I wonder where would you place Godin's Purple Cow among these approaches. It is kind of similar to Way #2 but a bit different in that it is a very product-centric approach. wdyt?
Lenny I was reflecting on this same question recently as we've just launched a very verticalized SaaS, for sports facilities. How do we help prospective customers discover our offering, without overspending on CAC or leveraging channels with no ROI / direct reach to a very specific group of buyers / users. The vertical challenge!!
If you're just starting out, I'd over-index on hard-to-measure-unscalable channels that get you in front of your potential buyers as often as possible. Later, you can explore ways to make this cost-efficient and scalable.
When you are targeting a B2B audience you can build out an ideal customer profile using databases such as zoominfo, cognism, and even LinkedIn.
By mining their info you can then drill down to email level and use that for custom audiences on paid social (applying a more targeted brand building / top of funnel activity as per Lenny’s suggestion which is an important part of the process for such a small niche) and of course cold outbound and account based marketing.
Pleasure, the joys of running an agency and benefits of working as a growth advisor is that I get a full spectrum view across multiple businesses on what's working.
Oren, it absolutely does. Thank you. I thought our leadgen was relegated to cold emails / outreach, but you and Lenny have given me some ideas. We've got a great list of prospects, trying to get the most out of it.
Cold outbound is an ideal bottom of the funnel channel. Marketing is effectively building awareness on as many touch points as possible. People now days go to Google, social groups, review sites (G2 etc') and ask peers in their buying journey. To only operate on one channel is akin to only doing the same exercise (and only that one) on repeat in the gym. You want a varied strategy that's from top to bottom to drive meaningful results. Especially in a niche with a limited audience you can easily find out what they consume and target them.
Great examples! Facebook/slack professional groups would fall into the first or second groups (colleagues, or organically coming across them online). Professional events would fall into the "While out and about and seeing a promotion" bucket in this case.
Yeah, I gotcha. It's possible to adapt and delineate the varied sources and argue about the nuance. You did a good job capturing the main ones. What's curious is the proportion. And of course the complexity of attribution from top all the way to bottom of the funnel.
Enjoying the newsletter when I find the time to catch up on it. Good stuff Lenny.
Great post, Lenny!
I wonder where would you place Godin's Purple Cow among these approaches. It is kind of similar to Way #2 but a bit different in that it is a very product-centric approach. wdyt?
Check out this post for a lot more on this concept https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/creating-buzz-at-launch
For enterprise SaaS, apart from sales, any other channels or examples you could highlight?
For enterprise SaaS, it's all about sales.
Lenny I was reflecting on this same question recently as we've just launched a very verticalized SaaS, for sports facilities. How do we help prospective customers discover our offering, without overspending on CAC or leveraging channels with no ROI / direct reach to a very specific group of buyers / users. The vertical challenge!!
If you're just starting out, I'd over-index on hard-to-measure-unscalable channels that get you in front of your potential buyers as often as possible. Later, you can explore ways to make this cost-efficient and scalable.
To chip in here, uninvited.
When you are targeting a B2B audience you can build out an ideal customer profile using databases such as zoominfo, cognism, and even LinkedIn.
By mining their info you can then drill down to email level and use that for custom audiences on paid social (applying a more targeted brand building / top of funnel activity as per Lenny’s suggestion which is an important part of the process for such a small niche) and of course cold outbound and account based marketing.
Hope that helps.
Such tactical advice Oren, I love it! Thank you for sharing!
Pleasure, the joys of running an agency and benefits of working as a growth advisor is that I get a full spectrum view across multiple businesses on what's working.
Oren, it absolutely does. Thank you. I thought our leadgen was relegated to cold emails / outreach, but you and Lenny have given me some ideas. We've got a great list of prospects, trying to get the most out of it.
Cold outbound is an ideal bottom of the funnel channel. Marketing is effectively building awareness on as many touch points as possible. People now days go to Google, social groups, review sites (G2 etc') and ask peers in their buying journey. To only operate on one channel is akin to only doing the same exercise (and only that one) on repeat in the gym. You want a varied strategy that's from top to bottom to drive meaningful results. Especially in a niche with a limited audience you can easily find out what they consume and target them.
What about Facebook/slack professional groups? And professional events e.g. speakers or exhibits?
Great examples! Facebook/slack professional groups would fall into the first or second groups (colleagues, or organically coming across them online). Professional events would fall into the "While out and about and seeing a promotion" bucket in this case.
Yeah, I gotcha. It's possible to adapt and delineate the varied sources and argue about the nuance. You did a good job capturing the main ones. What's curious is the proportion. And of course the complexity of attribution from top all the way to bottom of the funnel.
Enjoying the newsletter when I find the time to catch up on it. Good stuff Lenny.
I'm now tempted to take this post and turn it into a many-layered map of ALL of the options.