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Growth Matters – Key B2B insights w/ Gal Aga, Co-Founder & CEO @ Aligned

by Customer journeyProduct-led salesRevenue growth

In an age of constant innovation and fierce competitiveness, companies invest major resources to gain even the slightest advantage.

That’s why we started the Growth Matters series of interviews, where experienced industry leaders share key insights everyone should know in the domains of revenue, customer success, sales, and product.

In this installment, we’re joined by Gal Aga. Gal started selling way back in the early days of the ecosystem and has seen and done it all in various leadership sales and revenue roles. Today he’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Aligned. 

Check out his thoughts on sales technology, revenue trends, and what’s missing in today’s revenue operations. 

 

What are the most significant challenges B2B sales teams are facing today, and how can companies effectively address these challenges to improve their revenue performance?

Unfortunately, this is probably very relatable to all teams – we’re all expected to “do more with less” in 2023, and it’s not an easy task. We experience:

  1. Less pipeline to achieve our targets.
  2. Less access to stakeholders since now the CFO, CEO, and more people are involved.
  3. Less budgets we can tap into.
  4. Less influence, as there’s more scrutiny on decisions and a more compelling case is required.
  5. Less control over deals since there are sudden budget cuts, reprioritization, and more buying complexity to navigate.

The 2021 approach was to bring more people, pay more for leads, and buy lots of experimental software to give things a boost. The way I see it right now, the focus should be on what drives efficiency and/or effectiveness.

Efficiency: Less time spent on writing, taking notes, building lists, etc. Whatever gives you back the time you can spend on selling. Especially now, with the AI race, companies should focus on this.

Effectiveness: Simply giving people time back isn’t worth much if that time doesn’t move the needle. Some people are great at getting a lot done, but what good does efficiency do if we’re not good at delivering results? My take is to focus more on effectiveness.

  1. Time to invest more in training and coaching. Spend quality time turning potential into reality. Not only will you boost effectiveness, but you’ll also help your employees grow their careers. That’s a great reason to wake up in the morning.
  2. Double down on optimizing your sales playbook. Look for friction, usage data, and find creative ways to generate more pipeline and close more deals. A few great trends we’re seeing:
    1. Social selling – lots of sellers are getting much better results compared to traditional outbound methods.
    2. Building a strong outbound Product-Led-Sales playbook – many free users just won’t buy unless you reach out to them proactively. They’re experiencing friction and not saying anything about it. They get value but don’t know how to sell your solution to their boss. Some of them just don’t think about getting help for a free tool. Identifying the right signals and making the right moves when reaching out can generate a more highly converting pipeline with a higher probability of closing.
  3. Leveraging tools and methodologies that focus on making it easier for your buyer to buy is a golden opportunity. So many leaders focus on management tools, analytics, and lead generation. What about the selling and buying journey? Well, nothing has changed for decades. We’re throwing dozens of attachments at buyers that get lost in email threads and have minimal tracking. We’re also sending hundreds of emails back and forth between 10+ stakeholders, making it hard to collaborate. Lastly, many of us use ineffective spreadsheets to build mutual action plans with buyers and gain more control over deals. There are so many great solutions out there that make buying easier, help uncover buying intent and needs, help better control next steps and timelines, help better communicate and collaborate, and help better educate and influence decisions. A few examples that do this are Digital Sales Rooms like Aligned, Demo Experience Platforms like Demostack, and Video Platforms like Tolstoy.

Can you discuss the importance of aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams in a B2B organization? And what are good ways of accomplishing it? 

Aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams is crucial for success. It can significantly derail performance when these teams don’t work well together. You get toxic environments and miss the upside of what strong alignment creates. A few things that I’ve seen work well include:

  1. Establish shared goals: Set shared KPIs and objectives. For example, a marketing team that looks at ARR, similar to a sales team, versus just MQLs, is much more aligned and likely to work better together. Or, have both CSMs and AEs be measured and compensated for expansions and create a clear definition of responsibilities during the expansion process. This will ensure that all teams are working towards the same end game.
  2. Communicate regularly: Schedule cross-functional meetings to share updates, discuss challenges, and celebrate wins. Bring all these teams together. This encourages open communication, fosters empathy, and promotes a sense of ownership in each other’s success.
  3. Leverage technology: Use tools and platforms that streamline collaboration and information sharing, such as CRMs, project management tools, and shared workspaces where all these teams can work together more effectively.

We love discussing KPIs here. What KPIs would you recommend CROs focus on when it comes to customer-related revenue? 

When it comes to customer-related revenue, CROs should focus on the following KPIs:

  1. Net Retention Rate (NRR): The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers, accounting for expansions, contractions, and churn. This KPI provides insight into the overall health of your customer base. It is also one of the most important efficiency metrics that investors look at, so it will have a major impact on your company’s valuation.
  2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Payback: The amount of time it takes to return the total cost of acquiring a new customer. Keep a close eye on this metric to ensure your sales and marketing efforts are cost-effective. This is also a very important efficiency metric.
  3. Average Contract Value (ACV): The average annual revenue generated from each customer contract. This KPI helps identify trends in deal size and revenue potential. Growing ACV can be a game-changer in times when getting new pipeline is a challenge, as you simply need fewer opportunities to achieve the same ARR targets.
  4. Sales Cycle Length: The time it takes to close a deal from initial contact to the signed contract. This KPI is critical for identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your sales process. Reducing the sales cycle length not only means that you get to close more deals in a given period (assuming you bring in more pipeline) but also reduces the risk of losing deals since, as the old saying goes, “time kills deals.”

Do you believe a product-led growth (PLG) model can work without human touch? And if not, at what stage of the sales process would you introduce it?

While a PLG model can work without human touch in certain scenarios, there are many situations where involving a human touch is beneficial.

Moreso, speaking with many VCs and other startups, we’re hearing that there’s a growing trend to involve sales teams in PLG even more in 2023. More and more companies are starting out with hybrid PLG/PLS go-to-market motions. I believe it’s because of the importance of driving ARR growth and because more and more companies adopt PLG, even if their product is not a classic fit for this model. In those cases, a hybrid model makes sense.

Here are a few situations where it’s important to involve sales in a PLG model:

  1. For deals above a certain ACV, typically, they go beyond the comfort level of completing a purchase fully self-served. For most, the threshold is around $5-7K ARR.
  2. For deals with high potential. You wouldn’t want to let a small team at a high-potential account like Apple buy alone. Proactively reaching out to ensure they have the necessary resources and support, even if it’s a small deal, pays off in the long run.
  3. For complex use cases or industries, the human touch can help navigate specific customer requirements and offer tailored solutions, leading to higher chances of conversion.

We’re living in a data-driven world. What can companies do to leverage that data for maximum growth?

To leverage data for maximum growth, companies should:

  1. Invest in data infrastructure: Implement tools and systems that collect, store, and analyze data efficiently.
  2. Encourage data literacy: Train employees to understand and interpret data, fostering a data-driven decision-making culture. At Aligned, we are in a constant mode of implementing more events, reports, and dashboards across all teams. Everyone is looking at data on a daily basis and is focused on getting better at it. It’s part of our DNA.
  3. Conduct regular data audits: Routinely assess the quality and accuracy of your data to ensure you’re making informed decisions.
  4. Use predictive analytics: Employ advanced analytics tools to forecast future trends and identify opportunities for growth.

At what stage should companies introduce operation roles as part of their sales org?

When they can afford it. I truly believe that there is no such thing as the right stage. An ops person adds value. Period. It’s probably not something most can afford at the Seed stage, but it definitely is when starting to hire a sales team, leaders, SDRs, etc. It’s a must. 

Revenue operations can streamline processes, improve efficiency, and provide data-driven insights to drive growth. These save hours for your management team, increase efficiency for your team, and prevent revenue leakage.

As a leader, how do you promote a data-driven culture within your organization?

As mentioned, we make it more than a project. It’s part of our DNA, with one of our values being encouraging learning. Here are a few things that what we do at Aligned:

  1. Lead by example: We use data to inform our own decision-making and encourage teams to do the same.
  2. Provide training and resources: Offer workshops, seminars, and access to tools that foster data understanding.
  3. Encourage curiosity and questioning: Create an environment where team members feel comfortable challenging assumptions and seeking data-driven answers.
  4. Celebrate data-driven wins: Highlight successes achieved through data-driven decisions to reinforce the value of a data-driven approach. For example, we celebrate product improvements that were driven by data or Product Led Sales wins that were driven by our user reports.

Everyone’s talking about the impact of AI on pretty much every area of the business world. Where do you see its potential impact on sales operations? 

It’s hard to imagine, really. The pace of change and progress is simply mindblowing. I believe that we’ll continue seeing new use cases emerge that we haven’t thought of and new barriers broken. At the moment, I believe AI has the potential to revolutionize sales operations in the following ways:

  1. Automating repetitive tasks: AI can automate tasks such as data entry, lead enrichment, account research, answering emails, drafting proposals, and follow-ups, freeing up sales reps’ time to focus on more strategic activities.
  2. Personalization and targeting: AI can analyze customer data to provide personalized content, offers, and messaging, enhancing the buyer’s journey and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
  3. Lead scoring and prioritization: AI can analyze historical data and identify patterns to predict which leads are more likely to convert. This would allow sales teams to focus their efforts on high-potential leads, improving efficiency and effectiveness.
  4. Sales forecasting: AI-driven predictive analytics can help sales leaders make more accurate revenue forecasts by analyzing historical data, market trends, and customer behavior.
  5. Sales coaching and training: AI-powered tools can identify areas of improvement for individual sales reps and provide personalized coaching and training resources to help them develop their skills.

By embracing AI and its potential impact on sales operations, companies can streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and ultimately drive more revenue.

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Embracing a Data-Driven Approach to B2B Sales: Key Metrics and Insights

by Customer journeyProduct-led salesRevenue growth

In the ever-evolving world of B2B SaaS sales, data-driven decision-making has become essential for organizations seeking to remain competitive and drive revenue growth. Embracing a data-driven approach is particularly important for competitive markets, where any advantage can give you an edge. 

Let’s explore the importance of embracing a data-driven approach to B2B sales, the key metrics you should track, and how these insights can revolutionize your revenue operations (RevOps) strategy.

The Power of Data-Driven Decision-Making in B2B Sales

Data-driven decision-making enables RevOps professionals, sales and growth leaders, and CROs to make informed choices that directly impact revenue and sales performance. By leveraging data and analytics, businesses can identify patterns and trends, optimize sales processes, and ultimately drive growth. Here are some benefits of adopting a data-driven approach in B2B sales:

  1. Improved sales forecasting accuracy: Accurate sales forecasts help organizations allocate resources effectively, manage expectations, and drive revenue growth. By using historical data and analyzing trends, businesses can develop more accurate sales forecasts.
  2. Enhanced lead scoring and prioritization: A data-driven approach helps sales teams identify high-quality leads and prioritize them based on factors such as engagement, industry, and company size, allowing teams to focus their efforts on the most promising opportunities.
  3. Sales process optimization: Analyzing sales data can reveal bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement in the sales process. By addressing these issues, organizations can streamline their sales process, reducing the sales cycle length and increasing close rates.

Key Metrics to Track in B2B Sales

To effectively embrace a data-driven approach, RevOps, revenue, and sales professionals need to track a set of key metrics that provide insights into sales performance. Some of these critical metrics include:

  1. Lead Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads that convert into customers. A high conversion rate indicates an effective sales process and strong alignment between marketing and sales efforts.
  2. Average Deal Size: The average revenue generated from a closed deal. Tracking average deal size helps organizations identify trends, monitor the effectiveness of their pricing strategy, and make adjustments as necessary.
  3. Sales Cycle Length: The time it takes for a lead to progress from initial contact to closed sale. A shorter sales cycle length often indicates a more efficient sales process.
  4. Win Rate: The percentage of opportunities that result in a closed deal. A high win rate can indicate a strong sales team and effective sales strategies.
  5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing, sales, and other related expenses. A low CAC can signify efficient customer acquisition strategies and a high return on investment.
  6. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The total revenue a customer is expected to generate for your organization during their relationship with your company. A high CLV indicates strong customer retention and upselling efforts.
  7. Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who discontinue their relationship with your company over a given period. A low churn rate signifies high customer satisfaction and effective customer retention strategies.

Leveraging Data Insights to Drive B2B Sales

Tracking the key metrics mentioned above can provide valuable insights to help B2B sales teams fine-tune their strategies and drive growth. Some ways to leverage these insights include:

  1. Identifying opportunities for upselling and cross-selling: Analyzing customer data can help sales teams identify opportunities to sell additional products or services to existing customers, increasing CLV and boosting revenue. 
  1. Refining lead generation strategies: By examining lead conversion rates and the characteristics of high-quality leads, sales teams can fine-tune their lead generation efforts to attract and engage more prospects with a higher likelihood of conversion. 
  2. Optimizing sales processes: Data insights can help sales teams identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies in their sales process. By addressing these issues, teams can improve sales cycle length and close deals more efficiently.
  3. Tailoring sales messaging: Analyzing customer data can provide insights into the pain points, preferences, and needs of your target audience. Sales teams can use this information to tailor their messaging, making it more effective and relevant to potential customers.
  4. Enhancing sales training and coaching: Monitoring win rates and other performance metrics can help sales leaders identify areas where their team members may need additional training or coaching, ensuring the entire team is equipped to succeed.

Conclusion

Embracing a data-driven approach to B2B sales is crucial for businesses in the competitive SaaS industry. By tracking key metrics, leveraging insights to optimize sales strategies, and continually refining their approach, revenue, growth, and sales pros can drive significant growth and stay ahead of the competition. Remember, the power of data-driven decision-making lies in the ability to adapt and evolve, making it an essential component of any successful B2B sales strategy.

Unravelling the Importance of PQAs in a Product-Led Growth Strategy

Unravelling the Importance of PQAs in a Product-Led Growth Strategy

by Customer journeyProduct-led growthProduct-led salesRevenue growth

As businesses constantly seek ways to drive growth and gain a competitive edge, the product-led growth strategy emerges as one of the most popular paradigms for forward-thinking enterprises. However, this can only be accomplished if companies are aware of and able to track the most important factors contributing to product-led growth. This is where PQAs, or Product Qualified Accounts, come in. 

In a PLG framework, PQAs play a crucial role since they reveal whether or not a product is successfully meeting the needs of its target audience and whether or not those target consumers will ultimately become paying clients. Considering the PLG market grew from $21B in 2016 to $687B in 2020, it’s something you just have to consider. 

Deploying PQA in Different Phases of the Customer Journey

In both onboarding and expansion scenarios, PQAs can aid in accurately targeting upselling and cross-selling campaigns, which can be critical in driving growth and success for a product-led growth strategy.

When it comes to onboarding, it is important to consider both user-level and company onboarding. A key aspect of this is determining if the account has added teammates, which is a simple yet essential question to ask. PQAs can be particularly effective in onboarding when an account has reached a certain PQA score and is ready for more personalized onboarding by Sales or CSM. Factors such as firmographic information, including company size, can significantly determine if a custom onboarding experience is warranted.

Similarly, PQAs can be leveraged in expansion efforts, with different variables factoring into the scoring model. For example, the frequency of adding new users to the team may be considered in scoring an expansion PQA instead of the time the team takes to complete onboarding for an onboarding PQA.

Achieving Better Product-led Growth with PQAs

By leveraging PQAs, businesses can identify areas where their product is falling short and take action to improve the user experience, drive engagement, and increase conversion rates.

Higher Conversion Rates

Since PQAs have previously experienced the product’s advantages, they are more likely to convert into paying customers. They are conversant with the product, comprehend the value it provides, and have already entered the deliberation phase of the purchasing process. Hence, their conversion rate is greater than that of conventional leads, who are still in the stage of the purchase process known as awareness. 

Improved Customer Retention 

PQAs are already pleased with the offering, which results in higher client retention rates. Customers who are pleased with a product are more likely to continue using that product, renew their subscriptions to it, and gesturing that product to others. This will increase client loyalty, leading to more revenue for the firm. 

Faster Sales Cycle

Since PQAs have previously used the product and are familiar with its benefits, their sales cycle is significantly shorter. They have a higher propensity to make a purchase choice quickly and go farther down the sales funnel as a result. This results in a more rapid revenue increase and a more effective sales procedure. 

How PQAs Enhance Capabilities for Product Development 

PQAs are responsible for providing the product development team with insightful input. The product development team may enhance the product and produce a better user experience by first understanding how consumers use it and what they find useful. This results in a product that is more likely to satisfy the wants and preferences of the consumer, which in turn boosts the client’s satisfaction and loyalty to the brand.

Using first-party product data to identify strong customer interest and intent signals, OpenView Partners prioritized their sales efforts and allocated their resources more effectively. This allows them to focus on the accounts with the highest potential value, which in turn can lead to greater customer acquisition and retention rates. Their approach involved splitting accounts into high and low-fit categories based on firmographics (e.g., company size, industry) and product signals or intent (e.g., how frequently a customer uses a particular feature). In this manner, the reps were able to prioritize their efforts by identifying the accounts with the best fit and highest signals, allowing them to focus on those accounts first.

Bottom Line

When deployed effectively, PQAs provide insightful input to product development teams, resulting in better products that satisfy the wants and preferences of consumers, boosting client satisfaction and loyalty to the brand. PQAs also lead to higher conversion rates, improved customer retention, faster sales cycles, and enhanced capabilities for product development.

Unlocking Business Success

Unlocking Business Success: The Crucial Importance of Customer Retention for Maximum Growth

by Customer journeyProduct-led growthRevenue growth

As Robert Half once said, “When the customer comes first, the customer will last.” And this is definitely true for all businesses in the extremely competitive landscape of 2023. For many years, the core question for each business was: “What should we do to acquire more customers?”. Now, more and more companies realize that to enhance long-term growth and thrive, it is imperative to switch towards “How do we retain the customers we already have?”

As the 2022 Twilio Segment Growth Report emphasizes, companies are adjusting their focus from “growing at all costs” to fostering long-term client loyalty in response to the volatile macroeconomic environment and enhancing customer retention. 

Moving forward, we’ll explore the most important benefits propelled by customer retention.

 

What is Customer Retention?

Customer retention encompasses the capacity of a business to retain its existing customers and maintain their loyalty over time. Implementing efficient strategies for customer retention is not just a numbers game; it is about building relationships, streamlining the customer journey, providing value, and creating memorable experiences. 

To truly retain customers, businesses must meet and exceed customer expectations at every turn, building loyalty that will encourage them to return for more.

 

Increasing ROI & Profits

Increasing customer retention rates can significantly impact a company’s bottom line. The expenses of acquiring new customers have climbed by more than 50% in the last five years alone. Research from Harvard Business School shows that even a 5% increase in customer retention rates can lead to a 25-95% increase in profits. 

Existing customers often make up a significant portion of a business’s revenue, with estimates from Small Biz Trends suggesting that they can account for up to 65% of a company’s business. This makes retaining them crucial for long-term success.

Furthermore, when you focus on retaining your existing customers, you won’t need to spend as much money on marketing to attract new ones. This doesn’t mean you should abandon marketing altogether but supplement it with methods catering to customer retention. Doing so can reduce your customer acquisition costs and boost your profits.

 

Enhancing Innovation & Optimization

Without a doubt, customer retention is a complex process that requires a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences, as well as a commitment to delivering the best possible customer experience. 

 

Apptentive have shown that almost all customers (97%) are more likely to remain loyal to a business that considers their suggestions, while over half (55%) are less inclined to do business with a firm that does not.

 

When a business has a laser-sharp focus on its customers’ desires and demands, it can better address them and strengthen its position in the market against competitors. In this way, the value of keeping existing customers may help you spot opportunities for product improvement and refinement in response to market shifts.

 

Converting More Sales

Loyal clients become more valuable assets to your business. Instead of constantly searching for new leads, you can focus on nurturing your existing customers and maximizing their potential value to your business. Several studies highlight that repeat buyers are more loyal and have a higher propensity to try new items (by a factor of 50%) and spend (31% on average) than first-time buyers.

 

In addition, there is a 14-fold greater chance of making a sale to an existing client than to a new one, as indicated by Pearson, upselling and cross-selling to returning customers is like shooting fish in a barrel. These customers already trust and appreciate your brand, so it’s easier to convince them to purchase additional products or services. 

 

Encouraging Word-of-Mouth Advertising

Word-of-mouth advertising is a powerful venue for businesses because it is not only the most cost-effective form of advertising but also the most trustworthy. When loyal customers share their positive experiences with others, they advocate for the brand, essentially providing free advertising.

 

Demonstrating the power of customers’ personal recommendations, Nielsen found that almost half of U.S. consumers rely on their friends and family for brand awareness, and 92% of people trust recommendations from those close to them over any other type of marketing. 

 

According to research by Temkin Group, if a customer has a good experience with a company, 77 %of them would refer that brand to a friend. These “mini-marketers” may work in tandem with your existing marketing and sales activities to help bring in new leads and save time in the process of closing sales.

 

Bottom Line

By focusing on building strong relationships with existing customers and exceeding their expectations, companies can benefit from increased ROI, word-of-mouth advertising, and more sales conversions. 

 

Retaining customers can also provide valuable insights into product innovation and refinement. As businesses focus on retaining their customers, they position themselves for long-term growth and success.


If you efficiently leverage your product data, you can acquire valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing you to tailor your approach and increase the likelihood of repeat business. If you’re interested in learning more about how to do this, contact us today to book your demo and take the first step toward improving your customer retention and overall business growth.

Group 13

Prioritizing Customers: Proven Strategies for Successful Upselling and Retention

by Customer journeyProduct-led growthRevenue growth

In the rapidly evolving world of SaaS, staying ahead of the competition requires a deep understanding of your customers, product, and market. However, with unlimited data and platforms to choose from, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start.

To help you get started, empowering product teams with the tools they need to deliver value to their users, increase conversion rates, and drive growth is of paramount importance. Leveraging the power of product-led change with enterprise sales efficacy gives every team a clear understanding of what they need to do to achieve maximum impact.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the key strategies and processes that drive successful upsells and retention. We’ll cover important topics such as defining your ideal customer, building a growth flywheel playbook, and understanding the importance of customer observability.

Whether you’re a seasoned SaaS veteran or just starting, these strategies will help you prioritize your customer base and drive growth for your business.

Product-led revenue: The importance of customer observability

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a business model focusing on building and growing a product-driven company. It is designed to increase customer engagement and drive revenue through product usage and customer satisfaction. One of the critical components of a successful PLG strategy is customer observability, which allows you to track and understand how customers interact with your product.

Forbes understands the ever-growing importance of PLG, especially for technical products, as the world of AI, sales, and marketing are becoming blurred and combined.

Customer observability provides valuable insights into the customer journey, allowing you to identify areas of improvement and optimize the customer experience. By understanding how customers engage with your product, you can make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and sales strategies. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, higher conversion rates, and, ultimately, increased revenue.

The Benefits of Customer Observability

Improved Customer Experience: By understanding the customer journey, you can identify areas of improvement and optimize the customer experience. This leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Increased Conversion Rates: Learning how customers interact with your product allows you to make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and sales strategies, leading to higher conversion rates so that you can be there at the most meaningful moment.

Better Product Development: Customer observability provides valuable insights into the customer journey, which can inform product development decisions and lead to creation of products that better meet customer needs.

The importance of customer observability in driving product-led revenue cannot be understated. AI platforms combine product-led growth efficiency with enterprise sales efficacy, helping every team understand exactly what needs to be done and where their efforts need to be focused on achieving maximum impact. With proper systems and processes in place, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customers and confidently drive product-led growth.

The key to successful upsells and retention

In the competitive landscape of modern SaaS, understanding your customers and what they need is essential to success. By defining your Product Qualified Lead, you can prioritize your customer base and focus on the right customers, leading to increased revenue and customer satisfaction.

A PQL is a crucial component of product-led growth and helps businesses understand who their most valuable customers are, their needs, and how to reach them effectively. By focusing on your PQL, you can make the most of your resources and direct your efforts toward growth initiatives.

Here’s what you can expect from defining your PQL:

  1. Prioritize your customer base: By understanding your PQL, you can prioritize your customer base and focus on the right customers, driving successful upsells and retention.
  2. Drive growth and success: By focusing on your PQL, you can drive growth and success by efficiently and effectively using your resources.
  3. Improve customer satisfaction: You can improve customer satisfaction by understanding your customers and their needs, leading to increased revenue and growth.

Defining your PQL is valuable in unlocking the potential for successful upsells and retention. You can drive growth and success while improving customer satisfaction by prioritizing your customer base and focusing on the right customers.

Growth Flywheel: Build a Playbook for Success

Now that you have clearly defined your lead and sales strategy, you can start implementing your growth flywheel. 

A growth flywheel is a (mostly) autonomous system that drives growth through a series of interconnected actions. The goal of a growth flywheel is to create a virtuous cycle that continually drives development and improvement, allowing your business to scale and succeed. One of the pivotal components of a successful growth flywheel is having a playbook that outlines the strategies and processes that drive growth. 

The Importance of a Growth Flywheel Playbook 

Below are the benefits of implementing a well-put-together growth flywheel for your team. Remember that skill can be trained, with the right processes, regardless of where your staff member starts from.

  • Consistency: A growth flywheel playbook ensures that all teams follow the same processes and strategies, leading to consistent and predictable growth.
  • Alignment: By having a shared understanding of what drives growth, teams can work together more effectively and achieve better results.
  • Scalability: A well-defined growth flywheel playbook allows you to scale your growth efforts, making it easier to drive growth as your business grows.

Constructing and Scaling Your Growth Flywheel Playbook 

Building a successful growth flywheel playbook requires a deep understanding of your customers, product, and market. Start by defining your target customer and the value you offer them. Then, identify the key growth drivers, such as customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. Finally, define the strategies and processes to drive growth in these areas.

A growth flywheel playbook is a living document, constantly evolving as you learn and grow. Continuously monitor and adjust your growth flywheel to ensure it drives the desired results.

By building a growth flywheel playbook, you can drive consistent and predictable growth, align your teams, and scale your business for success.

 The Future of Product-Led Growth

Product-led growth (PLG) is a business model that prioritizes the customer experience and focuses on building and growing a product-driven company. It has proven to be a successful approach to driving revenue, increasing customer engagement and satisfaction, and driving growth. The critical components of a successful PLG strategy are customer observability, defining your ideal customer (Product Qualified Lead), and implementing a growth flywheel playbook.

In the rapidly evolving world of SaaS, staying ahead of the competition requires a deep understanding of your customers, product, and market. With the power of advanced AI technologies, companies can now clearly understand what they need to do to achieve maximum impact. Customer observability provides valuable insights into the customer journey, allowing businesses to make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and sales strategies. Defining your PQL is crucial in unlocking the potential for successful upsells and retention.

Implementing a growth flywheel playbook is also essential in driving consistent and predictable growth. A well-defined growth flywheel playbook ensures that all teams follow the same processes and strategies, leading to better results and scalability as the business grows.

In conclusion, the future of product-led growth is bright. With the right tools and strategies, businesses can prioritize the customer experience and drive growth, leading to increased revenue, customer satisfaction, and success. Companies that embrace PLG and adopt these key strategies will continue to stay ahead of the competition and drive success in the fast-paced world of SaaS.

10 Invisible customer journey

Unlocking the Secret to Product-Led Growth: The Power of Understanding the Invisible Customer Journey

by Customer journeyProduct-led growthRevenue growth

When it comes to driving growth for your business, it’s easy to focus on the obvious metrics, such as website traffic and conversion rates. But have you ever stopped to consider the invisible journey that a customer travels to make their decision to convert? The hidden factors that influence a customer’s decision-making process can be just as important as the obvious ones.

From the first time a customer interacts with a brand, they go through an invisible journey that shapes their perception of a brand and the likelihood of doing business with the company again in the future. This invisible journey is the culmination of subtle cues and touchpoints that ultimately drive product-led growth. 

What is Product-Led Growth (PLG)?

Product-led growth (PLG) has become a buzzword in the business world as more companies recognize the power of letting their products speak for themselves. PLG is about creating an experience-driven product that resonates with customers and drives them through the entire customer journey. This is why a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences is crucial for businesses looking to optimize their PLG strategy.

Think of it like a game of chess. You may have all the right pieces on the board, but if you don’t understand the subtle tactics and strategies at play, you’ll never be able to outmaneuver your opponent. Similarly, businesses may have a great product and a solid marketing strategy, but without understanding customer behavior and insights, they’ll never be able to optimize their growth potential fully.

Decoding the customer journey

So, what does the customer journey look like in practice? Let’s say you’re a SaaS company that specializes in project management software. While your website may be getting plenty of traffic, you notice that many users are dropping off at the pricing page.

By digging deeper, you discover that many of these users are small businesses that are hesitant to commit to long-term contracts. With this information, you can adjust your pricing strategy to offer more flexible options, resulting in a significant increase in conversions.

But the customer journey doesn’t end at the pricing page. To fully optimize growth, it’s crucial to analyze why small businesses are dropping off at other stages. It could be that the information or resources on the website are insufficient or that the user interface is confusing. To address these issues, you can improve the website’s design and user experience to increase conversion rates.

Consider A/B testing different pricing options and website designs to see which ones have the best impact on conversions. Additionally, reach out to small businesses that have dropped off at the pricing page through email or phone to understand their specific concerns and answer any questions they may have. This will help you enhance the customer experience and foster closer relationships with prospective clients.

Leveraging the Customer Journey for PLG Success

With a clear understanding of the customer journey, it’s time to put this information to work. Here are some ways to optimize your PLG strategy using the customer journey:

Mapping the customer journey

Identify the critical stages of the customer journey, including awareness, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase.

Identifying pain points and opportunities

Analyze each stage of the customer journey and identify areas for improvement in the user experience.

Streamlining the onboarding experience

Ensure the onboarding process is easy to understand and provide resources and support to help customers get started.

Building a feedback loop

Ask for customer feedback at key stages in the customer journey and use that information to iterate and enhance the product.

Optimizing for retention

Recognize the factors that influence customer retention and concentrate on improving them.

Analyzing customer data

Use customer data and analytics to track behavior and identify aspects of the product that are promoting growth and engagement.

Personalizing the experience

Use consumer data to personalize the experience and develop targeted marketing strategies to engage different customer segments.

Use consumer data to personalize the experience and develop targeted marketing strategies to engage different customer segments.

Continuous testing and optimization

Keep testing and refining all aspects of the customer journey, from the onboarding process to the in-app experience. Doing this will help you enhance the overall user experience and drive growth.

 

Unlock Your PLG Strategy with the Invisible Customer Journey

In conclusion, unlocking the power of the “invisible journey” is key to driving growth for businesses. By gaining a deep understanding of customers and their behavior, businesses can improve customer retention, increase acquisition, and enhance conversion rates. By utilizing consumer data to personalize the experience, businesses can develop targeted marketing strategies that effectively engage different customer segments. Continuous testing and optimization of the customer journey is critical, from the onboarding process to the in-app experience. This helps businesses enhance the overall user experience and drive growth.

The customer journey is a complex and ever-evolving process, and businesses need to stay ahead of the curve to succeed. Rather than relying on assumptions and guesses, businesses should embrace the “invisible journey” to make data-driven decisions and adopt best practices that foster growth. Embracing the power of the “invisible journey” will empower businesses to take control of their growth strategy and achieve long-term success.

5 Importance of KPI tracking

Why Seamless KPI Tracking Matters

by Customer journeyRevenue growth

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are the metrics that businesses use to see how they are doing and where they are going. Without KPIs, teams struggle to find ways to move forward. That’s why tracking KPIs—the right ones—is mission critical. 

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Forbes points out that businesses can waste precious focus on the wrong data. In a list of 16 signs that a team may be tracking KPIs incorrectly, the Forbes Council explained what “wrong data” looks like. The wrong focus happens when the revenue impact or goal for tracking a data set is unclear. The team might start with data they already have on hand, and fail to gather new info relevant to a new direction. 

This is why seamless KPI tracking is essential to growth. With tools that comb through data and hone KPIs, teams can track data sets that make sense for goal-oriented tracking. 

What KPI Tracking Means For Product-Led Growth

Building a “product-led” growth model means building a product that sells itself over time. The Product-led Growth Collective calls “product-led growth” the future of business growth. 

Product-led models focus on the buyer, why they buy your product and the factors that make your product trustworthy and ready to solve the user’s pain points. Boiled down, a product-led growth model focuses on designing a product that is so well made its value speaks for itself in user experience scenarios such as free trials.  

With the product-led market model, seamless KPIs are essential because they give actionable insights into what makes your product relevant to your ideal buyer. 

The right KPIs put product designers on the same path as the buyer’s journey and help you understand where improvement can meet the pain points best. Product-led growth is a design-led commitment to making a product function with ease and efficiency, according to the Product-led Growth Collective. 

How Seamless KPI Tracking Helps Steer Growth Opportunities 

KPIs highlight “key performance indicators”. That information can show the things that make for a positive impact, but it can also show negative things that need improvement, according to Indeed.com. 

Sometimes key performance indicators show problem areas rather than expected outcomes. This data helps teams crack down on areas that need work. 

Seamless KPI tracking that shows the right data in real-time is an asset for steering opportunities. When a team leader sees from the mission-real KPI what areas should be highlighted, they can hone in on opportunities. 

Seamless, Timely, and Relevant KPI Tracking 

Tracking KPIs should include time frame factoring. The KPI information may be interesting, but irrelevant to the near future goal. A seamless KPI tracking system will allow for goals to adjust to their order of current relevance. This means that information that is most important now is ready for the task at hand, while information that will be important for a later target goal is queued according to its need to appear. 

Why Tracking User Behavior Is Key 

When your product is your leading point, focusing on user behavior data is the key point to kickstart customer success. This data lets you walk a mile in your user’s shoes, follow their journey, and understand their needs and wants. With this understanding, a team can orchestrate user journey paths to drive more meaningful product engagement. This self-service path translates into conversions and can reduce churn. 

User Journey Data and Targeting Ideal Customers 

Rather than taking on a bunch of new tools, teams can focus on data and use their toolkit in informed and efficient ways. This is why Coho.ai helps teams optimize their existing tech stack. The Coho system seamlessly integrates existing tools to cut down the time between product insights and Go-To-Market actions. 

Using your current tools data in a timely way, you can reduce the time-to-value of a user’s experience with your product. Analyze how consumers are engaging with and using your product. 

Watching these interactions, you can create workflows in your existing toolkit that target the roadblocks to user paths. By doing this, you are cutting down the work your users have to do to understand the user experience or UX flow. 

Earlier we talked about six steps to optimize your user’s journey. Once user journey paths are identified through data, you’ll need to target your ideal customer. Focus special attention on building client relationships by upselling services to highly engaged users. 

Want to seamlessly track your KPIs? Contact us!

Group 5

6 steps to optimize your user and customer journey

by Customer journeyProduct-led growth

The customer journey is the backbone of any successful business strategy. It’s the roadmap that leads a prospect from being just a potential customer to becoming a loyal and returning one. The ultimate goal of any growth or go-to-market team is to streamline this process and make it as smooth and efficient as possible for their target audience.

Optimizing the customer journey is crucial for companies of all sizes and across all industries. It involves mapping out the key touchpoints and experiences that a customer has with your brand and finding ways to improve them. In this article, we will delve into the six essential steps that every company should take to optimize their user and customer journey. These steps will help you better understand your customers’ needs and create a journey that is tailored to their unique requirements.

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Step one: Gather your user data

The key to optimizing the customer journey is understanding who your target audience is and what their needs and preferences are. This information is crucial for making informed decisions about how to optimize their journey. To do this, it is important to collect and analyze customer data, including metrics, product data, and communication data. These metrics will provide insights into your target audience and guide the optimization process. Choose the metrics wisely, as they will play a crucial role in shaping the journey for your customers.

Step two: Map your user journey

A crucial aspect of optimizing the user journey is mapping out each step from start to finish. This involves considering the timeline of the journey, identifying different user groups and their unique needs, and analyzing the behavior patterns of your target audience. By understanding these key elements, you can create a comprehensive map that effectively guides users through their experience with your brand. Utilize available data and research to gain insights into your audience’s behavior and ensure your map accurately represents their journey.

Step three: Evaluate funnel performance

Now that you know what the user journey looks like in general, work on making it as easy as possible for as many of your target groups as possible. Where are the strengths of your funnels, and where are the potential pitfalls that will cause your target to fall away or look elsewhere? Just as importantly, what are the popular parts of the journey that move your audience forward more rapidly to the next step? Getting feedback from users is essential at this stage. Make sure that you listen closely to what your target users have to say at chokepoints and acceleration points.

Step four: Know your ideal customer profile

Once you have mapped out your user journey, observed targeted group behavior within that journey, and received feedback as to why those behaviors took place, you can then identify a target group that is most aligned with your overall user journey and product offering, usually referred to as your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). Note: Just because you have identified the most advantageous customer for your business does not mean that you neglect the other groups. However, you now know which groups to prioritize and focus on as your baseline. Your baseline group should also serve as a control group of sorts. If they do not engage with your journey at any point, then you know that you have internal issues to work out.

Step five: Engagement and personalization

Now that you have a user journey you are confident as well as a control group of baseline users to count on, you can work towards becoming more engaging to greater amounts of people. You can also work on personalizing the journey for customers who deserve an extraordinary amount of priority. What are your optimization points? Can they be replicated so as to engage more users and greater numbers of users? Can you add engagement points at more difficult times in the journey to keep less enthusiastic people on board?

Step six: Measurement and reporting

During every step in the process, you should be measuring and reporting back your results. The formation of a user journey is iterative in nature; that is, once you get to the end, you circle back and start over with the experience of the previous journey informing your future endeavor. So even though measurement and reporting is at the end of this article, it should actually take place throughout the creation of the customer journey. Take special note of the points of greatest improvement and disappointment. Now is the time that you can begin to replace all of your assumptions with hard data for better results down the line.

If you need help with this process, Coho AI can help you automate the mapping of your user journey, identify your weak spots and set up your new engagement. automations for optimization.

In short, we help you color your map inside the lines, which can greatly shorten the timeframe in which you create your user journey. And the sooner you get your journey created, the more quickly you could begin to assess your target audience and bring in the hard data that will inform your relationship with them for years to come. Contact us to learn more!

9 Coho introduction

Introducing Coho AI – Helping you optimize your conversion funnels and customer journeys

by Customer journeyProduct-led growth

The B2B SaaS world is changing

Different product-led growth strategies in the B2B SaaS world have revolutionized how businesses acquire new customers and retain existing ones. These companies now have the ability to bring thousands of users each month, and offer free plans to let users experience the product’s value before they even have to purchase.

But this also brings different challenges, as these companies often face various gaps in the user journey, especially when dealing with the user journey towards conversion along the funnel and upselling to customers. Fixing these gaps can lead to more revenue.

This is where Coho AI comes in, offering insights based on the product’s usage data analysis. This can help you convert new or free users to paid users, as well as giving the GTM teams the tools they need to know who to focus on next for upsell, expansion and cross sell opportunities.

Think of it like weaponizing your company to help you achieve more revenue growth and optimize the user journey experience.

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Scaling product-led growth strategies

The number of companies adopting product-led growth strategies has steadily increased since the early 2000s. The three main features of product-led growth strategies are:

  • Designing products for the user
  • Creating products with a go-to-market objective
  • Solving the user’s immediate problem

Scaling your product-led growth strategies requires that you have full visibility of the user journey. This will allow you to understand how your clients are using your products and how you can enhance the user experience.

Coho AI can help you scale your product-led growth strategies by giving you full visibility. We can also assist you in analyzing your user data to understand their behavior. This will enable you to get critical insights on how to:

  • Create user journeys that lead to more engagements
  • Tailor the user journey to drive up self-service conversions
  • Reduce churn and uncover key upsell potential
  • Get relevant product-qualified leads

Effectively scaling your product-led growth strategies requires identifying where gaps exist in your user journeys. For instance, you may find that users are not moving down the funnel. Such challenges are easy to solve if you have complete visibility of the user journey.

You need to understand that user needs are constantly changing. Thus, insights will change, and you will need to analyze user data continuously. This will help you understand how to appeal to users and what problems you can help them solve.

Your current product-led growth strategies may be working just fine. The Coho AI platform gives you full visibility of the user journey, which can help you grow your company’s revenue.

Identify problems that needs solving

The best way to identify problems that need solving is through data analysis. But data analysis is a lengthy and continuous process that requires a lot of resources. You have to conduct data analysis on various types of data, including:

  • Product data
  • User data
  • Communication data

Coho AI’s solution will help you save time on building an internal solution and will enable you to get a fresh analysis every time you need it. Keeping you up-to-date on the latest trends and insights within your product and getting real-time analysis on various opportunities and issues at different stages of the user journey.

Our platform can help you identify issues you didn’t know existed and suggest new ways to enhance the user journey and increase your revenue. For instance, we can:

  • Map your user journey and show you the conversion rate along it
  • Prioritize which customers are good upsell and expansion opportunities
  • Identify which accounts might be at a churn risk and need a save

Partner With Coho AI Today

Making use of the product-led growth model requires that you understand the user journey. The only way to do this is through continuous data analysis to understand all strengths and weaknesses in your user journey. Coho AI will help you shorten this process and get all the insights you need to improve your journeys and focus on the right customers. Further, whenever you identify what works, you can add automations that will help you move users down the funnel.

Contact us and we’ll help you build your product-led revenue machine and watch your ARR soar.