Hello and welcome to the Exit Five weekly newsletter - read by 19,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 3,500 other members at exitfive.com.
Today’s Newsletter is Brought to You By Navattic
Are B2B SaaS websites more or less buyer-first than last year?
Navattic and Chili Piper explored just that in their2024 B2B Buyer First Best Practices Report.
It’s easy to complain about bad enterprise SaaS buying. But it’s getting better. Last year after booking demos with the top 100 SaaS companies:
- 35% never got back in touch with us
- Average of 2 days for companies to respond
- Only 17% of websites had interactive demos on their website
- 57% of websites had pricing pages
In comparison this year:
- Majority same-day responses
- 31% of websites had interactive demos
- 68% of websites had pricing pages
Curious why it got so much better than last year?Read the full report here.
By the way - this email was designed inKnakwhich helps you create email and landing pages in minutes without having to write code. Learn more aboutKnakhere.
A New(ish) Way to Measure B2B Marketing
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking around measurement the last few weeks – and by thinking, I meanavoiding.
It gets complex, quickly, and that’s usually where I get lost in the weeds of it all. From trying to make sure tracking is set up perfectly to capture every single little touch point to fighting for more credit in the attribution model.
In a previous role, I used to walk through every single closed-won deal and manually type out a google doc of all those different touch points, to try and create some sense of what was working and what wasn’t. It was exhausting and ineffective.
Back in May, I saw Pranav Piyush (CEO at Paramark) speak at the Beloved Tech Brands conference in San Francisco – and breathed a sigh of relief during his roundtable because what he was saying about measurement actually made sense.
He introduced me to a concept called incrementality, which is a way to determine if a single marketing activity is actually driving the desired outcome.
In other words – If a lead would never have booked a demo until they saw a piece of marketing, then that marketing is highly incremental. If they were going to book it anyways, then that marketing would not be considered incremental.
It might sound like it requires some kind of magic and/or mind-reading at scale to figure out, but thankfully, it’s much simpler than that.
Here’s three examples of experiments you can try running:
3 Ways to Measure Incrementality
Geo-testing
- Method:Turn on marketing efforts in specific regions and turn them off in others.
- How to Test:This method will work best for marketing activities like LinkedIn or Meta ads. Try running LinkedIn ads in California and New York but not in other states.
- What to Look For:Track the differences in traffic, leads, and conversions between these regions. You’ll see if that activity is actually bringing in more customers by isolating it from other variables.
Time-Based Testing
- Method:Alternate periods when a marketing activity is active and inactive.
- How to Test:This works best on a channel like social media – try doubling the amount of content you post one month, or significantly change the type of content you post. The next month, peel it back by half.
- What to Look For:Measure the difference between impressions, engagement, web traffic driven by the social network, and ultimately lead generation.
Conversion Lift Testing
- Method:Use native tools on Meta, YouTube, or TikTok to split your audience into control and test groups.
- How to Test:Set up an ad campaign to deliver to the test group, but not the control group and collect conversion data for both groups. This can include actions like purchases, sign-ups, demo requests, etc.
- What to Look For:The platform will help you analyze the difference between conversion rates between the test and control groups. The difference between the two is the “incremental lift.”
Imagine taking the results of just one of these tests to your CEO and saying, “we know that if we post this type of content on linkedin 3x a week, we’ll increase demos booked by 10%?”
Talk about a credibility boost – and making the case for you to keep investing in that channel.
P.S.This is just a brief overview of a complex topic, and an excellent interview Dave did with Pranav. Let me know if you want me to send over the link to the full thing.
I’d also love to know about your experience with measurement… anything working really well for you? Any tools you can’t live without? Just reply to this email – I read (and cherish) every single reply.
Podcast #159: Growth | Personalized Gifting, Direct Mail, and AI Driven Outbound with Kris Rudeegraap, CEO and Founder of Sendoso
In this episode, Dave is joined by Kris Rudeegraap, CEO of Sendoso, a leading platform for direct mail and gifting in B2B marketing. Kris is an expert in using creative direct mail tactics and AI to create profitable marketing campaigns. He has helped numerous companies enhance their engagement and conversion rates through thoughtful and personalized gifting strategies.
Dave and Kris cover:
- The differences between Growth Ops and Revenue Ops (and where each is most effective)
- Must-try direct mail strategies that go above and beyond to create memorable customer experiences
- How companies have created automated programmatic outbound strategies using AI, including tools and techniques that enhance efficiency and personalization
Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "exitfive" podcast.
Podcast #160: Career | Remote Work Loneliness, Embracing Change, and Giving & Receiving Feedback with Kara Hardin
Dave is joined by Kara Hardin, a Registered Psychotherapist and Lead Executive Officer at The Practice Lab. Kara specializes in the complicated ways that mental health drives performance and how it shows up at work. Drawing from her extensive experience, Kara provides actionable advice for B2B marketers to enhance their professional lives.
Kara and Dave cover:
- How adapting to your team’s preferences can lead to better collaboration, higher productivity, and a more harmonious work environment
- How to view change as a natural and positive part of business strategy, rather than something to fear
- Practical advice on how to maintain meaningful connection and effective communication in remote work environments
Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "exitfive" podcast.
Upcoming Events
How long should it take to respond to inbound leads? How should you re-engage no-shows? Are you leaving valuable leads hanging?
If you want more demo requests, and more of those requests to turn into revenue, join us for this Exit Five Live session on August 7th at 3pm EST. We’re teaming up with Josh Garrison, VP of Content Marketing at Apollo to break down the ultimate demo request flow for inbound leads.
In this session:
- Our experts will look at real demo request flows from Exit Five members, and get live feedback on how to improve it to drive more revenue
- Learn the ideal inbound lead flow and exactly how to set it up yourself
- Get your burning questions answered by Exit Five Founder Dave Gerhardt and VP of Content Marketing at Apollo
- Engage in the chat and share your ideas with fellow B2B marketers.
This session is open to anyone that works in B2B marketing, whether you’re an Exit Five member or not. We’ll record this session and share with everyone that registers, even if you can’t make it there live.
But Exit Five Live attendees know it’s better to come join if you can make it and participate in the chat, ask questions, and share your ideas with your peers in marketing.
RSVP Here
Open Roles
HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: Drivepoint is looking for a Demand Generation Manager who will be responsible for creating and managing campaigns to generate leads, demos, and sales opportunities. Reports directly to the CEO. $85-$110k annually.
If you're interested, you can apply here.
Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:
- CLARA is hiring a Head of Product Marketing. Remote Role.
- Close is hiring a Senior Social Media Manager. Remote Role.
- Close is hiring a Senior Partner Marketing Manager.
- Circle is hiring a Senior Demand Generation Manager.
- Circle is hiring a Head of Product Marketing
- OhMD is hiring a Demand Generation Marketer. $70-100k salary.
- Backbase B.V is hiring a Senior Director Demand Generation. Remote Role.
- HighByte is hiring a Demand Generation Manager.
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