Scenario 02 · B2B SaaS
Good product, broken handover to sales.
A B2B SaaS provider with a solid product, growing traffic and a pipeline that does not grow with it. The cause lies neither in marketing nor in sales, but between them.
In short
Traffic and sign-ups grow, qualified conversations do not. The cause is a conversion path built for self-service while revenue comes from assisted sales, plus the lack of a shared definition of when a contact is ready for sales. The way forward is two separate conversion paths and a shared handover rule.
Note: This scenario is a model case. It describes a typical starting point and the strategic response to it. It is explicitly not a documented engagement and contains no client names and no results from ongoing projects. Timeframes and orders of magnitude are based on experience from comparable market situations and are not commitments.
01 · Starting point
The company in this model case.
The company sells maintenance planning software to mid-sized industrial firms. The product works, customers are satisfied and churn is low.
Marketing is doing a solid job: the blog ranks for technical terms, traffic has been rising for three quarters and free trial sign-ups have doubled year on year. In the marketing report, everything looks good.
Sales sees it differently. The number of proposals is practically unchanged from the previous year. Contacts from marketing are “mostly students, consultants or people who just wanted to have a look”. The monthly alignment meeting has been arguing about lead quality for a year.
Both sides have their numbers, and both are right. They measure different things.
Key facts of the model case
- Segment
- B2B SaaS for maintenance planning in industry
- Size
- 38 employees, 5 in sales, 2 in marketing
- Contract value
- €9,000 to €60,000 per year
- Buying process
- 3 to 9 months, 4 to 6 people involved
- Situation
- Seed round closed, growth target in the plan
- Symptom
- Trials rising, proposals flat
02 · Diagnosis
The break lies between marketing and sales, not within either of them.
The analysis shows two related issues.
First, the website offers exactly one route: the free trial. That fits contracts below €10,000, where a department decides on its own. Most revenue, however, comes from contracts above €25,000, where a buying committee with procurement, IT security and plant management decides. A plant manager does not start a trial. They want a conversation and find no visible way to have one.
Second, there is no shared definition of when a contact is handed over to sales. In practice, all trial sign-ups go into the CRM and get a call from sales. That makes sales' criticism valid. At the same time, marketing was never given a different rule.
The third finding is more uncomfortable: nothing happens to the contacts sales rejects. They go cold. In a market where maintenance software is replaced every five to eight years, that is the most expensive point in the whole system.
The actual bottleneck
- One route for two buying processes
- The trial serves the small segment. The revenue-carrying large segment has no visible entry point.
- No handover definition
- Without a shared rule, all contacts go to sales, and the discussion about lead quality cannot be resolved.
- No recycling
- Rejected contacts go cold instead of returning to a nurturing track.
- Website describes features
- What the product can do is everywhere. What changes afterwards is nowhere.
03 · Approach
Which phases, in which order.
The sequence is the real substance of this scenario. The individual measures are not unusual.
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01
Segment and offer logic
Analysis of existing customers by contract value, industry and company size. A clear split: where does self-service work, and from what point is assisted selling needed?
The result is a threshold that website, campaigns and handover then align with.
- Segment definition with threshold
- Buying committee map for the large segment
- Offer logic per segment
-
02
Two conversion paths
Rebuilding the website: the trial stays, but gets an equal second route alongside it: a conversation to assess the prospect's situation, with qualifying questions.
Plus content the large segment was missing: security, ERP interfaces, operating model, migration from existing systems.
- Second conversion path with qualifying questions
- Pages on security, integration and migration
- Outcome-led home page instead of a feature list
-
03
Handover rule
A joint session of marketing and sales with a single task: defining when a contact is handed over, based on company size, role and trigger.
Plus the recycling rule: what happens to a contact sales rejects?
- Written handover definition
- Recycling process into nurturing
- 24-hour response time
-
04
Nurturing for returned contacts
Two tracks: one for trial users without purchase intent, one for returned contacts from the large segment. Genuinely useful content at a calm pace, no sales emails.
This track is the most economical part of the whole project.
- Two nurturing tracks
- Reactivation after twelve months
- Sales notification on relevant behaviour
-
05
Measurement up to the proposal
Changing the reporting: qualified conversations, proposals triggered and cost per proposal replace sign-ups and click prices.
Channel metrics move to the appendix.
- Reporting by pipeline stage
- Cost per proposal triggered
- Quarterly view for the board
04 · Expected impact
What becomes visible when.
| Period | What becomes visible | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1 to 3 | Marketing and sales share the same definition | Qualitative: the discussion about lead quality ends |
| Month 2 | Second conversion path live | Requests for assisted conversations, previously zero |
| Months 2 to 3 | Sign-ups fall, conversations rise | Share of contacts accepted by sales |
| Months 3 to 5 | First proposals from the large segment | Proposals triggered, with source attribution |
| Months 6 to 9 | Returned contacts from nurturing get in touch for the first time | Reactivated contacts with an enquiry |
| From month 9 | Pipeline becomes predictable | Pipeline value by stage, forecast accuracy |
Based on experience from comparable market situations; not a commitment. Investment cycles, competitive density and the responsiveness of your own sales team shift these timeframes considerably.
05 · Deliberately not done
What was not done in this case.
- No additional media budget. More traffic into a path with the wrong exit would have made the problem bigger, not solved it.
- No abolition of the trial. It works well for the small segment. It was just unsuitable as the only route.
- No large automation platform. Two tracks can be run in the existing CRM.
- No rebranding. The brand was not the problem; the conversion architecture was.
- No outbound team. Adding another channel only pays off once the inbound path works properly.
Frequently asked
Frequently asked questions about this scenario.
Why does the number of leads deliberately drop?
Isn't it risky to add friction before the conversation?
How do you get marketing and sales to agree on a definition?
What does nurturing returned contacts actually achieve?
How long until sales notices the difference?
Further reading
Relevant next steps.
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