies engage with buyers depending on the stage of their buyer's journey. 

Right message, right person, right time, through the right channel.

However, having implemented ABM solutions ourselves and talked with many current or former users of ABM, we've seen that there are hard setup and maintenance costs, as well as difficulties in running such a complex operation effectively - particularly speed, coverage, and consistency.

People are influenced into deals rather than pushed into them like before. Demand creation and dark social are starting to become a key part of people’s strategies.

Understanding Demand: Creation vs. Selling

‎(Image Source: Freepik)

Demand creation focuses further up the funnel at the awareness and consideration stages of the buyer's journey. It's about finding ways to get our brand in front of the 97 to 99 percent of our total addressable market who may not be actively in the market but have the potential to become prospects in the future. This involves utilizing channels like LinkedIn, Reddit, ads, webinars, blog posts, and influencers to educate and engage with our target audience.

Demand capture is about capturing the buyer in the decision and purchase stage. Again, only 1 to 3 percent of people are currently in the market and showing purchase intent. This is where all of our sales team's efforts should go. There's typically a high cost for sales spending time on accounts that are not in-market.

The need to split between demand creation (mostly marketing, though there can be some assistance from sales) and demand capture (mostly sales but with some marketing influence) is to fulfill the buyer journey experience.

One common mistake companies make is the tendency to allocate most of their budget towards demand capture, even though 70% of the buying journey has already occurred by the time a seller is involved. By then, the buyer already has a top 5 list of vendors they are looking to evaluate.

By neglecting demand creation, we risk commoditizing ourselves among competitors and miss the opportunity to distinguish ourselves as a leader.

If we truly solve a problem, our buyer will be in the market for our solution one day. And if we did demand creation right, they'll be googling for our solution via branded search terms rather than typing our category name, where we may not even rank in the first four search results.

The Importance of ICP Creation

When we look at the difference between high-performing and low-performing SDR teams, there’s one thing that stands out across the board:

The best teams are getting fed with better pipeline.

That is, the leads coming through are of higher quality. They’re a better match for the company’s ICP, so they have an easier time closing deals and waste less time on leads that would never close.

For this, you need to have your ICP clearly nailed down and ensure your demand-generation activities are tailored to that specific audience.

It is not just about finding a fit on demographics, though.

You also want to know that the company is growing. Do they have NRR over 100%? Are they retaining customers? Is revenue increasing?

If these signals are all met, it means you’re less likely to have churn issues in the future because the buyers got laid off.

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Wasting Time on The Wrong Activities 

The other problem with many low-performing SDR teams is that they aren’t focusing on the right actions. Only 20% of their time goes to activities that create progress. The other 80% is just wasted time.

They aren’t working on the right deals at the right time, with the right people, through the right channels.

Revenue orchestration helps sales teams prioritize the best leads and deprioritize the worst ones so they can work on the activities that actually move the needle forward.

Advantages of AI-powered Revenue Orchestration

Fit 

AI-powered revenue orchestration helps ensure that the leads that do make it through to a conversation with sales reps are highly aligned with your ICP.

Instead of funneling all potential prospects through to a demo (like a standard chatbot or meeting booker would), a revenue orchestration solution:

• De-anonymizes the site visitor.
• Enriches your CRM data on that account with other firmographic info (such as identifying who else might be on the buying committee).
• Extracts third-party buying intent signals from external providers to understand where the prospect is at in their buying journey.
• Understands the current health of the company by pulling publicly available growth metrics.
• Matches that collection of data against your ICP construct to determine what conversational path to put them down.
• Orchestrates communications across email, social, and live chat.
• Nurtures the prospect until they demonstrate a sufficient level of intent, triggering an alert for a salesperson to take over.

This means those website visitors you aren’t a fit for your ICP don’t clog up your sales teams’ meeting pipeline, which translates to faster sales cycles and stronger conversion rates.

Speed

When a target company exhibits buying intent, the window of opportunity that the buyer is thinking about you could be seconds.

If a buyer visits the site and has a question about the product but is unable to meet with a rep until a day later, that may be too late if the budget discussion is tomorrow. By the time a sales rep reaches out, the moment may have passed, and the buyer has gone to a competitor.

Here's an example of how orchestration could solve this.

The VP of Marketing tells a B2B marketing manager at SaaS Co. to research an intent solution to get more in-market leads. SaaS Co's marketing manager asks the Pavilion Go-to-market community for alternatives to 6sense because 6sense is so expensive. Someone mentions Warmly.

The marketing manager visits Warmly's homepage, the case studies page, and the pricing page. On the pricing page, the chatbot pings - it's an AE at Warmly asking if they have any questions.

The marketing manager doesn't realize he's speaking to an AI. But by now, the actual AE has been notified and jumped in to take over the conversation, initiating a video call. They arrange to catch up again after SaaS Co's budget meeting (that's tomorrow). The marketing manager notes the solution in his deck and calls it a day.

But the orchestration doesn't end there.

• Immediately after, the SaaS Co.'s CFO receives a LinkedIn connection request. It's the Warmly AE, enquiring about their precarious financial position. They detail exactly how Warmly integrates into SaaS Co's existing tech stack and maximizes the ROI of marketing spend. The CFO ignores the message but keeps Warmly in mind.
• The rest of the buying committee (the VP of Marketing, CRO, VP of Sales, and Head of Sales Development) receive custom emails addressing all the risks Warmly would help eliminate.
• The CRO finds a surprise in her message - an explanation of how Warmly eliminates revenue leaks, a topic they had recently read up on. The CRO clicks on a link in the email, arrives on the Warmly homepage, and reads case studies about how Warmly solved revenue leaks with SaaS Co's competitors.

The orchestration system automatically generated these experiences immediately after that initial call. AI carefully selected the message, buying committee members, and channels based on the surrounding context and historical data.

In the past, such an analysis and outreach would have taken hours. This took minutes. Plus, the call recording was synced to the CRM, transcribed, and processed alongside all other relevant data collected on the account.

So, onto that all-important buying committee meeting. What do you know? Warmly is top of mind.

The marketing manager reaches out to Warmly's AE to schedule another call with the VP of Marketing, CRO, and Sales. The AI, always doing more, includes the CFO on the call because they're deemed vital.

And in less than two days (there could be just 24 hours between the initial website visit and that buying committee meeting), you've got a prospect ready to buy.

Scale

A similar story plays out a hundred more times during the working day as companies visit the site, are qualified in or out, and the orchestration platform delivers the right experience. A single rep can only handle one account at a time, but an orchestration platform can simultaneously service every single account at every stage of the buyer journey.

The previous example discussed a possible experience delivered to the account if they were in-market.

What about those that aren't in-market?

They receive demand-creation experiences, like display ads or personalized emails that route to educational blog pages or videos.

When the target accounts finally enter the "buying window," Warmly's content has already shaped their opinions. The account is primed, and we move to demand capture involving the sales team.

The target accounts arrive on Warmly's landing page, the AI qualifies them as in, notifies the rep when a human needs to be in the loop, and the cycle repeats.

Flexibility

‎The best AI-powered revenue orchestration solutions give GTM teams the flexibility they need to plug into their existing tech stack and coordinate sales and marketing activities.

That’s not the case across the board, though.

Right now, we’re seeing a consolidation of the GTM tech market.

Salesloft bought Drift. HubSpot bought Clearbit. Leedfeeder merged with Echobot to become Dealfront.

You’re also seeing tools like Apollo.io and ZoomInfo build out unified GTM suites in-house.

Others, like Warmly, are more platform-agnostic. They focus on integrating with a wide variety of tools so you can plug into the tech stack you’re already set up with and orchestrate effective GTM campaigns powered by AI.

Zach Howland, a sales tech stack expert with a ton of experience implementing CRM and sales tools, has a great point on this:

"Flexibility is enhanced utility. The market needs to be more nimble for the coming scramble to modernize sales technology as AI becomes more robust.”

Consistency

Take this example.

Based on data in the orchestration platform, the leadership team finds they're losing deals based on price to competitors, specifically to companies in B2B SaaS at the Series A stage.

So, the team tweaks the orchestration platform to show 20% discounts to in-market B2B SaaS accounts at the Series A stage. The AI also integrates this promotion into the company's messaging while keeping the price the same for all other prospects.

Normally, this type of change would take multiple training sessions with SDRs, as reps leave, are onboarded, or return from vacation. In the past, reps might have tested messaging and pricing on their own.

Now, everything is standardized. This change is implemented immediately and fed through the platform.

Personalization

The other problem with those stock standard sales conversations that lack context?

They’re exactly the opposite of what today’s buyers say they want.

86% say personalization plays a major role in their purchasing decision.

For many companies, especially SMBs, personalization is a great concept but can be difficult to achieve.

Most businesses add a dynamic name section to their email chains and call it a day. As if their name is what customers are talking about when they say they want personalized buying experiences.

A quality revenue orchestration platform provides companies access to the tools they need to deliver personalized experiences.

Again, it starts with quality data (you can’t personalize anything if you don’t know a thing about the person you’re speaking to), coordinated using a combination of AI and automation to identify opportunities to personalize aspects of the conversation.

It's not just about showing that you know their company's name or their role. Revenue orchestration can go as far as customizing the marketing messaging and even the sales assets that customers receive based entirely on the demographic and intent data you have on them.

Adaptive Systems and their Multiplier Effect

When the whole go-to-market functions of demand creation (marketing) and demand capture (sales) play together harmoniously and the experience is delivered correctly, buyers are happy because they feel like it's being done for them, not to them.

When data no longer lives in siloes and is combined to create derived insights that feed back into the platform, the system continuously delivers better experiences to each account.

Advancements in AI, like vector embeddings, can extend LLMs to have long-term memory for the surrounding historical context and experiences delivered to not just one account but every account being tracked in the CRM. This allows the system to create highly customized experiences that extend across the life cycle of the buyer's journey. Like Amazon and Netflix, millions of buyers don't receive templated emails; they receive carefully selected personalized experiences.

The Non-linear Nature of B2B Purchasing

B2B buying doesn’t play out in any kind of predictable, linear order. Instead, buyers engage in what one might call “looping” across a typical B2B purchase, revisiting (for example) six buying jobs at least once.

There's a multiplier effect when all the pieces work together and adapt in real time to the ever-evolving ecosystem of B2B buying.

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Redefining the Role of Human Interaction

Go-to-market teams have already been downsizing and learning to be just as effective with fewer headcounts.

It's gotten so difficult to get someone on the phone that when they finally pick up, after 100 dials, we end up word vomiting just to have them hang up again. It's a horrible experience for both the buyer and the seller.

In the very near future, sellers will move further away from these manual, repetitive tasks because of the increased sophistication, efficiency, and effectiveness of these new adaptive systems. SDRs and AEs can get back to focusing on solving complex customer problems and building long-term relationships. And marketers can spend more time building empathy for the people they are seeking to serve.

And because AI has become quite good at synthesizing data into something humans can understand, we can drill down into the system and reveal important answers to questions like: Who is our ICP? Where are the bottlenecks? Why did we deliver certain experiences? What's been working or not working? Why?

That's the magic of AI-supported revenue orchestration. It gives us the power to be more creative and strategic.

We do what we do best, and leave the rest to automation.

Read on for Part IV on Warmly: The Signal-Based Revenue Orchestration Platform.

Interested to see Warmly in action? Book a demo.

This article is Part II of a 4-part series on the shifting landscape in B2B buying and selling, how revenue teams have adapted, and where we think the market is headed next.

You can read Part I, in which talks about the evolution of sales and marketing pre and post-pandemic.

TL;DR:

• The reduction in force in 2023 has accelerated the need for agile organizations in B2B buying and selling.
• Account Based Marketing (ABM) has shifted the focus from individual leads to the account level, improving efficiency and relevance.
• Understanding the buyer's journey and using automation and AI can increase sales velocity and conversions.
• However, there are limitations to ABM, including the challenge of data silos and the need for speed, coverage, and consistency.
• The next phase in demand capture and demand creation is Account Based Orchestration (ABO)

Headcount Reduction Accelerating the Agile Organization

As of August 2023, almost 300,000 workers in US-based tech companies have been laid off.

Just as COVID was a massive accelerant to the digital buying process, the 2023 reduction in force, because of uncertainty around the economy, was a massive accelerant to the new age of agile organizations.

Dynata conducted a 2023 study across 500 business leaders in the US, Germany, the UK, and France across all industries. Participants included heads of sales, revops, and marketing. A few findings:

• 75% of organizations expected flat or reduced revenue growth this year
• 58% expect to have less personnel to drive sales

So, there is less staff, potentially the same pipeline coverage needed to hit your quota.

As a result, sales and marketing organizations learned how to operate smaller, more agile, and more efficiently. Revenue teams began partnering with the most innovative technologies that used automation and AI to help them execute operational downstream activities, which allowed them to focus on key insights and personalization.

Shift Towards Customer Centricity and Account-Based Marketing

In the past, most go-to-market tooling was focused on helping the seller and marketer get more leads. The experience of tooling wasn't necessarily tailored toward the buyer (e.g. carpet bomb email and relentless cold calls).

There are two options to increase revenue:

• Increase leads
• Improve pipeline conversions, cycle times, ASPs

It seemed easier to get more leads, so many organizations chose that. But it wasn't. It was the more expensive option that had diminishing returns. More leads to sift through and follow up on meant sellers weren't allocating their time as effectively.

The problem was that 3% of your TAM was in-market to buy (Sticky Branding).

Spending time on non-target accounts that were not in-market to buy was a huge waste of time and money for both the sales and marketing teams.

The Importance of Efficient Growth and Timing

Companies like 6sense keyed in on the importance of efficient growth, relevance, and timing. They introduced the idea of account-based marketing (ABM), which took the focus off the individual lead contact and brought it up to the account level.

Understanding the Buyer's Journey

The vision was to break your target ICP accounts into four key stages of the buyer journey:

• Target: Not ready to buy
• Awareness: Waking up to the problem
• Consideration: Learning how to solve the problem
• Decision: Engaging with vendors
• Purchase: Ready to buy

Then, align the sales and marketing team to work together towards delivering the right experience at the right stage in the buyer's journey. Sellers needed the marketers to figure out which leads were in-market. The marketers needed sellers to engage those leads. ABM teams typically align on the same ICPs and metrics to build qualified pipeline together.

There are thousands of potential leads that a seller could follow up on, but they should just prioritize the ones with the highest ROI, and leave the rest to AI and automation.

Here's an example 6sense workflow:

• Awareness: Marketing identifies the best accounts via the buyer's digital footprint on the web, finds the buying committee, and then adds them to social ad campaigns on Facebook and LinkedIn
• Consideration: Marketing adds the buying committee members into nurture/education campaigns to provide value
• Decision: Landing pages and chatbots are personalized to the buyer. Target accounts are routed to the right sales rep
• Purchase: CRM, marketing automation systems and the website capture buying signals. This is when the account is in-market to buy, and sales should chase

Understanding where the buyer was in their journey made marketers and sellers more relevant and customer-centric in their outreach timing, targeting, and messaging.

Taking a multi-threaded approach where everyone on the buying committee was engaged increased sales velocity, conversions, and ASPs.

Sales and marketing were going to market together, which boosted overall ROI.

ABM started to work and cut through the noise:

• The first person in the conversation is 70% more ready to buy (6sense)
• 85% of marketers say ABM significantly benefited them in retaining and expanding their existing client relationships (Triblio)
• An ABM strategy can increase B2B revenue by 208% (Warc)

According to Lars Nilson, VP of Business Development at Snowflake, who ran a 200+ sales development team, when account-based marketing and account-based sales orchestrate, script, and strategize together, they saw a 3x lift rate on their meetings booked.

Limitations of Today's Account-Based Marketing

In spite of the lift from running an ABM motion, companies are still finding difficulty capturing demand. Deals are becoming increasingly complex, with more steps involved and more people to convince. The status of deals is constantly changing and faster than humans can react.

There are also fewer humans to react, period, because of the headcount reduction. Sales reps are working double-time to engage quickly and effectively with more accounts on increasingly complex deals. People are fried.

Sometimes it could take weeks, months, quarters to fully implement an ABM solution. It could take a while before sales and marketing and in full alignment on their ICP and agreed upon processes. Takes time to find a dedicated owner of the ABM tool. People are constantly shifting, so the CMO that brought on the ABM solution may leave midway through implementation. And the sales team that was onboarded today may not be the sales team that uses it tomorrow.

A strong signal on an account that's in-market to buy is only useful if it's acted upon, and better yet, acted upon immediately. Speed kills sales. Drafting a personalized email to a hot account a day after may be too late.

Human systems do not scale well, especially as organizations and the number of leads to keep track of gets larger.

The Challenge of Data Silos and Integration

The market is starting to consolidate tooling; however, you still have 5 to 6 solutions that need to work in tandem to execute effective ABM. For example there's conversational intelligence, sequencing, email, LinkedIn, Slack, CRM, buyer intent, etc. Humans still need to toggle between three screens to conduct analysis and pinpoint key moments in a buyer's journey. Revops needs to manage multiple vendors, which oftentimes have duplicate features.

But the biggest issue is having multiple data siloes to manage. With systems needing to integrate back and forth, it can be difficult to have a single set of robust, accurate data to automate workflows or run AI models off of.

The problem compounds as the size of the organization and prospect base grows.

Pretty soon there are processes to maintain processes, and, depending on your time horizon, the upfront setup and maintenance cost may introduce more harm to the team rather than the ROI promised.

The Need for Speed, Coverage, and Consistency in ABM

For ABM to work well, you need speed, coverage, and consistency.

Most sales teams are not set up to react in real-time, which breaks them out of their workflow. It takes significant orchestration to complete the ABM motion successfully at every step.

If there is a big marketing campaign that drives traffic, there may not be enough rep coverage to engage all the buyers.

In both cases, there is a revenue leak in the funnel because speed, coverage, and consistency fall short.

It means you're not engaging or fast enough with your in-market target accounts (3% of your TAM) who are in the decision/purchase stage, which costs you deals today.

You're also missing out on the opportunity to build relationships with target accounts that are not in-market (97% of your TAM) in the awareness/consideration stage, which will potentially cost you even more deals tomorrow and beyond because those accounts may be building an early relationship with your competitors.

Up Next: The Era of Account-Based Orchestration

Read Part III, where we'll delve into the evolution from account-based marketing to account-based orchestration. We'll explore how this transition enhances the speed and precision of delivering a tailored buying experience to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

This article is Part I of a 4-part series on the shifting landscape of B2B buying and selling, how revenue teams have adapted, and where we think the market is headed.

TL;DR:

• B2B SaaS experienced a golden era with an influx of capital and a focus on go-to-market strategies.
• The traditional sales funnel and data-driven processes became the foundation of go-to-market understanding.
• The market saw an explosion of SaaS solutions and an increase in email deluge, leading to declining conversion rates.
• The pandemic brought about significant changes in buyer behavior, with a rise in digital communities and increased reliance on content consumption for decision-making.
• The digital transformation paradox emerged as conventional funnel metrics struggled to capture evolving buying behavior, leading to the need for companies to adapt and evolve.

The Golden Era of B2B SaaS: 2018-2022

The years from 2018-2022 could be called the Golden era of pre-AI startups. B2B SaaS was living its best life. Startups were bathing in cash. They were getting their rounds pre-empted because deals were becoming that hot.

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I remember just two years back in 2021, there was a saying in the startup community that it was easier to raise money than it was to hire great talent.

The Capital Influx

Initially, we saw the influx of capital into SaaS businesses often channeled into go-to-market strategies. B2B SaaS companies hired like nobody’s business: sales reps, ad spend, sales reps, marketing tools, and more sales reps. Resource bloat accrued because of the mounting pressures to produce in order to meet valuation expectations.

This forced the hands of many B2B SaaS startups to hire too many employees to hit those targets. As the economy has continued to recede in 2023, shareholders, boards, and VC firms alike are asking nearly every startup to surrender to a RIF - aka layoffs - to reduce the bloated, unproductive staff.

GTM Strategies

The traditional construct of going to market was that of the sales funnel. Tools like ZoomInfo and Outreach would make one sales rep feel like the power of ten sales reps. But instead of cutting back, companies went all in, flooding the market with outbound — more dials and cold outbound calls, and more mass emails out the digital door.

With so many bodies, predictability and structure became the name of the game. I remember being curious about sales and asking Larson Stair, an expert sales founder in our Techstars batch.

"What makes a salesperson great?" — Alan

"Process." — Larson

Sales with a process is a science, which makes it more predictive. Without a process, it was emotion, which made it less predictive. VCs have historically pushed for predictability, which pushed for certainty in measurement. What is the best visualization of this predictability? The Marketing-to-Sales Funnels with conversion rates at every step.

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At the same time, with the explosion of data, whatever could be measured was measured. Everything became seemingly quantifiable when the funnel was the foundation of go-to-market understanding, turning GTM into a science, and sales and marketing as “the scientist” executing the experiments.

The SaaS Startup Explosion: the 2020s

As venture capital continued to flow into the 2020s, the SaaS market saw an influx of tools, thanks also to the commoditization of API software development. Competitor apps could be spun up overnight with just a handful of developers. The availability and affordability of cloud service helped ensure that the entrepreneurial developers sitting inside a B2B SaaS company could develop revenue-producing applications to their heart's content.

Carina, Zack, and I built one such competitor tool during our time at Techstars without knowing anything about the space.

Everyone started building and buying everything. Then, the capital and the revenue started coming in - and it was good. However, when everyone starts making money, good decisions start going out the window. Lots of shelfware was created and sold to consumers who were sold something that didn’t deliver value.

The Email Deluge and Declining Conversions

Inboxes exploded from the deluge of emails. Eventually, Google started throwing certain domains into spam. Whole cottage industries emerged just to warm emails to improve deliverability so companies could send more.

Conversion rates started declining.

But the pressure mounted. What did people do? More hands on deck. 5% closed won conversion last year, 1% conversion this year? No problem. Pump up the top of the funnel to sustain revenue growth.

If your job was on the line, why fix something that wasn't broken? Plus, who had the bandwidth to innovate when the existing system was barely afloat? Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

Lots of hungry reps to feed right now. Where are all the MQLs, form fills, white papers, and link clicks? Because of the short time horizon of CROs, the whole go-to-market team needed to operate on a similar timescale.

The Pandemic's Impact on Business

Then 2020 ...

The pandemic changes everything.

It completely disrupts B2B SaaS marketing, in ways that are still being felt today.

And it all started with B2B SaaS buyers.

The Buyer's Evolution

Let's talk about what happened to the buyer.

Forget B2B SaaS products for a second. For the first time, during the pandemic, buyers were building entire teams without ever meeting face-to-face with their new hires.

As a result, B2B SaaS providers had to learn how to connect with buyers that were increasingly connecting with peers, potential clients, and sales teams entirely online.

The Rise of Digital Communities

Demand for community skyrocketed. Reddit, Discord, and Zoom engagement shot up. And in the wake of all this, professional communities like Pavilion started sprouting up everywhere. LinkedIn evolved into a real professional social network.

Suddenly, buyers, who in the past, would meet each other maybe once or twice a year at conferences to exchange ideas about B2B SaaS solutions, can poll thousands at a time, globally, for advice on whether to use Outreach or SalesLoft, Hubspot or Marketo in a single post, and get curated answers back within minutes.

Content Consumption

With social media engagement at an all-time high, consumption of marketing content like e-books, blog posts, podcasts, influencer endorsements, and peer reviews soared.

In 2020 alone, media uploads increased by 80% YoY, driven by an influx of social media marketing in the SaaS space. How-to videos, explainers, pre-recorded sales pitches: B2B buyers were absorbing it all.

The increase in content consumption meant that demand generation became a key factor in the B2B SaaS business model.

B2B Decision-Making

As well as consuming more and more content during the buying process, the way organizations decided on when and why to purchase a SaaS product also changed.

In particular, partnership programs - for example, Hubspot and Salesforce's app ecosystem - started gaining traction as a go-to-market channel, with buyers increasingly making purchase decisions from trusted B2B software vendors.

The Digital Transformation Paradox

Consequently, B2B SaaS underwent a digital transformation overnight.

The change was swift. But, ironically, as the world digitized, conventional SaaS metrics struggled to capture the evolving buying behavior.

Private Slack chats, influencer endorsements, or old-school phone calls - the funnel couldn't track these. The same large quantity of SaaS vendors still existed. It's just now the buyers could see them all a bit more clearly.

The Dark Funnel and Its Impact on B2B Marketing

In the past, companies could track customer interactions through traditional marketing automation platforms. However, with the rise of third-party marketing channels like podcasts, events, influencer marketing, and organic social media, companies are unable to track these interactions effectively. This lack of tracking has led to a major shift in the distribution of content and communication between companies and their customers.

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The software vendor landscape was vast, but now, buyers had a clearer view. The competition between vendors became fierce, with countless "Top X tools for Y" lists and regular Gartner and G2 matrices to guide buyers.

Still, the traditional sales and marketing model that drove buyers down the funnel persisted, even as it was seeing diminishing returns. A decade of conditioning led ingrained these large processes of generating Leads to MQLS to SQLs, as well as the people who maintained them.

The Informed Buyer

But here's the twist: Buyers were leveling up. They were more informed and more savvy. At least that's what they thought:

• 70% of the buyer’s journey is done digitally before talking to a salesperson (Sirius Decisions)
• 80% of B2B purchasers said that they would not even speak to a salesperson until they had done their own research (The Corporate Executive Board)
• 80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information from a series of articles versus an advertisement. (B2B PRSense)
• 84% of B2B decision-makers begin their buying process with a referral. (Sales Benchmark Index)
• 86 percent of buyers use peer review sites when buying software (G2)

The number of people in the SaaS solution buying committee was also becoming much larger. Each member has their own needs that must be met before the purchase can go through, so that means different messaging and timing for different personas.

It was like wringing water from a rock and suddenly finding yourself in a desert. That's okay because the VC well always had more rocks to pull from.

Navigating the New Demand Landscape

Post-pandemic, B2B SaaS companies faced a fresh challenge: the funding bubble began to deflate. Buyers tightened their belts. Sales quotas were missed.

Traditional methods seemed outdated in this new reality.

While many clung to old strategies, successful B2B SaaS organizations recognized the need for efficiency and adaptability. They shifted focus from lead generation to efficient demand capture and demand creation, emphasizing trust and authenticity in an informed buyer's world.

"How can I sell you something," no longer works. The approach must be proactive: "What does my customer need from me." Companies like Aligned have built the digital sales room to create better buying experiences.

In this evolving landscape, it's not about who spends the most - on sales teams, marketing campaigns, or SaaS tools - but who adapts the best.

Now that you're keyed up on the changes in the B2B market pre- and post-pandemic, read on for Part II, the future of account based marketing.

Book Demo

TL;DR:

• Website personalization is crucial for tailoring content and user experience to individual users.
• Personalization in marketing involves delivering targeted content and offers based on customer preferences and behaviors.
• Examples of personalization include personalized product recommendations in e-commerce and Amazon's recommendation engine.
• Website personalization leads to increased time on site, higher conversions, a more relevant website experience, and greater customer loyalty.
• Challenges of personalization include data collection, consumer privacy, performance, and measuring effectiveness.

What is an example of personalization?

An example of personalization can be seen in the retail industry, particularly in e-commerce. Many online retailers have implemented personalized product recommendations based on customer data and behavior. According to a study conducted by Barilliance, personalized product recommendations can increase conversion rates by up to 300%.

One well-known example of personalization in e-commerce is Amazon's recommendation engine. By analyzing customer browsing and purchase history, as well as other data points, Amazon is able to provide personalized product recommendations to each individual user. This not only enhances the user experience by showing them products that are relevant to their interests and preferences, but it also increases the likelihood of making a purchase. In fact, it is estimated that 35% of Amazon's revenue is generated by its recommendation engine.

What is personalization in marketing?

Personalization in marketing refers to the practice of tailoring marketing messages and experiences to individual customers based on their preferences, behaviors, and characteristics. It involves using data and technology to deliver targeted content, product recommendations, and offers that are relevant and personalized to each customer.

According to a study by Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. This highlights the importance of personalization in marketing as it can significantly impact customer engagement and conversion rates. Additionally, a report by Accenture found that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations.

Personalization can be achieved through various methods such as using customer data to segment audiences, implementing dynamic content on websites and emails, and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze customer behavior and preferences. 

Examples of personalization

In this blog post, we will explore the topic of website personalization and its importance in today's digital landscape. Website personalization is the practice of tailoring a website's content, design, and user experience to cater to the needs and preferences of individual users. With the majority of consumers expressing an appreciation for remote digital or self-service interactions, website customization has become a necessity rather than an option. In this guide, we will delve into the benefits, challenges, and methods of website personalization, along with some inspiring examples. So, let's dive in and learn more about this powerful strategy!

Increased Time on Site

One of the key benefits of website personalization is the ability to capture your audience's attention and keep them engaged for longer periods of time. By addressing site visitors by name or speaking to their specific pain points or interests, you can create a more personalized and relevant experience. This increased time on site not only leads to improved brand awareness and trust but also translates into measurable impacts such as more leads and conversions.

Higher Website Conversions

Website personalization has been shown to have a significant impact on conversion rates. According to a study by Econsultancy and Monetate, website customization leads to an average 19% increase in sales. By tailoring the website experience to the specific needs and preferences of individual users, you can create a more compelling and relevant journey that drives conversions. Whether it's personalizing the quoting process for an insurance company or showcasing specific products based on demographic information for an e-commerce brand, website personalization can make the buying experience feel more tailored and increase the likelihood of completing a form or making a purchase.

A More Relevant Website Experience

Consumers today expect a personalized shopping experience, and website personalization allows businesses to meet those expectations. By providing personalized recommendations based on previous purchases or browsing history, businesses can better meet their customers' needs and interests. This not only leads to more conversions and revenue but also fosters greater customer loyalty. In fact, 80% of frequent shoppers say they will only purchase from businesses that tailor their shopping experience. For digitally native direct-to-consumer brands, personalized recommendations account for around 25% of their revenue.

Greater Customer Loyalty

Personalizing your website can have a significant impact on customer loyalty. According to McKinsey, 71% of customers want personalized experiences, and 76% feel frustrated when a business doesn't provide them. By personalizing the website experience, businesses can make their customers feel taken care of and valued. For example, having a chatbot that welcomes existing customers by name and provides them with resources and hands-on help can enhance the customer experience and foster loyalty. By leveraging technology, businesses can give customers quicker access to resources that are not available to the general public, further strengthening the bond with their customers.

Challenges of Personalization and How to Solve Them

While website personalization offers significant benefits, there are also challenges that businesses may encounter. One of the main challenges is data collection and utilization. With customer data scattered across different teams and systems, it can be difficult to access the insights needed for effective personalization campaigns. To address this challenge, businesses should consolidate the ownership of customer data and establish a revenue operations function to manage the collection, cleaning, sharing, and utilization of data.

Another challenge is consumer privacy. With increasing regulations and concerns around data privacy, businesses need to develop a first-party data strategy to collect their own customer data for online personalization. It is crucial to follow consumer privacy laws such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to ensure compliance.

Performance and scalability are also important considerations. Website performance is paramount to the success of personalization strategies, as slow load times can deter visitors and impact conversion rates. Regular audits of personalization software and web pages are necessary to optimize conversion rates and website performance. Choosing personalization software with performance and scalability in mind is also recommended.

Lastly, measuring the effectiveness of personalization can be challenging. Personalization encompasses a wide range of strategies, making it difficult to identify a single metric for success. Gathering accurate data and tracking mechanisms to evaluate the impact of personalization can be complex. Defining key performance indicators (KPIs) and using A/B testing can help businesses measure the effectiveness of their personalization efforts.

How to Personalize Your Website

Now that we understand the benefits and challenges of website personalization, let's explore some methods to personalize your website:

1. Segment Your Audience: Tailor your website content and offers to specific segments of your audience based on demographics, customer relationship length, and past purchases.
2. Focus on Target Accounts: Implement account-based marketing (ABM) strategies to personalize landing pages and website elements for individual accounts.
3. Use Geolocation: Customize your website based on the location of your visitors to provide more relevant services and content.
4. Look at Browsing Behavior & Time on Site: Analyze visitor activity on your website to create personalized buying experiences. Offer assistance or recommendations based on the pages they visit and the time spent on each page.
5. Differentiate by Device Type: Customize your website experience based on the device that visitors are using. Swap out CTAs and direct visitors to the appropriate app store or extension store.
6. Lean on Chatbot Interactions: Use chatbots to instantly personalize conversations and provide tailored recommendations based on visitor interactions. Conversational AI-powered chatbots can offer accurate and helpful answers to unique user questions.

Website Personalization Examples

To provide some inspiration, here are three examples of website personalization in action:

1. Warmly's AI Sales Tool: Warmly created personalized sales automation pages for their customers, inviting them to see the firms and titles of users showing up on their website. This tool allows salespeople and marketers to try warm calling, which differs from cold calling.
2. Clearbit's Personalized Website Graphics: Clearbit personalizes landing pages with custom components, including screenshots of visitors' home pages. This attention-grabbing approach helps visitors visualize the potential benefits of using Clearbit's solution.
3. Gong's Personalized Chatbots: Gong uses chatbots to personalize conversations with buyers and customers. Their chatbot engages visitors with dog humor and offers options for live demos, more information, or customer support. This personalized approach resulted in a 44% increase in booked meetings and over $9 million in influenced pipeline.

Conclusion

Website personalization is a powerful strategy that can significantly improve user engagement, drive conversions, and foster customer loyalty. By tailoring the website experience to individual users, businesses can create a more relevant and compelling journey that resonates on a personal level. However, it is essential to address the challenges of data collection, consumer privacy, performance, and measuring effectiveness. Implement personalized strategies such as segmenting the audience, focus on target accounts, and leverage geolocation and chatbots to create a more personalized and impactful website experience. So, start personalizing your website today and unlock the full potential of your online presence!

Ready to take your website personalization to the next level? Contact us at Warmly for a personalized consultation and discover how our solutions can help you drive conversions and cultivate customer loyalty.

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How many times have you made a cold call, hoping to hook an interested party, only to be met with an abrupt hang-up or a disinterested voice on the other end? Our Warmly senior sales development representative, Nabil, recalled one of the first times he ever called a person to make a sale. The receiver on the other side of the phone responded — excuse the language — “If you call again I’ll fuckin kill you and your family.” Oops, that was not an appreciated answer.

The traditional approach of outbound sales is shifting; cold calling is rapidly losing its effectiveness, as fewer and fewer people are picking up those unexpected calls.

Why? Because they're tired of unsolicited contact from companies they don't know or haven't shown interest in. In an era where personalization is key, it's hard to get someone's attention through a blanket approach. This is where Warmly steps in, presenting the future of sales calls with the concept of "warm calling."

Warm calling isn't just a trendy term, it's an evolution in how we conduct outbound sales. Instead of taking shots in the dark, warm calling is about calling people right when they’re on your busy. Their intent is high because they are at the top of your mind.

Remember those times you wished you could have a meaningful phone call with potential customers browsing your website? Warm calling makes this a reality. The best part is, you get to choose who you want to reach out to. Instead of spending your valuable time cold calling random prospects, Warmly equips you with the power to make informed decisions about who to contact.

Imagine this scenario. You're notified that someone from Asana is actively on our pricing page. This isn't just any random visitor; it's a potential customer expressing interest. With Warmly, you don't need to wait and wonder, you can warm call them immediately. The transition from a world of random names and companies to a realm of insights and prospects happens effortlessly with Warmly.

One of the most exciting aspects of warm calling is the potential for interaction. Unlike cold calling, which usually involves a monologue pitch, warm calling can include parallel browsing and real-time feedback from the potential customer, which means you can literally see where your users are on the pricing page. You can even turn on your camera for a more personal connection if you choose to.

Gone are the days of playing phone tag and matching calendars for a call. With Warmly's “Warm Calling” feature, you can chat with an SDR on your website in real time. The paradigm of cold calling is evolving; we now have the data to let you call at the right time, to the right person. Warmly gives you a chance to connect with prospects in a more personalized and engaging manner, redefining the outbound sales process.

The premise of warm calling is simple yet transformative: what if you could immediately call the person showing interest in your product? Cold calling may not be completely dead, but Warmly's solution offers a more compelling, user-friendly approach that's attuned to the evolving business landscape.

No longer are sales calls a game of chance. With warm calling, you're in control, and Warmly provides you with the right tools to make the most of every potential sales opportunity. It's not just a neat concept, it's a revolutionary approach that's making outbound sales more successful, one warm call at a time.

Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) are no strangers to the challenges of email marketing. Often, they find themselves dealing with an 8% click rate and a discouraging 0.5% response rate. As AI and security bots increase, these percentages become even less reliable. Security bots are now preemptively clicking on links to check for viruses, and it turns out that around 50% of clicks are made by anti-scam detections.

If you're relying on traditional email marketing platforms like Outreach or HubSpot to measure your success, you're not getting the full picture. These statistics don't differentiate between legitimate prospect engagement and bot interference. It's crucial to de-anonymize your website traffic to understand which clicks are genuine.

At Warmly, we offer a solution that helps you identify the companies that are genuinely engaging with your website. We don’t just want to boost your numbers, we aim to make them meaningful by telling you who and what companies are on your website. We're advocating for the use of intent data providers such as ourselves to give you a realistic and actionable understanding of who is genuinely interested in your content.

The power of this strategy is magnified when you incorporate a proxy relay. When prospective clients click your link, they are first directed to a relay endpoint that gathers crucial intent data. This is like having an insightful detective working for you, helping differentiate between a bot and genuine human engagement. This practice enhances the value of your click data significantly. As an SDR, understanding which companies are visiting your site provides you with a more targeted, efficient, and effective approach to lead generation and engagement. It allows you to prioritize your efforts toward prospects that are already demonstrating interest, enhancing your ability to convert leads into sales.

Now, you might be asking, "How can I ensure my emails aren't flagged by bot detection systems?" One significant factor is personalization. Cookie-cutter emails are more likely to get flagged by these systems. In contrast, personalized emails are often rewarded and allowed through as they're perceived as more genuine.

Warmly can empower your sales team to craft personalized emails based on a user’s intent. Our system gives you insights into what users show interest in on your website. For instance, if a user spends time on the pricing page, we give you the tools to tailor your communication to their demonstrated interest.

What does this look like in practice? Avoid cookie cutter language and make it personal to your recipient. If you’re writing about someone’s pricing page, try adopting the language: “Hey [Name], we saw that you were checking out our pricing page. Is [company name] in the market for a chat?” Imagine being able to send a timely, personalized follow-up email immediately after a prospect leaves your site. This is exactly what Warmly offers. We've moved beyond the outdated model of simply maximizing email volume and instead focus on maximizing engagement.

We're reinventing the way sales teams connect with prospects by using intent signals to create customized emails. We've even tested adding personalized postscripts (P.S.) to make your emails feel more authentic and human.

The reality of sales today requires a smarter approach. Mass email blasts might reach more people, but they often fail to make meaningful connections. Instead, Warmly opens the door for intelligent engagement. With our intent-driven insights, you can craft personalized messages that not only reach your prospects but resonate with them too.

Warmly is not just a tool; it's a strategy for a more effective, personalized sales approach. It's time to step into the future of sales with Warmly, where every click counts, and engagement is king.

In the world of demand-generation marketing, the primary goal is clear: generate inbound leads for the sales team. However, a persistent challenge continues to loom large in many organizations: should the Business Development Representative (BDR) team report to marketing or to sales?

This question has sparked numerous debates, with compelling arguments for both sides. Ultimately, the decision hinges on a BDR's core responsibilities, which typically include booking meetings, engaging in sales-related activities such as calls and conferences, and liaising with both the marketing and sales teams.

In many organizations, the primary point of friction arises with inbound lead forms. When a visitor lands on your website and fills out a “Contact Sales” or “Book a Demo” form, it's clear that a BDR should be responsible for booking the meeting. But, who should be managing the BDR's activities? Should it be marketing or sales?

Traditionally, BDRs have often been housed under sales. However, with marketing's increasing influence over the website and its related activities, an argument can be made for shifting the BDR function under marketing. In this setup, BDRs would report to demand-gen marketers, who spend significant time optimizing the website and ensuring leads are booked.

This isn't a move to undermine the value of sales. Rather, it's about optimizing the use of website data and taking swift action based on that information. In the past, marketing teams would drive leads to the website, get them to sign up for a demo, and then throw those leads over the proverbial fence to the sales team. However, this approach often doesn't tie marketing directly to outcomes.

By placing the BDR team under marketing, the marketing department is tied to a more impactful goal: ensuring prospects show up for meetings. This benefits the sales team as well, as they receive better-qualified leads who are more likely to attend the meetings arranged by the BDRs.

The future of website engagement is evolving. Rather than waiting for someone to fill out a form, BDRs can get involved the moment someone lands on the website. Whether a prospect is browsing case studies or checking out pricing options, the BDR can engage them with messaging tailored to their activity. As the marketing team usually handles website optimization, it's logical for them to guide the BDRs in these interactions.

In conclusion, Warmly recommends moving the BDR function under marketing. This allows for more seamless integration between the marketing activities on the website and the critical sales-related tasks of the BDRs. Ultimately, this aligns with the incentives of marketing, sales, and BDRs, ensuring more effective conversions and business growth.