Episode 665 | How to Find More "Best Fit" Customers for Your SaaS
Jun 13, 2023
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Georgiana Laudi, co-author of "Forget the Funnel," shares her insights on customer-led growth strategies. She highlights the importance of concise business writing with their book kept under 200 pages. Laudi discusses why traditional marketing funnels are outdated, advocating instead for a framework rooted in understanding customer needs. The conversation also covers how to effectively conduct Jobs-to-be-done interviews and integrate these insights into marketing strategies. Additionally, she humorously recounts her experiences recording the audiobook.
The podcast emphasizes a customer-led growth approach that prioritizes understanding customer needs through qualitative data and interviews.
Georgiana Laudi and Claire Suellentrop advocate for redefining marketing strategies to embrace ongoing customer relationships beyond initial acquisition.
Deep dives
The Value of a Customer-Led Approach
The book emphasizes a customer-led growth approach, which focuses on understanding customer needs and experiences rather than solely relying on traditional marketing tactics. This method prioritizes gaining insight from customers who are already successfully using the product and finding out what drives their satisfaction. It aims to bridge the gap in marketing strategies that often fail to consider the customer journey post-acquisition. By understanding these critical elements, companies can better align their offerings with customer expectations and achieve sustainable growth.
The Importance of Understanding Customer Experience
Gialotti and Swellentrop stress the significance of thoroughly understanding the customer experience through interviews and collecting qualitative data. Rather than treating customers as a monolithic group, they advocate for an in-depth analysis of why customers choose a product, what pains it alleviates, and the journey they undergo before and after acquisition. Such insights can inform marketing strategies, product improvements, and longer-term customer retention efforts. This deep understanding equips teams with the knowledge necessary to enhance customer interactions and value delivery.
Short and Practical: The Design of 'Forget the Funnel'
The authors intentionally designed 'Forget the Funnel' to be a concise, practical guide of around 150-200 pages to maximize its utility for busy founders and marketers. They took inspiration from other successful brief business books and aimed to eliminate unnecessary content that often pads traditional publications. The focus is on delivering actionable insights and resources, backed by a complementary workbook to enhance implementation of the concepts. This streamlined design reflects a commitment to delivering high-value content without overwhelming readers.
Reimagining Marketing Through a Holistic Lens
The conversation challenges conventional notions of marketing as a linear funnel, arguing that true growth strategies involve a holistic perspective. The authors advocate for marketing to extend beyond initial customer acquisition to include product activation, retention, and ongoing engagement. This reflects a shift towards understanding customer relationships as ongoing partnerships rather than one-time transactions. By redefining marketing in this way, businesses can leverage existing customer relationships for continuous engagement and value creation.
In episode 665, Rob Walling chats with Georgiana Laudi, who is the co-author of the new book, Forget the Funnel. They dive deep into key concepts from the book, including specific Jobs-to-be-done interview examples and how to apply these insights to your marketing strategy.
They also chat a bit about the process of writing a book.
Topics we cover:
2:37 - Gia and Claire's intentional decision to keep the book under 200 pages
5:28 - What size SaaS companies will get the most value from Claire and Gia’s new book?
9:49 - The customer-led growth framework
11:29 - Why you shouldn’t think in terms of marketing funnels
15:51- Jobs-to-be done interviews
20:27- An approach for founders who are skeptical about customer research and JTBD interviews
25:15- How to use information gathered from customer interviews to inform your marketing strategy
29:47- What was the experience like recording the audiobook?
If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you.