From $2M to $5M

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Last week I reunited with one of the best marketers I’ve ever worked with, Jonathan Costet.

He was my first hire as a marketing leader at Gong back in 2020, and he was a driving force behind how we reinvented SaaS content and brand. Many people knew me as the “face” of the company, but JC was with me the whole way and we wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without him. Copywriting, email marketing, organic social, paid media, SEO, thought leadership — the dude can do it all at a very high level.

Anyways, back to last Thursday.

JC hit me up because he’s hungry for some major growth this quarter.

In Q2 he dabbled with email marketing and generated $2M in pipeline. This quarter he wants to do $5M.

So he called me to help him map out a plan since our email marketing at Gong put up some major numbers. That’s one of the many things I respect about him — he wants to build an intentional strategy, not just blast more emails until the dashboard says 100%.

In an hour we came up with a cool plan which I share below. I’m sharing it with you in case you’re focused on email marketing, creating pipeline, or simply curious for “behind the scenes” content strategy sessions.

Ready? Let’s ride.

Phase 0: Thinking critically

JC has an email list of 100k+ folks.

Across that list, some are more familiar and educated on Wiz than others. And since we have a long term goal — build a strategy that’s scalable and repeatable, and a short term goal — convert pipeline this quarter, we need to balance both.

I told him to consider not building the traditional email funnel with top-, middle-, and bottom-of-the-funnel content because that takes too long and more importantly, I’m not convinced that’s necessarily the best way.

Instead, I suggested we shorten and simplify his email marketing funnel into two parts:

1. Create demand — introduce the problem and quantify the negative impact

2. Capture demand — introduce the solution and educate the benefits

In my opinion, creating pipeline comes down to these two aspects.

Each phase will get 3-4 emails. The primary goal is to convert readers from phase 1 → phase 2, and phase 2 → demo as quickly as possible.

Success will be tracked by:

• Email engagement

• MQLs

• Inbound demo requests

Then we really got to work.

Phase 1: Capture Demand

So Dev, what should we do first?

Nerf gun to my head: I would start with #2, capture demand.

There’s gotta be some low hanging fruit on that list, aka people that are more engaged and interested in Wiz than others. We can figure this out by looking at signals like:

• Email engagement

• Website engagement

• Involved in previous closed lost sales opportunities

We’re going to target that list with relevant messaging for why they should explore Wiz now in hopes of starting a “easy” wave of pipeline.

Worth noting that this will be a smaller portion of the list but should convert at a decent rate. These will be the first emails we write and send.

Jonathan’s homework:

• Create the “highly engaged” criteria to decide who qualifies for this sub-list

• Identify the top three reasons people buy Wiz

In the next session we’ll take these and start writing the first email copy and get to sendin’.

Phase 2: Create New Demand

I imagine the majority of the list is going to fall under this category for two reasons:

1. Most people are NOT ready to buy anything right now

2. Wiz hasn’t done much email marketing to this list, so they need to increase their familiarity (aka warm up the list)

You do that by, you guessed it, sending emails.

But what you send is incredibly important and often overlooked (or really, under thought). Many marketers, typically pressured by unrealistic internal expectations and goals, would just send a “capture” email to everyone in hopes of casting a wide net.

Problem is this: you decidedly send irrelevant content to thousands of people in hopes of scooping up a couple more demos. In my experience, and I’ve been that pressured marketer, it never works.

Better to take the time to educate on the problem before pushing demos on people.

That’s what this part of the funnel is all about — making the reader aware of the problems they’re facing and the negative impact of them. This creates desire to change and urgency to do so now.

The key is picking problems clearly tied to Wiz’s product without talking about the product.

Jonathan’s homework:

• Identify the most consumed content offers from the past 12 months (blog, guide, etc)

• Identify the highest-converting content offers from the past 12 months

In the next session we’ll use them to write the “capture” phase of the funnel.

Phase 3: Connect the two and create an “always on” email funnel

This is the easiest part. Once both phases are written and staged, we need to connect them.

The main thing to consider is the “exit criteria” from the create phase to the capture phase. Readers need to complete a certain set of actions to “qualify” for the convert stage. Without showing those signs, they’re not ready for that new set of messaging.

Once the funnel is built, then JC just has to fill it with new contacts and monitor and optimize it, which is an on-going thing.

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I like this plan because it’s simple, concise, and intentional. Nothing fancy needed for results. And sure, there are few more questions we have to answer, like:

• What happens when someone completes the funnel but doesn’t convert to an opp?

• What emails does someone get once they do convert to an opp?

But we have time to answer those questions soon enough. For now, we have a good starting place to hit that $5M number.

And if you have a similar goal, now you do too.

Holler at your next Saturday,
Devin

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