If you read recent news stories, you’ll find many headlines heralding the threat of a possible recession. With inflation skyrocketing and a falling stock market, business leaders across the globe are making tough decisions — from delaying plans to go public, to slashing budgets and prematurely laying off employees.
Even in a weak economy, companies must continue looking forward to the future, which for many SaaS organizations culminates in an IPO. To get there, they must maintain growth through a turbulent market, relying on investments from venture capitalists (VCs).
But these concerns have found their way to those VCs as well, who have become increasingly averse to tying their money to businesses without evidence of financial health and stability. These days, they’re more selective and want to know how quickly a company can grow, as well as the status of its bottom line and cash flow.
As potential investors become more selective, a company’s path to profitability must be clearer than ever.
Keep reading to learn how you can maximize resources while sustaining growth.
What the Recession Means for Growth-Stage Businesses
VCs are advising companies to provide balance sheets that are supported with irrefutable stability through a foreseeably shaky future. Raising capital will take longer, but you can set yourself up for greater success by proving consistent customer growth.
But your potential customers are being careful with their spend, too. Although your pool of buyers may become smaller, there are still companies out there that are willing and ready to buy your product. So, it’s critical today to identify and target the right prospects for immediate ROI.
With today’s state of the market, marketers must move from pushing messages out and waiting for the inbound leads to flow in. Instead, take a more proactive and strategic approach that engages in-market buyers with meaningful messaging at just the right time.
This can be accomplished by using third-party intent data, AI, and machine learning to:
- Identify and engage all of your potential customers that are in-market
- Improve your ad targeting to pay to reach only potential buyers
- Understand what your target accounts are researching, so you can craft and deliver messaging specific to their needs
- Spot the evolving buyer stages of accounts, and understand which campaigns and messages are influencing them toward a deal
- Capture a larger share of in-market buyers and improve your contract win rate
- Develop a better pipeline forecast by combining the power of illuminated Dark Funnel™ insights with the known data already being captured in your CRM and other tools
Tighten Your Belt without Crippling Long-term Growth
While the prospect of growing your customer base may seem challenging, using the right technology focus both spend and resources only on the accounts most likely to buy and showcases the financial impact of your efforts.
Many of your customers are hunkering down and steering clear of buying new solutions. But others are still moving forward and are looking for solutions to make them more efficient and productive. These are the companies your revenue team needs to find.
Armed with technology that uses intent data and artificial intelligence capabilities, you can identify in-market accounts and gain valuable insights into their behaviors and interests online. This visibility enables you to create compelling and relevant experiences for those buyers to build their trust and win their business.
According to the Forrester Total Economic Impact of 6sense Revenue AI™ study, revenue technology like 6sense identifies opportunities more likely to close. Focusing on those opportunities leads to larger deals, shorter sales cycles, and higher revenue. In fact, the study found that businesses using 6sense saw:
- A 27% increase in overall opportunities won after three fiscal quarters
- A 23% shorter sales cycle overall
- Deals that were 60% larger
Grow Your Business, Show Your Value
Rather than wasting thousands on poor targeting and weak conversion strategies, invest your budget where you’re most likely to see a return.
6sense helps clients focus their revenue generation efforts and create more pipeline growth, making it an ideal solution for companies that aren’t in line for another immediate cash infusion and need to be smarter about spend — while also improving their financial trajectory and making them more attractive to investors.
