Confessions of a B2B SaaS marketer: Navigating demand gen challenges

As a B2B SaaS marketer, I often struggle to keep up with the challenges of our ever-evolving industry. From hitting ambitious (and unending) pipeline targets to staying up to date with the latest sales tools, the pressure can be overwhelming. 

And I’m clearly not the only one. Many marketers in the B2B SaaS space wrestle with similar issues - 63% of B2B marketers state that generating high-quality leads is their main challenge. 

In this post, I'll share my top three concerns and how innovative solutions (like Lantern), are helping me sleep a little easier and meet my targets. 

Challenge #1: The endless quest for quality leads

One of my biggest nightmares is the constant struggle to generate high-quality leads. Traditional demand-generation tactics often fall short, leaving the sales team with a list of lukewarm prospects. In the past, I’ve used different tools to generate scores, combine all the data, and create spreadsheets with different factors and metrics — all to develop a way to support sales in understanding who to put the most effort into. The results - not that positive. 

Since discovering (and now working at) Lantern, I let the tech do the work for me. Our AI-powered platform has been a game-changer. By tracking job changes and analyzing buyer intent signals, we can focus our efforts on prospects most likely to convert. This targeted approach has significantly improved our lead quality and accelerated our sales cycle.

Challenge #2: Aligning sales and marketing: The ABM tightrope 

Account-based marketing (ABM) is no longer a buzzword – it's a necessity. However, executing a successful ABM strategy while maintaining alignment between sales and marketing teams often feels like walking a tightrope. Both teams work towards the same goals and use the same data to inform their decisions…why is it so hard to join forces?

In my experience, the challenge comes from blurred boundaries and “where we live.” 

Blurred boundaries mean - where is the exact handoff between marketing and sales? Where are the exact responsibilities? Which emails are written by whom, based on what data? And “where we live” - which tools are open for us, where we get our information, and in which virtual spaces we mostly spend our time.  

Often, sales and marketing “live” in different spaces, pull from different data, qualify leads differently, and aren’t clear where the lines are drawn. 

For our team, sales and marketing manage ABM in one place: Lantern. Lantern's unified platform has helped bridge this gap by providing a single source of truth for both sales and marketing. With real-time updates on target accounts and key decision-makers, we use Lantern to craft personalized outreach campaigns that resonate with our prospects. This alignment has improved our ABM efforts and fostered a stronger partnership between our sales and marketing teams.

Challenge #3: Turning pipeline data into action 

As a marketer, my efforts directly impact our company's bottom line. The constant pressure to fill the pipeline and demonstrate ROI can be overwhelming. The challenge lies in generating leads and effectively managing and nurturing them through the sales cycle. A lead in the pipeline is great, but if there’s no movement across the buying stages, it’s meaningless. 

Lantern's workflow automation capabilities have been crucial in streamlining our pipeline management process and moving leads more quickly through our pipeline. By automatically routing leads to the right sales reps and triggering personalized follow-up sequences, we've minimized lead leakage and maximized conversion rates. The platform's advanced analytics also provide valuable insights into our pipeline health, allowing us to make data-driven decisions and continually optimize our strategies.

Conclusion

While the challenges of B2B SaaS marketing may keep marketers up at night (or at least stressing throughout the day), innovative solutions like Lantern are helping to ease the burden. By leveraging AI-powered sales intelligence, aligning our teams with a unified platform, and automating key workflows, we can focus on what matters — driving speedy growth and delivering value to our customers.

If you're a fellow B2B SaaS marketer struggling with similar challenges, I encourage you to explore how Lantern can transform your demand generation, ABM, and pipeline management efforts. Book a demo today and take the first step towards more restful nights and more productive days. 

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