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Podcasts and the Trouble with Conversion Optimization

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Podcast marketing advice tends to be overly simplistic and unhelpful. For example: “Once they’ve followed you on Twitter, send them to Apple Podcasts and get them to subscribe to your show.” Such flippant recommendations get tossed around a lot. However, the complexities of the podcast conversion funnel are far greater than they initially appear.

What follows serves as a guide to understanding the podcast conversion funnel, how it differs from a standard content marketing funnel, and how it ultimately converts listeners into qualified leads. Understanding it is one of the most fundamental pieces to understand if you want your podcast to succeed.

The Podcast Conversion Funnel

For most B2B marketers, optimizing a conversion funnel requires:

  • Data analysis, which enables marketers to make decisions based on quantitative data.
  • Customer research, which enables marketers to make decisions based on qualitative feedback.

Unfortunately for most companies, the world of podcasting doesn’t fully offer either of these. Data is available, but it’s almost entirely anonymized. Qualitative feedback is available, but it relies on listeners reaching out to you. That makes the podcast conversion funnel difficult to optimize, since you can’t entirely rely on great data or knowing who is listening at any particular stage.

How Does The Funnel Work?

It starts when people become aware of your podcast. That can be the result of seeing a post of yours on LinkedIn, by one customer sharing it with another potential customer, or in any one of a hundred other ways. The podcast conversion funnel is further obscured by not knowing who is listening to your podcast, since most podcast players don’t provide data on subscribers or on listening behaviors.

Then there is the big leap from initial discovery to deciding to open a podcast app. It involves going from Desktop to Mobile, browsing to engaging, and passive to active participation. If that big leap happens, they’ll ideally subscribe to your show.

Finally, as a business, you want to translate those engagements into known contacts.To do that, listeners will have to leave the podcast application and get in touch with you. Optimizing for their preferred method of contact is also a challenge. Do they prefer email? A phone call? A form fill?

It’s the complexity of this funnel that makes most podcasting advice seem out of touch. Saying something like, “once they discover your show, get them to subscribe to your show” is as useful as saying, “when you get to Europe, say ‘hi’ to my friend Jacques” with no additional guidance on who Jacques is.

Good luck with that.

Understanding the Funnel Is Half the Battle

With podcasting, luck isn’t enough. Instead, our advice is to prioritize the parts that you can measure and have the greatest value.

Here’s a handy breakdown of each stage of the funnel:

StageMeasurable?ValueNotes
AwarenessNoLowYou can’t measure who becomes aware of your podcast in the same way you know how many people viewed a blog post. Podcast awareness happens in thousands of locations, most of which aren’t instrumented for tracking on a per-listener level. In addition, the value of this stage isn’t particularly high, since awareness doesn’t necessarily lead to becoming a client.
First ListenNoMediumThe first time someone listens to your podcast might be on social media, YouTube, your website, or a podcast player. Each provides different levels of analytics. For example, you could see the number of viewers who saw your tweet, while a podcast app will tell you how many downloads you receive but not how many people viewed your podcast.While you may not know who is listening, there is some value in improving conversion at this stage of the funnel. After all, the adage of “first impressions matter” is especially true in podcasting.
In the AppYesHighYou can measure if people are visiting a podcast app for your podcast in two ways. First, you can track clicks from links you have on your website. Second, you can look at the weekly download numbers per user agent, which is provided by most podcast hosts. Similarly, the expected value here is quite high, since they’re clearly interested enough to open a third-party app to listen to your show.
SubscriptionPartiallyHighThere are ways to measure the number of subscribers you have in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and a handful of other podcasting apps. However, you’ll never get a complete number of subscribers or any information on who those subscribers are. While the subscriber data is mostly incomplete, the value of a subscriber is incredibly high. That’s because they’re not only interested in your show, but they’re also automatically downloading future episodes onto their personal devices.
First ContactYesHighBeing contacted by someone listening to your show is both very measurable (you have a new lead) and has a very high expected value (they’re talking to you). However, to fully take advantage of this value, you need to make sure your marketing and sales teams are aligned on tracking these touch points.

The big takeaway is that the two highest priority stages of the podcast conversion funnel are App Open and First Contact. From the perspective of getting the best bang for your buck, these two stages typically have the most to offer. (That’s not to say that the other stages aren’t important.)

A caveat: this will change as more podcast apps share information about who is subscribing to your show. But we’re not quite there yet. In the past month, we had more than 60 apps play our podcast, with only a handful of apps reporting subscriber data.

As with all conversion optimization and lead generation, some of the most valuable work you can undertake is to reduce friction from one stage of the funnel to another.

In the App Stage

By the time someone has listened to your podcast, much of your work is done. But, you still need to get them to open a podcast app and subscribe to your show. Logistically speaking, that means that wherever they’re listening to your show (social media, your website, etc.), you need to have a link pointing them to the relevant podcast apps.

For something as mundane as linking to a podcast, there are two opposing schools of thought: glass half-full and glass half-empty.

The Half-Full school optimistically believes that most people will have a preferred podcast app on their phones and that they’ll want to view your show on that app. So, they provide a grid of links pointing to all of the major podcasting apps. Which is no small number, as there are dozens of active podcast apps.

The Half-Empty school looks at the data saying most people have never listened to a podcast and believes that they should only rely on pre-installed podcast apps. So, they provide a link to Google Podcasts for Android users and Apple Podcasts for iOS users.

Personally speaking, they both have some merit. Deciding on one avenue vs. another relies on understanding the target audience for your podcast. Are they technologically savvy? They likely have a preferred app. Are they less tech savvy? The default apps will likely work fine.

Either way, one tool we use for our show, the B2B Revealed Podcast, is Branch. It has many applications, but the relevant one here is that you can create a link that will redirect based on the type of device the user is using. As an example, if you click this link to our interview with Dr. Bhaskar Chakravorti it will open Apple Podcasts on an iOS device, Google Podcasts on an Android device, and our website on any desktop device. Simple tweaks like that can create a great experience for your listeners.

The First Contact Stage

Seeing your monthly download numbers go up and to the right can be a wonderful feeling. Yet, if none of those people are converting to customers, what’s the point? That’s why it’s so crucial to pay attention to the First Contact stage.

There are three common ways that brands grease this stage of the funnel: gating, advertising, and participation.

Closing the Gate

Some brands use their podcast as a teaser for content that’s locked behind a content gate. For example, if you have a podcast where you’re interviewing experts in your industry, you could post the first 10 minutes of the interview in your public feed and then explain that the full hour-long interview is available on your website in exchange for an email address.

The upside here is that you’ll gather contact information from those who want to listen to the entire podcast. The downside is that you’re effectively producing two different podcast feeds. That may not be worth the effort, as many of the leads will be unqualified and unready for any serious discussion about using your products or services. They are leads, yes, but the value is a bit lower.

Self-Advertising

Another way that companies increase the conversion is by advertising their company as the sponsor and creator of the podcast. Since it’s rare for people to want to listen to a company talk about themselves all day long, most successful branded podcasts focus on larger themes than a self-centered pitch.

Still, many listeners will be unaware what your company is or what you provide. By inserting a 30-second advertisement for your own company in the middle or end of every episode, you’ll increase awareness and conversion. For example, on our podcast, we put in an audio clip that sounds like this:

Audience Participation

Finally, getting your audience to participate in the creation of an episode is a great way to transform podcasting from a one-way broadcast channel into a two-way conversation.

For example, we’ve recently begun soliciting questions for our guest experts on B2B Revealed. This gives clients and listeners the benefit of asking experts questions about marketing and marketing research. It also allows us to engage with clients in a more meaningful way and gives listeners new perspectives on topics we cover.

Funnel Tunnel Vision

Without understanding your conversion funnel, your podcast will meander along without clear direction.

But, if you spend some time understanding and optimizing your conversion funnel, you’ll end up with a clear idea of what needs to be done to get your podcast in the ears of the right people.

Need help launching or optimizing a business podcast? Check out our B2B podcast production services.

With custom market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector. We work with everyone from enterprise tech stalwarts to up-and-comers in fields such as FinTech, MarTech, Health Tech, and more.

Tech Needs More Age Diversity

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Despite frequent public commitments to diversity, the tech industry isn’t kind to those over age 35.

What’s more, many don’t see a problem with that. Remember when Mark Zuckerberg famously claimed that “young people are just smarter”?

But, companies deprive themselves of the benefit of experience when they undervalue hiring and retaining workers who have made it passed their 20s.

Cascade Insights was recently asked to present our research on ageism by industry. During our study, we analyzed 9.45 million LinkedIn profiles.  Our analysis revealed that employees over the age of 35 are in the minority in the tech industry.

Our talk focused on our methodology, data, and findings about the rampant ageism in tech. Here, we would like to provide some more context for why age discrimination is depriving the industry of a plethora of talented workers and unduly undervaluing some of the sharpest minds in tech.

There is nothing that should limit those over 35 from having a job in tech. In fact, tech is worse off without them.

(We also presented our findings on the gender gap in tech. Check out our defense of women in tech reading list here.)

Age discrimination is detrimental to valuable members of the workforce.

Companies should not discount the benefit of experience when hiring, acquiring, & funding.

Millennials will not drag down the average age of the U.S. worker. In fact, it’s going to get grayer out there.

Diversity benefits companies by making them more likely to innovate and raise profits. 

 Older workers are more loyal, reducing turnover costs.

 How can we improve age diversity in tech? Here are some ideas.

For all of the above reasons, ageism in tech cannot simply be written off as older workers being less capable than their younger colleagues.            

This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights. With B2B focused market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector.

Creative Teams Need a Reliable Protector

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It’s not just newly-promoted, doe-eyed marketing managers who make serious management mistakes. Seasoned enterprise executives aren’t immune to expensive screw ups either. On the latest episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast, Herding Tigers author Todd Henry explained that mismanagement of creative teams leads to talent loss and companies that underperform compared to their peers. Henry shared some tips for conscientious creative leadership.

Creative Goals Need Business Results

Managers need to make sure their teams understand how their work affects the larger business goals of the company. This helps avoid an ego-driven company culture. Creative success should be measured in terms of business results.

“The reality is, for most of us, we engage in work that we don’t always love, we don’t always agree with necessarily, but it’s our job to get it done,” Henry said.

In a business setting, creatives need to be able to produce great work even when they don’t control the larger vision for the project.

Your Job Description Now Includes “Threading Needles”

Leaders need to understand how to build an environment where creativity thrives. According to Henry, that requires providing stability without getting near the border of Boredom Land. Without stability, the team will find itself working on the same problem over-and-over again, without every finishing the project. With too much stability, the team won’t feel creatively challenged. It’s the leader’s job to walk that fine line between stability and boredom.

To key elements of a great creative environment are:

  • Clear expectations.
  • An even playing field.
  • Protected time for creative cycles.
  • Stakeholders throughout the company who are invested in the creative team’s work.
  • A steady flow of exciting projects.

Is This Meeting Over?

 

Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of Herding Tigers.

Like it or not, meetings are a fact of life — especially on creative teams that depend on collaboration. Yet, even though we all wish we’d only have to sit in on useful meetings, the opposite is often true. That’s why at some point in all of our careers, we’ve all walked away from meetings scratching our heads and wondering, “Wait, what did we decide again?” Great creative leadership is about making this as uncommon as an enterprise company with no marketing vendors.

 

According to Henry, good leadership means being able to say, “Okay, this is the decision and now this meeting is over.” That’s true even if there are still 20 minutes left on the scheduled event. That kind of clear action is uncomfortable for people who don’t want to put their neck on the line for controversial or risky decisions, but is critical if your creatives are going to do effective work. Decisiveness eliminates confusion. Don’t less unnecessary meeting time detract from needed periods of creative focus.   

Chekhov vs. Chesterton

Focus on building a culture that fosters creativity, but in a way that doesn’t just seek to flip over tables and start from scratch every time. To illustrate this, Henry referenced two quotes.

“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road” Henry quoted G. K. Chesterton, the notable English writer. “The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”

Then, in contrast, Henry pointed to a quote from Anton Chekhov, the famed Russian poet, who advises, “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”  

A great creative leader knows how to balance these two extremes. They know that they shouldn’t just throw everything out because it doesn’t make sense, but they also know that they need to remove unnecessary distractions for their team. Finding that balance creates an environment that allows creatives to reach new heights.

Push Play to Expand Your View of Great Management

This interview with Henry was packed so full of valuable insights we couldn’t fit them all in one article. Listen to the episode for more on constructing a creative environment, best practices for managing a creative team, how to (smartly) give up control over decisions, the secret benefits of having a pet project, and some great book recommendations.

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B expertise in your life? There are many ways to follow us.

B2B PR: The Blurring of Business & Politics

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In the age of social media, big data, and CEO activism, public relations best practices are evolving.

Nicole Rodrigues, the founder and CEO of NRPR Group, dropped by the B2B Revealed podcast to discuss B2B PR with Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell. Rodrigues has more than 17 years of experience in public relations and social media marketing. She is a member of the Forbes Agency Council and sits on the board of The Organization of American Women In Public Relations.

Nicole Rodrigues is the founder and CEO of NRPR Group.

Rodrigues prefers to emphasize organic audiences, but she acknowledges the growing need to pay for visibility. “I’m not huge on the pay to play stuff because I do truly believe that organic is where it’s at,” she said. “Organic is where you’re getting the honest third-party validation.”

However, formerly free options increasingly come with a price tag. Rodrigues explained that writers for popular sites used to appreciate being alerted to news items by PR folks. These days, they charge for a write-up. “Before it was like, “Great, you have news. Let’s talk.” And now it’s, “Well, but do you have money to sponsor this?”,” Rodrigues lamented. “There are great sites that people are reading …like Huffington Post nowadays. Some of these writers are like, “Yeah, I really love this product but I’m an independent writer so I’m going to charge $500 for it.” Then you have to go back to the client and say that.”

Companies that don’t already command huge audiences should expect to pay for media attention, good search rankings, brand awareness, etc. “It’s a necessary evil nowadays,” said Rodrigues. “It really stinks but it is what it is. If that’s what it takes to build up your reputation, then sometimes you just have to do it.”

Campbell and Rodrigues also discussed the increasing blurring of business and politics. As we are living in an era of CEO activism, it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep politics out of business. But how should company leaders gauge when to speak up and when to stay silent?

Rodrigues advises against simply hopping on the latest viral news item. Instead, company leadership should be guided by their core values and the social practices they’ve actually implemented in their own organizations. She gave this example: “Say you want to share your policies on discrimination and say, “We want everyone to know that we believe in equal pay and equal rights. By the way, 67 percent of the workforce at our company is female and they make the majority of the money.””

Authenticity is key. Are you sharing an opinion on a value you’ve actually put into practice? Or are you just jumping on a trending hashtag? “You can tell surface level and you can tell soul,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues urged caution in using the company platform to advocate for social issues that may offend your workforce or clients. “Your company is bigger than you are,” she said. “You have to look at the benefit of the company. If what you’re going to say could possibly have a negative effect on your company, then I say you need to keep your opinions to yourself and remain neutral.”

More PR Pro Tips

Listen to the full episode for more guidance on when and how to weigh in on politics, reputation building, coordinating PR & marketing efforts, and more.

Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

Shoot For The Moon (Within Reason)

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Asking for a raise, advocating an idea, seeking information, making a sales pitch, collaborating… Without realizing it, most of us engage in negotiations every day, multiple times a day.

It can be a struggle to articulate what you want in a way that will result in the desired outcome. So, we interviewed an expert on negotiation tactics for tips on improving both daily interactions and big asks.

In this episode, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell chats with Kwame Christian, a business lawyer and the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Christian hosts Negotiate Anything the “the top-ranked negotiation and dispute-resolution podcast in the nation.” He is also known for his popular TEDx Talk, Finding Confidence in Conflict.

Kwame Christian, director of the American Negotiation Institute, host of the Negotiate Anything podcast, & business lawyer

“My definition of a negotiation is anytime… somebody in a conversation wants something,” Christian said. Obviously, this applies to much of our daily lives.

Unfortunately, many people don’t realize when they’re in the midst of a negotiation. “One of the biggest barriers people face in negotiation is that they have very poor negotiation awareness. They don’t know that they’re in negotiations,” Christian explained. “Imagine if you’re a boxer and your form is perfect, everything’s great, but you don’t know when a fight starts. That would be very problematic. So, one of the things that I want people to understand is that negotiation is all around you. As you raise your awareness, you’re going to see opportunities to either get more of what you want, avoid things that you don’t want, and strengthen relationships in every conversation you have.”

One of the most important negotiation tactics to master is knowing when to speak and when to listen. “Negotiation is an information game,” Christian said. “The more knowledge and information you have, the better able you are to create deals that are favorable for both sides and could work.”

Whoever has the most information should do the most talking. “Whenever they have more information than you, you sit back and let them make the first offer. Whenever you have more information than them, then you make the first offer,” Christian stated.

In salary negotiations especially, Christian advised letting the employer make the first offer. To illustrate, he gave this example:

“[They ask] “Hey, Sean. What would you like to make?” Then you say, “I’d like to make $100,000.” They’re like, “Oh, absolutely. Let’s do it.” Then you know you’ve made a mistake. That didn’t hurt. There was no question. Now you know that you were well within the range. In that situation, the employer has more information than the prospective employee. They know the budget, they know the industry better than you in most circumstances. So, you don’t want to make a mistake by speaking first.”

But, when you are coming to the negotiations with the most information, Christian emphasized that you should make the opening offer. This technique is called “anchoring.” “In a nutshell, anchoring is starting the negotiation with the most aggressive ask that you can reasonably justify,” Christian explained.

Opening with the best-case-scenario ask requires the immediate consideration of your most desirable outcome. “When it comes to negotiation, the first number that is stated is going to serve as a reference point for the rest of the negotiation,” Christian continued. “Everything else is going to be compared to that initial anchor. Study after study has shown that the higher you anchor, the more favorable your outcomes.”

Keep in mind, your request should still be in the realm of reasonable possibility. Wild, over-the-top requests are likely to derail the negotiation. So, shoot for the moon (within reason).

Become a Master Negotiator

  • Listen to the full episode for how to reject the idea but not the person, the importance of confidence, when to use positive vs. negative incentives, and other negotiation tactics.
  • Check out our episode on how to get good outcomes when Delivering Bad News.
  • Download Christian’s free negotiation guides.

Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

How Craig Walker Killed The PIN

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 The killing of the conference call PIN is a case study in disruption.

Search for B2B Revealed on your favorite podcast player (iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and more) to subscribe.

In this episode, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell chats with Craig Walker, CEO of Dialpad, the makers of UberConference. Walker is an expert innovator in the field of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Craig Walker, Founder & CEO of Dialpad

For many companies, conference calls have undergone little change since the 1980s. Each invite to an old-fashioned meeting fills Walker with surprise. “It shocks me when… I look at my calendar appointment and it says, “Dial this number and here’s this giant access code…to join the conference,” Walker said. “Then you call in, there’s a code, you hear a beep, [and] you have no idea who is in the room. You have no idea who’s talking. Literally, that was the state-of-the-art when I was in high school.”

Frustrated with cumbersome access keys and poor-quality conference calls, Walker decided enough was enough. Dialpad created UberConference, a system that allows users to join conference calls sans PINs. UberConference also provides mobile apps and links so users can view who else is participating in the conference. “[When] someone is talking, we’ll show you who it is,” Walker explained. “It just makes sense to be able to have this conference call where you don’t spend the first 15 minutes trying to figure out who is there and identify people by their voices.” Additionally, conference hosts can simply evict any participants they don’t recognize. Conference calls may also be locked so that no additional participants may join.

The participant visibility feature provides far more security than traditional conference calls, in Walker’s opinion. Walker pointed out that anyone with a traditional conference call PIN could listen in anonymously. Particularly if they know regular meeting times, a hostile party could easily gain access to sensitive information.

Oddly, the tech world has been slow to move on from ponderous access keys. “Why did it take us so long to just give somebody a phone number as opposed to this crazy thing with the PIN?” Campbell asked.

Cost is a major reason. “It’s a heck of a lot cheaper for the service provider to get one phone number for every 10,000 users versus having to go get 10,000 phone numbers for 10,000 users,” Walker said. At least, that’s true for most web conferencing companies.

Walker had a way around this complication. From past experience in product management at Google Voice, Walker was familiar with how to acquire and manage millions of phone numbers.

Walker explained that several requirements must be met in order for the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA) to give out phone numbers at this scale. For example, only licensed carriers with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with equipment in the rate centers they want phone numbers in and the ability to provide service there may be considered. The phone numbers are given basically for free to carriers that meet the requirements, according to Walker. “Legitimately they don’t cost AT&T, Verizon, Level 3, any of those guys. They don’t pay for the numbers,” he said. “We realized, ‘Hey, if we can partner with carriers that have a footprint in all the places we want them, we can do it at scale. We can get them to get us numbers and they don’t pay anything for it. But we’ll pay them a small amount.’”

This solution is not without its complications though. Phone numbers are given out in blocks of 10,000, sometimes for areas with only a couple hundred residents. This has led to a few awkward calls with Public Utility Commissions officials. “So, it got into these really weird esoteric debates on how we’re happy to give the numbers back,” Walker said. “We only need 200 but the only way NANPA would give it to you was 10,000 at a time. ”

Nevertheless, the solution has been working. “We figured out who all the providers were who had access to these [phone] numbers and then we basically cut economic deals with them to be able to get [the phone numbers],” Walker said.

Listen to the full episode for the inside scoop on how Walker turned an unaddressed pain point into disruptive innovation.

Unmet Market Needs = Opportunity

The market is fluid and constantly evolving. Great innovators don’t wait for it to change for the better, they change it themselves. Check out our episode on disruption and evaluate whether your market assumptions are still true.

Need more B2B brilliance? Check out the many ways you can follow us.

Message Testing: Because Intent ≠ Interpretation

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Somewhere between intent and interpretation, a lot can get lost in translation.

Many B2B marketers suffer from this problem. Some focus heavily on one buyer persona and ignore the other key figures in B2B purchase decisions. Others fail to communicate what sets their product apart from the crowd. Buyers balk at cocky messaging or jargon that goes over their heads.

Make sure you’re leaving target customers with a favorable impression. Read on for the most common problems revealed by our message testing research for B2B technology companies.

You Have Buyer Personas. Plural. Woo them all.

Research shows that B2B tech purchases tend to be group decisions. Your messaging should target each buyer persona involved in the purchase.

Don’t just focus on the big guns. There are more people involved in B2B buying decisions than the executive signing the purchase order. Messaging that only focuses on C-levels or VPs is doomed to fail, as it ignores other important decision-makers such as end users, department heads, and business group leaders.

Your Differentiators Should Be…Differentiated.

How different is your messaging from your competitor’s? Are both websites a list of the same “itys”? Do both websites boast of fantastic reliability, security, manageability, and usability?

Instead of trying to score on every possible differentiator, pick one and nail it.  Perhaps you uniquely meet a target persona’s “job to be done.” Maybe you can boast of exceptionally smooth integration. Or perhaps you offer pricing models that are far more attractive than those provided by your competitors. Speak to your real strengths.

Don’t Pretend To Be Buyers’ Only Hope.

Most business problems existed before your company appeared on the scene. Be cautious about claiming to be the only solution capable of solving a problem.

Instead, strive to convince buyers that your solution is the best at solving the problem it was designed to solve. That way, you won’t inadvertently insult buyers who have been tackling the problem in another way.

Don’t Skip The Basics.

Address user experience in your messaging. Ease-of-use, integration, and adoption rates nearly always factor into B2B buying decisions.

These elements don’t need to be at the forefront of your messaging, but it wouldn’t hurt to weave them in (when you can back them up).

Use Acronyms Smartly and Sparingly.

Make sure you’re not using acronyms that are alienating to your audience.

Yes, use acronyms that are common knowledge within the vertical or business group you’re targeting. This helps to demonstrate a shared expertise in the buyer’s field.

Be very careful that you’re not using acronyms that are only common knowledge within your own company or amongst isolated groups of market analysts.

Know the difference before you flood your messaging with acronyms.

Anticipate “Too Good To Be True” Concerns.

There may be a downside to the benefit of your product or service. Buyers will be looking for one.

Do you offer a flexible platform?  Customers might worry that implementation will take too long. Are you providing a point solution to a single problem? Buyers may fear that the challenge of integrating with their other solutions outweighs the benefit.

Sing the praises of your solution’s benefits. Then address concerns about tradeoffs.

Answer The FAQs.

Make sure your marketing answers obvious, initial questions. Front-load your home page with answers to questions like “what does it look like?” and “how much does it cost?”

If buyers can’t find answers quickly, they probably won’t work very hard to figure it out.

That said, strong messaging should raise enough intrigue to make potential buyers want to learn more.

Are They Getting The Message?

While these guidelines will help you to convey the message you intended, it’s important to learn how your buyers are interpreting your marketing.

Market research, to the rescue! Message testing compares the “message received” to the “message sent,” diagnoses disparities, and provides insights to correct strategy.

This blog post is brought to you by Cascade Insights. Our research helps marketers craft messaging that resonates with target buyers.

B2B Breakups: 200+ Interviews With The Ones That Got Away

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Never waste an opportunity to learn from a lost deal.

While each win-loss analysis is unique, over the years, we’ve found many common themes that keep costing B2B tech companies customers and deals. From inflexible pricing, to misguided messaging, to bad sales strategy, we’ll talk you through some of the most common B2B blunders and how to avoid them.

These insights have been distilled from more than 200 recent interviews with B2B buyers, decision makers, influencers, and product/service evaluators.

Rigid Pricing Models 

We found that inflexibility in pricing models was a major deterrent for B2B tech buyers.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all pricing model. Some buyers prefer CAPEX pricing models with large sums paid upfront and depreciation and amortization as favorable accounting practices down the road. However, most customers favor OPEX models born of the cloud and as-a-service offerings. Others want something in between. Even within these two models, there’s room for named user pricing, concurrent user pricing, and add-on module pricing.

Choice is key. One product manager told us, “We started with an investigation of a transactional price, and all the vendors were able to do that. But then we wanted to move away from that and get an all-you-can-eat model. That was a real challenge for some of the vendors.”

While you don’t want your pricing to be super complicated, you want enough flexibility to be able to have a pricing structure that matches customer needs and can win the deal.

Whose problem is this?

  • Pricing teams developing which pricing models to offer.
  • Marketing teams positioning the pricing models.
  • Sales reps when customers ask, “How much does this cost me today and tomorrow?”
  • Enterprise vendors caught between on-prem and cloud business models.
  • Start-ups and SaaS technology pure-plays with inflexible pricing models.

Key Lessons

Strategize how you can be flexible without being complex. Consider how different CAPEX and OPEX pricing models may complement corporate spending cycles. For instance, we found that offering quarterly pricing in addition to annual and monthly has tipped the scales on some deals.

Customers often switch vendors when a big contract is up for renewal. Take away that trigger by offering OPEX pricing options or an early renewal incentive. This is becoming commonplace even for on-prem offerings.

Research Remedies

Research buyer personas, customer satisfaction with your pricing models, and competitor pricing models to determine the options that would be most appealing to target customers.

All-Or-Nothing Attitude


Company leadership usually wants sales teams to pitch the suite or even the entire platform to customers. This is often much more than B2B buyers want.

In our research, we heard many complaints about upselling or being forced to buy more than was needed. “I feel like you’re always in a sales environment where they’re trying to sell you their next solution even though you haven’t figured out how to use what you have,” one B2B buyer told us.

All-in-one is an appealing concept, but many customers are cautious whether such a pitch is too good to be true. Concerns are raised about integration, customization needs, lock-in, and lower adoption due to the replacement of favored tools.

A platform that does too many things at once can scare buyers away if they aren’t ready for the seismic shift of ripping and replacing critical systems.

Buyers also get annoyed when they sense that sales reps are more concerned with making another sale than they are with making sure the customer gets the solution they need. This ruins all possibility of strengthening the relationship with the buyer.

“As soon as you get on the phone with these guys, they’re ready to upsell you,” another customer complained to us. “They’re ready to [say], ‘Well if you get this tier, you can get this. If you get this tier, you can get this’…[But], I really wanted something specifically tailored to do what I want to do.”

Vendors should make sure they have offerings that match buyers’ requirements, not just expensively exceed them. Don’t let short-term goals cloud long-term strategy. Being pushy about closing this deal, now can cost you lasting relationships with buyers.

Whose problem is this?

  • Sales leadership when setting sales strategy.
  • Sellers when pushed to “sell the suite” to the detriment of lasting customer relationships.
  • Product leaders needing to build solutions that can be used piecemeal when necessary.
  • Marketers failing or neglecting to show how each piece works independently of the other.
  • Marketing teams determining the minimum SKUs.

Key Lessons

Recognize that some customers simply don’t need everything you have to offer right now. Have offerings that let customers bite off what they can comfortably chew.

Our research indicates that land-and-expand models tend to win more deals than pushing a top-down sale from the get-go.

Technology buyers increasingly want partnerships instead of transactional relationships. Our research indicates that vendors who prioritize land-and-expands sales are getting more wins than those that are driving for all-in-one.

Research Remedies

Researching key buying criteria, buyer personas, and go-to-market strategies can uncover how sales and marketing can best speak to buyers’ specific use cases and how product teams can build solutions that can accomplish customers’ “jobs to be done.”

Sales Not Doing Their Homework

B2B buyers notice when sellers are not up-to-speed on their company and use case. Customers can easily spot a canned demo, especially when requirements have been shared via RFP or similar.

If a sales rep doesn’t do their homework on target buyers, there are many tells. To name a few examples: a noticeable lack of the buyer’s industry context, not knowing customers’ “jobs to be done,” or offers that wildly miss the mark of buyers’ needs.

For instance, a marketing manager told us about sitting through a sales pitch where the seller clearly should have realized that the pricing model they were offering wasn’t feasible. “My total marketing budget is only about $700,000. For everything. That’s all my mailings, all my postage, all my creative, all my digital. So, obviously, a 50 or 80 thousand dollar spend just doesn’t make sense,” the marketer told us.

Another word of caution: sales reps, don’t assume your product or service is superior to the competition. You have to listen to your customers to know how they are evaluating potential solutions. Humility and curiosity about the customer’s needs are sure-fire methods for shedding the superiority complex.

Whose problem is this?

  • The C-suite when setting sales goals. Focus on long-term relationships not just end-of-the-quarter deal-closing.
  • Sales leadership hiring sales talent and setting best practices for engaging with customers.
  • Sellers during client conversations and initial engagements.

Key Lessons:

Sales needs to do their homework on buyers’ particular use cases and specific business contexts. Prepare for the sales pitch and listen to what customers say throughout.

Research Remedies:

Post-pitch follow-up calls and questionnaires gather important feedback from customers who said “yes” and those who said “no.” Win/loss market research studies uncover candid customer perspectives on sales performances.

Ignoring the Customer’s Existing Environment

B2B purchases don’t happen in a vacuum. Except in an unusual extreme overhaul, each new B2B purchase will have to interact with the products and services the buyer is already using. Hence, “How well will this solution play with our existing environment?” is an inevitable question in the B2B buyer’s journey.

In the words of a CIO we interviewed, “We can’t get past that roadblock. In our minds, it was like, ‘We can’t get to how it’s going to integrate with our system because you can’t demonstrate you can do it.’”

Of course, it’s not always obvious how a new product or service will fit in with existing solutions. In these cases, buyers need to know how much customization and configuration is in their future.

Product managers, remember that customers shy away from solutions that require months of coding, specialists, and other customization hoops. Whenever possible, buyers favor integration that can be accomplished with configuration rather than development.

Also, product managers, make sure integrations won’t break every time a vendor rolls out an update.

Marketers, avoid messaging that says the product can do anything for everyone. Instead, demonstrate how the solution can be used within the context of what particular customers are trying to accomplish. Targeted marketing and customer referrals are helpful here.

Sales, promising there will be no integration headaches is usually disingenuous. Just because you sell it doesn’t mean the customer won’t bail when implementation turns into an unexpected disaster.

Whose Problem Is This?

  • Product managers when prioritizing the goals and attributes for a new product or service.
  • Marketers when crafting messaging about use cases.
  • Sellers when explaining to the buyer what customizations and integrations they should anticipate.

Key Lessons:

Don’t overpromise seamless integration for everybody. Set accurate expectations for customization and integration in the buyer’s specific context.

Strive to make customization a process of configuration. Avoid code-heavy methods of customization. (Unless your target persona is a developer, in which case, go nuts!)

Research Remedies:

Key buying criteria and buyer’s journey research can determine how heavily customers are weighing configuration capabilities in their buying decisions.

Messaging Is Speaking The Wrong Language

Messaging that focuses on the technical aspects of a product when targeting business users is a common B2B misstep. This leads to poor awareness of the product’s business capabilities and may influence the buyer to believe the product is too complex for their case.

A business process improvement specialist shared their frustrations about sellers assuming that business users are also IT experts. “The business user pops in there and says, “Wait a minute, this feels like that IT mumbo jumbo that IT typically speaks at us. That makes no sense to us and we just shut down,” they said.

The same problem can appear when marketing overemphasizes the business angle when they should be targeting IT buyers.

Whose Problem Is This?

  • Sellers during sales pitches.
  • All facets of marketing.
  • Marketers tasked with lead gen especially.
  • Vendors entering a new market (vertical or solution-specific).

Key Lessons:

Talk to buyers in a language they’ll understand.

Research Remedies:

Messaging and positioning testing, buyer’s journey mapping, buyer persona, and go-to-market studies are specifically designed to inform customer targeting efforts. These research efforts explore all facets of the B2B buyer’s purchasing experience.

Star-Crossed Use Cases

Sometimes it’s just not a great fit.

Ideally, your sales team spends their time pitching to buyers whose needs match the solution’s key features and core competency. But that isn’t always the case.

Yes, it can be hard to retreat after investing time and effort in a target buyer. However, it’s much smarter to leave a doomed deal and refocus your energies where they will be more successful.

As one IT manager told us, “The partner was really wanting to get into customizations and how we can make this work for our business. We were taking the approach of, ‘Well, we want this product to work for us in a way that it’s designed for [rather than] trying to make this product work for us by forcing [it] to use our processes.’”

It’s essential for sales to recognize a doomed deal early in the relationship with a potential customer. That way, sales can refocus on buyers that would benefit from the solution’s core competency and features. You know, deals they might actually win.

At the same time, don’t make the buyer feel ditched. Be honest that you’re not a fit, leave them in a good place, and re-engage with other products down the road that are more in the sweet spot.

Success comes from fitting the product to the customer, not the customer to the product or service.  

Whose Problem Is This?

  • Product teams during the design process. It’s best to design for specific “jobs to be done” rather than just shooting for the moon.
  • Sales when deciding which customers to prioritize. Devote the most time and effort to buyers that benefit from the product’s core competency.

Key Lessons

If you’re building a product for a particular buyer persona, make sure you have a firm grasp of their “jobs to be done” that need to be accomplished via your solution.

Target buyers that have a need that can be met by the core competencies of your product or service.

Research Remedies

Customer journey mapping, key buying criteria and market opportunity assessments uncover why buyers are looking for a product or service in the first place. This research determines the functionalities needed to accomplish buyers’ “jobs to be done” along with the features that customers prioritize the most.

Turn Loss Into A Strategic Gain

Each lost deal, when properly analyzed, yields useful information to hone your product, sales, and marketing strategies.

It all boils down to understanding buyers’ wants and, more importantly, their needs. This insight gives you the ability to:

  • Determine which customers to target.
  • Strategize ways to expand existing customer accounts and form lasting relationships with new customers.
  • Build products that satisfy buyers’ “jobs to be done.”
  • Create solutions that don’t give and charge buyers way more than they need or want.
  • Use messaging that speaks to buyers in terms they understand.
  • Offer pricing model options that will appeal to target customers.
  • Recognize use cases that aren’t a good fit and devote sales efforts elsewhere.

Want to turn your lost deal into an insight gain? Get in touch.

Research for this analysis was conducted by Jacob Dittmer, Tyler Honsinger, and Scott Swigart. Learn more about our research for B2B technology companies.

Your Favorite B2B Posts of 2017

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It was a good year for B2B content. As we reflect on 2017, we bring you a countdown of our most read articles of the year.

10. What To Read In B2B

Our “B2B Book Reviews: One-Sentence Recaps” page offers an efficient path to seeking wisdom from experts and staying on top of new trends.

We provide you with some of the best classic and recent books on B2B – and a few we don’t think are worth your time.

For example, here’s what we had to say about these books:

This list will provide you the opportunity to improve your B2B skills, and is continuously updated with new books to rush order or avoid like the plague.

Have a book that you want us to review? Let us know.

9. #Mrx Pro-Tip: Interview Your Competitors’ Ex-Sellers

“Running B2B Market Research? 26 Questions to Ask Sales Reps” reveals the wealth of insight you can access by interviewing former members of rival sales teams.

This piece includes key questions to help you get the right data. For example:

  • What were the key selling points of the competitor’s product or service?
  • Which product features were clients most interested?
  • What buying criteria did clients have?
  • Which features left customers uninterested or unimpressed?
  • Which of the competitor’s product or service features were the most lacking?

Check out the full article for more key questions and best practices for interviewing ex-sellers to better understand your rivals.

8. “You Can’t Always Have Quant With Your Qual.”

B2B tech is a niche field. As such, it can sometimes be extremely challenging or downright impossible to get an appropriate sample for a quantitative study. Luckily, qualitative research can get the answers without relying on a mathematically irresponsible sample.

Learn how to design the right kind of study to match your needs with “You Can’t Always Have Quant With Your Qual.”

7. If You Have a Point, Make It & Other Grumpy Writing Tips

If you’re in B2B tech, chances are, your job requires you to communicate through writing at some point. Read “Write Right: Convincing Content” for the best ways to get your point across.

Marketing Manager Isabel Gautschi encourages you to mean what you say, make smooth transitions, procrastinate strategically, and say it in fewer words. She didn’t earn her editing nickname “Half-As-Long” for nothing. Check out the piece for more curmudgeonly advice for writing compelling arguments.

6. There Are No Stupid Questions, But There Sure Are Some Smart Ones

In “101 Market Research Questions,” we share some of the sharpest questions we have based studies off of for B2B tech clients. Check out the smartest questions our clients have asked us to answer over the years.

5. “This Methodology Opens Numerous Possibilities.”

“Gender Gap: A Look at 50 Tech Giants” shows us that LinkedIn ad targeting opens the door for a number of studies of the tech industry.

We took a look at the workforces of 50 large tech companies to uncover insights on the gender gap and to reveal the demographic information accessible to researchers through ad targeting.

Yep, the gender gap is still pretty gapingly wide. The good news is that researchers are not forced to wait for intermittent diversity reports to study it.

4. Disruption Red Flag: Competitors Know Your Customers’ “Jobs To Be Done” Better Than You Do

Are you missing a critical measurement of success? Find out with “Customer Insights: You Need More Than Market Segmentation Data.”

It’s essential for companies to understand “jobs to be done” in order to build solutions that truly meet their customers’ needs.

Using Clayton Christensen‘s latest book, “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice,” we examine essential questions for product teams:

  • What are target customers’ “jobs to be done”?
  • Does your solution get the job done?
  • Do you have the right data to measure whether or not it does?
  • Do customers have a “job to be done” that no current marketplace solutions meet? If so, this is an opportunity for innovation.

3. “Don’t Just Drop the Bomb and Leave.”

It’s difficult to be the bearer of bad news, but we share our constructive approach in “How Good Researchers Give Bad News.”

Check it out to learn how we turn bad news into constructive criticism. Advice includes:

  • Be direct.
  • Use data to defeat fear.
  • Acknowledge sample bias.
  • Describe the disaster you’ve averted.
  • Offer a cure.
  • Remember: There was a fire before you arrived.

Good researchers know not just share devastating findings and leave. Instead, they deliver the bad news, endure the pushback, and point the client in a direction that can improve their business.

2. Keep Your Presentation From Crashing & Burning

“The Pre-Flight Checklist for Research Presentations” provides a handy way to make sure your presentation is ready to soar to success. Relevant to anyone giving a business presentation, our advice shares practical tips for keeping your audience engaged.

1. Our Ageism In Tech Data Got Your Attention

Your favorite article of this year was, “Ageism in Tech: The Silent Career Killer.”

We examined government data, a Payscale study and LinkedIn ad targeting data to research ageism in the tech industry. Spoiler alert: the tech industry is not kind to those over age 35.

Thanks For Reading!

This year has provided us the ability to continue growing as a business, expanding our client base, and provide you with quality content that is important to you. We continue to appreciate our listeners and readers and encourage them to share their terrific feedback. We look forward to sharing more research, book reviews, and exciting interviews with you in the coming year. Thank you for your support, and we wish you the happiest of New Years!

This post is brought to you by Cascade Insights.

People-Centric Marketing: Wisdom From Tom Shoemaker

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Large companies lose touch with their customers all the time.

Search for B2B Revealed on your favorite podcast player (iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and more) to subscribe.

Luckily, you can reconnect one conversation at a time.

Without investing in customer conversations, marketing will be off message, sales will say the wrong things, and product sales will suffer.

Virtually or in-person, have those conversations. It’s worth it.

In this episode of B2B Revealed, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell and Tom Shoemaker, CMO of itslearning, explains why customer conversations should be at the center of your marketing efforts.

Don’t Let Your Marketing Be a Monotone. In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • Key questions to ask during customer conversations.
  • Why you should double or triple the number of customer conversations you’re having.
  • Tips for adjusting your marketing strategy for enterprise and mid-market.
  • Warning signs that you’re taking your customers for granted.
  • The real-world strategy PTC used to effectively regain touch with their customers and build stronger relationships.
  • How to make a value roadmap and why it’s important.
  • Why aspiring marketers should strive to pass “The Beer Test.”

Notable Quotes:

“Don’t be afraid to raise your hand, jump in, and do what needs doing.” – Tom Shoemaker on maintaining career success.

“Regardless of how many customer conversations you have, you should probably have twice as many, or more.” – Tom Shoemaker discussing how to properly conduct customer satisfaction research.

“What are the things they care about, what are their drivers.”– Tom Shoemaker on focusing on the customer’s story.

“We systematically talked about the things that mattered throughout the process of going from design to manufacturing to service. Then we articulated the things that companies ought to be looking for in a technology provider.” – Tom Shoemaker explaining his company’s change in their outlook as a true process-oriented, customer-oriented and value-based selling, consultative selling B2B software company.

Subscribe to B2B Revealed on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, or Stitcher.

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