Six Tips for B2B Tech Growth

One thing I love about product marketing is that there is never a dull moment. There are always opportunities to move the needle, even in growing markets at thriving companies. Whether you want to stay ahead or get ahead, you must constantly dig in to discover what can be improved. 💡 📈

Here are six areas worth exploring:

1) Capitalize on Market Trends 📊
Staying on top of market trends enables you to capitalize on current or forecasted conditions to better position your product as the solution. Customers will be more willing to check out your offering when you’re viewed as the industry expert directly answering their problem. The wide range of external factors impacting your customers may be related to economics, politics, technology, social trends, government regulations, and even global health catastrophes.

Like no other company, Zoom’s “easy-to-use” messaging and freemium strategy supercharged its growth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving incumbent players in the dust. By being positioned as web conferencing with the best online collaboration experience, businesses readily adopted the Zoom platform for remote workers.

2) Take Advantage of a Competitor's Weakness 💪
Conducting a thorough analysis of your competitors identifies where they fall short, which can be used to your advantage. You may find gaps in their product offering, customer service, and onboarding or areas where they’ve failed to innovate. You can develop a competitor take-away strategy that emphasizes your competitive edge.

Lean into how your differentiation is critical and translates into value for your target competitor’s customers. Your advantage could be cost-savings, high configurability, exceptional customer service, or unique functionality. Create content on the topic to spread across digital channels and educate customer-facing teams on the appropriate messaging.

3) Sharpen Timing of Product Releases 📅
Launch timing is crucial in the tech industry and, when done strategically, improves the impact of the launch campaign. Scheduling launches to coincide with external factors that drive market demand, like seasonality, events, and business trends, helps maximize awareness. Illustrate how your new product or latest features solve customer problems even better.

For example, many companies prepare annually for the Q4 holiday shopping season, which is an opportunity to develop a growth campaign around managing the influx of business. If the timing is right, customers in retail, manufacturing, supply chain, payments, cybersecurity, and other industries will be highly receptive to content about “holiday readiness." Based on your product and target customers, good timing for a product launch is when holiday preparedness is top of mind. This could be immediately after the holiday season or several months before.

4) Refresh Customer Segmentation 🎯
You've segmented your customers by vertical, size, and other demographics, but the exercise is not over. Segmentation is dynamic and should be revised periodically and include behavioral, technographic, product usage, and other data. The market constantly changes, and your ideal customer profile may have shifted. By understanding your customers' evolving needs and pain points, you can improve the precision of your campaigns and messaging.

5) Enhance Sales Enablement 💼
Preparing your sales team with the best tools and resources leads to more effective sales conversations, which can increase sales velocity and growth. Examine sales pipeline data for deals that are not progressing and analyze closed-lost data. New tools, targeted content, or additional product training can address common issues.

For example, an increasing number of deals may get hung up at the same stage because prospects still need to be convinced of your product's value. An ROI calculator or vertical-specific case studies could help accelerate conversions. Perhaps a theme you're seeing for "closed-lost" deals is associated with a perceived operational issue or competitor disadvantage. A sales enablement update can better equip your team to overcome these objections.

6)  Join forces with a partner 🤝
Team up with a consultant, industry guru, or complementary service provider and form a growth initiative. A notable partner with influence can strengthen your credibility, expose you to new customer segments, and drive mutual business growth. A co-marketing partnership involving joint marketing campaigns, bundled offerings, or referrals can result in increased awareness and revenue for both partners. Agreement on a shared vision is essential, and you can also gain the benefits of knowledge sharing.