Understanding Buyer Intent

Most brands spend a lot on media, but treat landing pages as an afterthought If you’re running ads and sending traffic to a homepage or a poorly built landing page, its almost criminal. Specially when gen AI has reduced the cost and time for content creation drastically Here’s how to get landing pages right. Consistently. 1. Match Intent, Not Just Aesthetics The #1 job of a landing page? Continue the conversation you started with your ad •If your ad says “energy efficient fans”, the landing page should show highlight this feature front and center •If your Google ad targets “Mixer Grinders under ₹5000,” don’t show ₹8000 models on the page. Message match > Visual design 2. Keep the Hero Section Clean & Focused Above-the-fold matters. You need to have •Clear headline – Say what the product is and why it’s special. •Key benefits – 3 crisp points max. •Visuals – High-quality product image or demo video. •CTA – One action. Not three. Buy Now,” “Book a Demo,” or “Know More”—but pick ONE 3. Product Benefits, Not Just Features Nobody cares that your mixer uses XYZ motor tech. I mean they do care but only if they care how it helps them They care a lot more that the mixer has a coarse mode which enables silbatta like texture resulting in great taste And that BLDC or intelligent motor tech enables it 4. Solve for Trust People are skeptical by default. Give them reasons to believe •Ratings & Reviews – Show real customer ratings (4.5 stars? Flaunt it). •Media Mentions – “As seen on The Hindu / NDTV” works. •Certifications – BEE 5-Star? BIS approved? Display badges. •Guarantees – Free returns? Warranty? Mention clearly 5. Speed & Mobile Optimization Today at least 80 percent of your traffic is mobile. If your landing page loads in 4 seconds, you’ve lost half. Aim for <2s load time. Avoid fancy animations that slow things down. Test your page on Mobile (3G/4G) and in all browsers Chrome, Safari etc 6. Minimize Distractions A landing page is not your website. •No top nav bars with 7 menu items. •No footer clutter. •No exit doors—except the CTA you want. Keep it focused. Keep them moving toward action 7. Strong CTA (Call to Action) •Make it obvious. One clear button. •Use actionable language: “Get My Free Sample,” “Book a Demo,” “Shop Now.” •Repeat CTA 2-3 times as they scroll, especially after key benefit sections. 8. A/B Test, but with caution: Gen AI makes it very easy to do so. Test •Headlines •CTA text and colors •Images vs Videos •Long-form vs Short-form copy But get the fundamentals of A/B testing right. You need statistically significant sample sizes for each test A good landing page doesn’t sell the product by itself. But It removes friction so the product has a better chance of selling And when done right, your CAC drops, your ROAS climbs, and your ads finally start working to their fullest potential

I’ve been in sales for 17 years, and spent $3M+ as a buyer. If there’s one piece of advice I’d give to salespeople it is; STOP blaming your product or price. Your Closed-Lost reasons aren’t what they seem. Your buyers aren’t telling you the full truth—most deals are lost because of the buying experience you create. Before you're handed your 2025 quota, make sure to fix these 9 silent deal-killers: 1. Being Slow No, “Sorry I missed your email”, or “Had a busy week” are not an excuse buyers can take. Nothing you say fixes the signal you send by being slow. You’ve lost points and they WILL affect their decision. 2. Being Disengaged I get it, I really do. You're trying to ‘play hard to get’, like dating. Newsflash— buyers want to feel they matter. It might work on a few, but most run away. 3. Being Over Engaged “I work here, you don’t”. As a buyer, I don’t have time for weekly syncs, long emails, ebooks, etc. I have my day job, and it’s not buying stuff. Sell accordingly. 4. Asking Questions For You You were taught qualification is for you, that discovery is for you. It’s NOT. I need to know if I’m not a good fit, or why I need to buy your stuff, as much as you do. Make it about me first, and you’ll get yours. 5. Following Up For You At least 90% of follow ups should serve the current buying ‘job-to-be-done’ for each stakeholder. Identifying the problem? Send a pain summary. Building problem consensus? Multithread to make sure no key buyer is missed. 6. Thinking Demos Are The Goal Buyers push you to demo. So you go on a feature dump rampage. But what they’re really saying is: “Had enough with this interrogation, let’s just see the demo, maybe It’ll help me get it”. Demos aren’t the goal, discovering value is. 7. Building Expertise In Your World (Only) If you can’t add value to my world (i.e. my problems, how to navigate my buying process effectively), then your value is a commodity. Just send me a recorded demo, or let me self-serve. Obsess over learning my world, before yours. 8. Email, Links, Attachments Hell We run many complex projects. Each in Asana/Notion. It’s all organized as so much can slip through the cracks. Why is a (more complex) buying project any different? Help me build consensus; organize the buying process in one space. 9. Ignoring Stakeholder Diversity A C-Level demo is NOT the same as a Champion, or Tech Buyer demo. You force them to do the heavy lifting. If you can’t speak to each person’s priorities, seniority, and preferences you slow consensus and risk losing traction. —— The way you sell IS your product. Buying experience is not marketing’s job. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between you winning. And getting ghosted/single-threaded. Or losing to a competitor/no-decision. In 2025, make it easy to buy. P.S. We built Aligned to help create a sales process that stops ghosting & indecision. A 100% FREE Deal Room used by 30,000 sellers. You can try it here: https://lnkd.in/dwX_Zizk

The MQL was never what we wanted — it was just what we could measure. Time to fix that. What we actually want are engaged buying groups showing legitimate purchase intent. Not just one person downloading an eBook, but multiple stakeholders from a target account actively researching and demonstrating they're moving through a buying process. HAND RAISERS I’d argue that the best way to measure this is a steady stream of actual hand-raisers who genuinely want to talk to Sales. This was a key metric we used at Marketo. Real hand-raisers: ✅ Show demonstrate legitimate purchase intent ✅ Have genuine budget and timeline constraints ✅ Want to validate decisions, not collect information These people (and accounts) convert. They close. Sales velocity and win rates increase dramatically. WHY WE NEED LEADING INDICATORS But… buyers are far along their journey before raising hands. 6sense research shows 81% of buyers have a preferred vendor by first contact, and 85% have established requirements before reaching out.  In other words, they’ve already basically made their decision by then. So… we also need earlier signals (e.g. leading indicators) to help us know we’re on the right track. This leads to the following framework: TIER 1: TARGET ACCOUNT ENGAGEMENT Web visits, content downloads, etc. from the right accounts TIER 2: MEANINGFUL MOMENTS Real engagement from decision makers at target accounts, including executive attendance at your events or dinners, participation in your community discussions, and live discussions with your team. (This is especially important in the Age of AI, where increasingly AI will disintermediate our traditional digital signals, like web visits and email opens.) TIER 3: BUYING GROUP FORMATION & INTENT Activities that show purchase intent, including multiple visitors from the same account, intent signals, and pricing/ROI research. TIER 4: HAND RAISER Genuine inbound requests to engage with Sales. So, this means we should also be tracking: ✅ Account Coverage: What percentage of our target account list is showing engagement? ✅ Buying Group Velocity: How quickly are accounts moving through the journey stages? ✅ Engagement Intent: Are we seeing surface-level interest or genuine research behaviors? ✅ Multi-threading Success: How many stakeholders per account are we reaching? The beauty of this approach is that it gives both Marketing and Sales much richer intelligence. Sales isn't getting a random lead who filled out a form, they're getting context about an entire buying group's journey, key stakeholders, and specific interests. And it forces marketing to think like sales, activating buying committees, not generating individual leads. The MQL obsession has created what I call “lead theater” — lots of activity that looks productive but doesn't move the revenue needle. This is a better way. #B2BMarketing #MarketingAutomation #AccountBasedMarketing #LeadGeneration #MarTech

One thing I push early-stage B2B founders to do (and it’s harder than it sounds) is to really understand — and quantify — the value you deliver to customers. Very few can put a dollar number on it.💡 Try to estimate the value your product creates for a customer in real dollars ($Z) 💰 Once you do that, , you can ask a few important questions to qualify how robust and urgent the value proposition really is: ▪️ Is $Z actually meaningful in the context of the customer’s business? (If it’s a rounding error for them, say <2% of top line, selling will be painful 😬) ▪️ Can you show or prove $Z quickly, or are you asking the customer to take a leap of faith? Quantifying value proposition also helps with 💵 pricing and 📐market size, which many founders struggle with early on. Example 1: cost / time savings ⏱️ - Say you’re selling software that saves a RevOps team ~5 hours per week. - Fully loaded cost is ~$80/hour → ~$20k/year in savings. That’s your $Z. - If you’re saving time or money, customers will often pay ~10–20% of that value. So a ~$2–4k ACV is a reasonable first pricing hypothesis 🎯 Example 2: revenue generation 📈 - Now say your product helps a sales team close 2 extra deals per quarter. - Each deal is worth ~$50k → ~$400k/year in incremental revenue. That’s $Z. - When you’re directly helping customers generate revenue, they’re often willing to pay more — say ~20–30% of the value. That points to an $80–120k ACV range (assuming you can prove the value). More importantly you can use $Z to estimate market size.  📐 Start bottoms up. Market = X customers × $Y ACV = market size Where: ▪️ $Y ≈ 10–20% × $Z (for cost/time savings) ▪️ $Y ≈ 20–30% × $Z (for revenue generation) Finally, pressure-test the assumptions: ▪️ Are we being precise about who “X customers” actually are? Do I need to sell a story where I start with a small #X and then expand? ▪️ Does $Y line up with real budgets and comparable spend? ▪️ Can we acquire customers for less than ~$Y/3? ▪️ Do we need more product to credibly charge $Y? You don’t need perfect answers early but a strawman that allows YOU to understand why you are willing to spend the next 10 years of your life working on something. 🚩

Many founders treat pricing as a revenue optimization problem. Figure out the product first, scale usage, then monetize. That's backwards. Pricing isn't about extracting money. It's about discovering whether you built something people actually value. At Gamma, we used pricing as a proxy for value and kept it pretty much the same for over 2 years. Free usage will lie to you (especially for B2B and prosumer products). Usage spikes feel like PMF. They're not. Usage without payment tests your onboarding, not your value. If you come out with too generous of a free plan, you'll never know what true willingness to pay looks like. Here's how to use pricing as a proxy for value: 1. Pick your value metric Choose the thing customers actually hire you for. Documents generated. API calls. Minutes transcribed. At Gamma, we gated by AI credits as the primary value metric, with business levers like custom branding. 2. Draw a hard boundary between free and paid Let people experience the "aha," then stop them at a generous but bounded gate. We gave users plenty of AI credits up front. Once they hit the limit: upgrade for access to more AI. 3. Research your range, then let behavior decide We used Van Westendorp to find our starting range. Ask users four price points: too cheap to trust, good value, getting expensive, too expensive to consider. Plot where these intersect to bracket your range. Then test a few prices within it. Research shows what people say they'll pay - conversion shows what they actually do. We watched free-to-paid conversion and early churn signals, picked the winner, and moved on. 4. Instrument retention and talk to customers Track whether paid users keep crossing your value threshold each week. Stay close to customers through power-user communities or direct outreach. Ask questions like: "What job were you hiring us for?" and "What would justify a higher price?" 5. Treat pricing changes like product pivots Once you've validated pricing, the only reason to change it is if you've fundamentally changed what you're selling. We haven't changed ours in two years because the value metric (AI usage) hasn't changed. Constantly repricing means you're still searching for product-market fit. Why this matters: Pricing early clarifies who values you, which channels convert, and which segments to double down on. You're better off launching pricing way earlier so you can see who's actually willing to pay for it.

If I started a solar company today, it wouldn’t have solar in the name. I'd sell home energy consumption monitoring or smart home equipment and let solar sell itself. Here's why. Getting in the door is 80% of the battle. Lead with solar, and 9 out of 10 homeowners shut you down. Door closed. If I were rebuilding from scratch, here's exactly what I'd do: Step 1: Lead with energy monitoring, smart home integrations, and whole-home electrification, not solar. - Install an Emporia home energy monitor for $300-500 - Show them real-time data on where their money is going - HVAC running 24/7, water heater bleeding energy, phantom loads they didn't know existed Now you're not a solar salesman. You're the guy who showed them they're throwing $200/month out the window Step 2: Identify what's bleeding money, then show them solar powers the fix. Once the monitor is installed, walk them through the data. "Your HVAC is 60% of your bill. A heat pump cuts this in half. With solar, you're heating and cooling for free." "Your water heater is costing you $80/month. A heat pump water heater powered by solar drops that to basically zero." You're solving real problems they can see. Solar makes each solution free to operate. Step 3: Let them ask about solar (because now they want it). - Once they see how much money they're losing and how solar fixes everything, the conversation happens naturally - "So if I upgrade to a heat pump, add solar, and get a smart panel, what does that save me?" - You didn't pitch solar. They asked for it. That's the difference between getting shut down and getting invited to the kitchen table. Step 4: Build the whole-home solution with solar as the centerpiece. Now you're not just selling panels. You're building a complete energy solution. Induction stove, heat pump HVAC, heat pump water heater, battery backup - all powered by solar, all working when the grid doesn't. Solar-only project: $30k. Whole-home electrification with solar at the center: $60k-80k. You just doubled revenue per customer. The customer isn't thinking "expensive." They're thinking "my bill goes to zero, my home runs on sunshine, and I'm never affected by another blackout." Step 5: Eventually, rebrand as a whole-home energy company. - Don't call it "[City] Solar". Call it "[City] Home Energy". - You're not competing with other solar installers anymore - You're the expert who makes homes cheaper to run, more comfortable, and more valuable - You're creating a new category where solar is the obvious solution to every energy problem The product that gets you in the door matters more than the product you're trying to sell. The installers who survive the next 2 years won't be the ones with the best solar pitch, but those who figured out how to get invited into the house in the first place. Want to talk about solar? Start by showing them where their money is going. — If you were starting a solar company from scratch today, what would your first step be?

75% of buyers don't want to talk to you. - We all hear this stat, but love to ignore it. They want to buy. They just don't want to be sold to. Until THEY are ready. 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗜-𝗦𝗢𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗕𝗨𝗬𝗘𝗥 𝗜𝗦 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟 Look at your own behavior: LinkedIn message from vendor? Ignored. Unknown number calling? Declined. "Quick chat" request? Deleted. You're not being rude. You're protecting your time. Your buyers are doing the exact same thing to your reps. 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗧𝗛 𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗢𝗗𝗬 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗔𝗗𝗠𝗜𝗧 75% of B2B buyers prefer self-service over talking to sales. Not because they hate salespeople. Because they want to learn on their own timeline, at their own pace, without the pressure. But here's what kills me: Most companies respond by either forcing more meetings OR going fully hands-off. Both miss the point. 𝗚𝗨𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 "𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗙-𝗚𝗨𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗗" Self-service doesn't mean no service. It means structured discovery without the discovery call. You still need to guide buyers to value. But invisibly. 𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗧𝗢 𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗕𝗨𝗬𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗗𝗢𝗡'𝗧 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗞 1. 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 - What do they need to know at each stage? - What questions will they have? - What objections will surface? - What proof points matter most? Don't just throw content at them. Sequence it. 2. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 Not: "Here's a demo video" But: "Based on your role, start here" Not: "Check out our resources" But: "Companies like yours typically need these 3 things" Structure the path without being in the path. 3. 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 - Give them the tools to determine fit for themselves: - ROI calculators they can use alone - Assessment tools with instant results - Comparison guides they can share internally They're qualifying themselves anyway. Help them do it right. 4. 𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 Your champion is selling when you're not there. Arm them with: - Forwardable content (short, scannable, valuable) - Pre-written business cases - Stakeholder-specific value props Make it easier to buy without you than with you. 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗦𝗨𝗦 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗔𝗖𝗛 This is why I’m getting started with Consensus They've figured out how to deliver personalized demos at scale. Buyers get exactly what they need, when they want it, without a meeting. But here's the key: It's guided self-service. The demo adapts based on their responses. It tracks what they care about. It shows you their digital body language. You're not absent. You're invisible. 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗗𝗦𝗘𝗧 𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗙𝗧 Stop thinking: "How do I get them on a call?" Start thinking: "How do I help them buy without me?" Because the best sales experience might be no sales experience. At least not the traditional kind. Meet the buyer where THEY are and you'll be shocked how much more likely they will be to meet you where YOU want.

"Talk to customers" is classic startup advice. But not enough folks teach you how to talk to users in a way that gets you actual insights. Since launching Decagon and raising $100M over 3 rounds, we’ve learned a lot, especially about GTM. Here's how we've adapted our customer conversations to go beyond surface-level excitement and uncover real signals of value. We benchmark around dollars when discussing product features. Why? Because it’s easy to run a customer interview where the customer seems thrilled about a new idea we have. But excitement alone doesn’t tell you if a piece of feedback is truly valuable. The only way to find out is to ask the hard questions: → Is this something your team would invest in right now? → How much would you pay for it? → What’s the ROI you’d expect? Questions like these don’t allow for generic answers—they'll give you real clarity into a customer's willingness to pay. For example: say you float a product idea past a potential user. They're stoked by it. Then you ask how much they'd pay for said product—and the answer is $50 per person for a 3-person team. Is that worth building? It might be, depending on the outcome you're shooting for. But if your goal is to build an enterprise-grade product, that buying intent (or lack thereof) isn't going to cut it. If you'd stopped the interview at the surface-level excitement, you might have sent yourself on a journey building a product that isn't viable. By assessing true willingness to pay you can prioritize building what users find valuable versus what might sound good in theory. Get to the dollars as quickly as you can. It’s an approach that has helped us align our roadmap with what customers truly need and ensure we’re building a product that has a measurable impact.

Most conversions do not happen because a buyer fully understands a product. They happen when a buyer feels confident enough to act. In many marketing strategies, the assumption is that stronger messaging, more features, or crowded funnels will drive better results. When campaigns underperform, the instinct is often to improve persuasion. Yet, in conversations with sales teams, a different pattern frequently emerges. Prospects are not necessarily confused. They are uncertain. Not about what the product does, but about whether it is the right decision at the right time with an acceptable level of risk. This change in perspective changes how conversion should be understood. Conversion is not just a click or a form submission. It is a confidence event. A moment where trust, clarity, and emotional alignment come together. It is when a buyer feels ready to justify the decision internally and move forward with conviction. This week’s newsletter explores why many B2B conversion models fail to capture this reality, how buyer readiness actually develops, and what it means to design for momentum rather than simply accelerating the funnel. For teams generating attention but struggling to convert it into action, this framework offers a useful lens for rethinking how marketing turns belief into measurable business outcomes.

Here’s a harsh reality of the current state of sales: It’s hard to show up in the way your prospects need when all you can think about is the number you have to hit to pay rent or keep your job. Unrelenting pressure to close more deals and mAkE mOrE dIaLs make us pushy and confusing. Whether we realize it or not, we’re explicitly focused on what WE want, not what buyers need. We need to sell products and hit quota. Buyers need to solve painful problems holding them back from realizing specific outcomes. That disconnect is a wonderful recipe for deteriorating trust and causing a lot of confusion. Focus on aligning your goals to your buyer’s. It’ll make your job a whole lot easier. How? Assess: - Are their problems painful enough to prioritize? - What have they done in the past to solve them? - What’s the quantifiable impact of fixing them? Align: - What’s their confidence level solving them solo? - What solutions address their specific use-case? - What’s the ideal how & when of implementation? Act: - What options do they have? (internal/external) - What’s an adequate ‘budget’ rooted in ROI? - Which solution is best to move forward with? Hint: It might not be yours. :) People are bad buyers. They need prescriptive and objective help to avoid skipping steps and getting hit with buyer’s remorse. Align your process with your buyer’s ideal journey. Less us. More them. 👋