How to combine PLG and enterprise sales to improve your funnel • TechCrunch
between the change Economic tides and digital purchasing preferences are putting tremendous pressure on SaaS companies. Many of these companies understand that 80% of their interactions with buyers take place through digital channels. At the same time, they need to increase profitability to meet investor expectations.
The question is: how can they convince customers who want self-service while accelerating profitable growth?
While Product-Driven Growth (PLG) is a winning strategy, many companies will complement these efforts with Sales-Driven Growth (SLG), or a company-wide selling movement, to penetrate a higher market segment or a specific customer segment. With the right go-to-market (GTM) architecture and effective use of data, companies can make the best of both strategies to accelerate revenue growth.
When does it make sense to supplement PLG with SLG?
Typically, companies follow three patterns in their GTM approach:
It’s important to ensure your pricing and packaging is differentiated between your individual, team, and enterprise plans.
- Product led: Focus on the user and their experience with the product as the primary way to generate revenue.
- Sales oriented: Using traditional marketing and sales methods to reach the buyer or commercial decision maker. This approach can be supported by selected PLG techniques to drive user advocacy.
- Hybrid: Combine the best of both worlds, with PLG techniques that create awareness and engage with prospects, and sales activities that drive most of the sales.
At PLG, the product has to make an impression on the user – and fast. After all, the product is the primary vehicle for attracting, retaining, and expanding users. While PLG works best for products with some degree of virality, in many cases you don’t have to choose between SLG and PLG.
For example, Calendly’s sales team often talks to clients about how we can scale the platform to make an even deeper impact in their organizations. We take a hybrid GTM approach, where PLG provides a critical entry point to prospects and sales drives business expansion and revenue. As PLG feeds the funnel, sales target end users with influential titles within the core use case we serve (e.g. VP of Sales) where we can achieve the greatest value and business outcomes.