Introduction
I was talking to one of my friends about what we do for our customers and he quipped, "So basically, you help CMOs find, and tap into, the goldmine that sits right under their nose!"
I think it's a very good illustration of our value proposition. Most companies are unaware of the business potential they can unlock through their champions and power users.
B2B relationships are far from transactional. These are built and nurtured over several months and years, which is why most companies we speak to can easily recall multiple serendipitous cases where an ex customer got them into a new company. We help our customers be more deliberate and proactive about orchestrating this at scale.
So what is this goldmine? There are two types of people data you have-
1. Those who evaluated your products and purchased them (this is in your CRM), and
2. Those who have managed or used your products (this is in your product analytics/ support tool).
Most leaders we speak to can absolutely visualize the impact of re-engaging/re-targeting the first group. But they struggle to appreciate the second group and/or intentionally ignore them as potential leads. This happens mostly because while we all know how to engage the first group, we don't have a standard playbook to engage the second one (unless you have a user led growth model).
But that's the real goldmine, once you are able to crack it! For one, we're talking more than 10-20x volume. Secondly, there is a fundamental shift in how B2B enterprise software is purchased. Most buyers today are worried about adoption-risks and that's making them very cautious to put their hands on the table even when the potential ROI is evident. Hearing a strong vote of confidence from potential users of a product is the single biggest positive driver you can have, for an on-the-fence buyer to take you to their leadership.
There are three plays here:
1. Creating new opportunities by pursuing ex admins-
These are the people who spent hours on your product, they know your team and have had professional success by virtue of what they've achieved using your product. Reengaging them when they change jobs is a major win-win. You get a new customer, and they get to substantially reduce their chances of failure in the new job.
2. Creating new opportunities by pursuing ex-users-
This one could be, relatively speaking, low probability based on your product. But in some categories (like sales/marketing tech) end-users could have a strong influence on the company's tech stack.
3. Increasing win rates by using your ex-users-
This is the non-obvious killer idea! Your end users might not be able to open doors but if you have a few ex-users who have been happy with your product, they can go a long way to build confidence. The way some of our customers do this is by having steps in their sales process where their reps engage past users in a company to 1) gather additional intel in the early funnel, typically in stages 2-3, so that they understand the pain/ gaps, political landscape etc. and 2) creating a forum (a meeting), in mid-funnel, for their ex users to share their experience with the potential buyers. Very few companies do this today and anyone who does it has a significant edge over the other contenders in the deal.
This is a real game changer for all our customers who have a high-NPS product, and especially if they have multiple products. To be honest, what we've found is that it's the brand value and trust that's more important. We've heard from customers that they've occasionally seen that a strong endorsement coming from ex users of one of their different products can also go a long way to help win the deal at hand.
If you're considering alternative strategies to build high quality pipeline and influence revenue, this is definitely something you wouldn't want to miss out on🙂
