Dilara Cossette: Making Paid Ads work for Small Marketing Teams

February 26, 2024
Content Marketing | Direct | Marketing Strategy

Episode Summary

86% of buyers have already made their decision before ever filling out a form. Corrina and Taylor are joined by Dilara Cossette, practitioner turned founder of Focus Image Pro, for a chat on how she transformed a client’s lead and demand generation strategies.

By adopting a holistic approach and closely collaborating with the sales and executive team, she gained a comprehensive understanding of the lead sources and their quality. This collaborative strategy enabled her to make effective changes in the campaigns, leading to a substantial increase in Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and closed revenue opportunities.

Follow Dilara on LinkedIn

Check out Focus Image Pro

Connect with Direct’s hosts, Corrina & Taylor

 

Featured Guest

Name: Dilara Cossette
What she does: Founder & Head of Demand Generation
Company: Focus Image Pro

Noteworthy: Founder of Focus Image Pro, Dilara excels in B2B demand generation with nearly a decade of experience.

Key Insights

Customer Centricity: The Key to Effective Demand Generation

Dilara Cossette emphasizes the importance of being customer-centric in demand generation. She advocates for using customer insights as a guiding force rather than rigidly sticking to predetermined metrics. Dilara highlights the value of listening to and watching recordings of customer interactions, such as discovery and demonstration calls. This approach offers deeper insights into customer concerns, questions, and how they found the company. These learnings are crucial for organizations to understand their customers better and tailor their strategies accordingly, making demand generation efforts more effective and aligned with customer needs​​.

Holistic Approach to Lead Generation: Beyond Traditional Metrics

In her discussion with Corrina & Taylor, Dilara Cossette shares an instance where she helped a client by adopting a holistic approach to lead and demand generation. This involved closely working with the sales team to understand the origin and quality of leads, going beyond just focusing on specific target audiences and metrics. By integrating a comprehensive view, Dilara was able to make informed changes to campaigns, leading to significant improvements in both the number of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and closed revenue opportunities. This approach underscores the importance of a broader perspective in demand generation, focusing on the entire customer journey rather than just initial engagement​​.

Bridging the Gap Between Sales and Marketing Teams

Dilara Cossette highlights the common issue of siloed operations between sales and marketing teams within many companies. She stresses the importance of building trust-based bridges between these teams. Often, marketing and sales departments operate with different goals and understandings, leading to inefficiencies and conflicts. By fostering collaboration and understanding between these teams, companies can create a more unified approach to lead generation and qualification. This synergy is essential for aligning marketing efforts with sales objectives, ultimately leading to more effective lead generation and a smoother sales process​​.

Episode Highlights

The Importance of Customer Insights in Demand Generation

Dilara Cossette discusses the crucial role of customer insights in shaping demand generation strategies. She emphasizes the value of directly listening to and observing customer interactions, such as through discovery and demo calls. This approach provides a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences, which is often missed when solely relying on data and metrics. It’s a shift towards a more customer-centric approach, focusing on actual customer behavior and feedback.

“100 percent watching and listening to recordings of disco and demo calls helps a lot… it’s very insightful hearing all these questions they’re asking, concerns, who they talk to, how they found us sometimes right?” 

Dilara Cossette: A Trailblazer in Demand Generation

The hosts introduce Dilara Cossette, highlighting her impressive background. As the founder and head of demand generation at Focus Image Pro, Dilara offers specialized solutions for B2B companies. Her nearly decade-long experience has equipped her with the expertise to develop strategies producing measurable outcomes. Beyond her professional achievements, she is also a multilingual mother, adding to her diverse set of skills.

“Dilara is the founder and head of demand generation at Focus Image Pro where she in offering fractional demand generation solutions specifically designed for B2B companies…” 

Demand Generation as the Future of B2B SaaS Marketing

Dilara Cossette articulates her vision for the future of B2B SaaS marketing, asserting the critical role of demand generation. She discusses how effective demand generation involves engaging with potential buyers well before they fill out a form, emphasizing the importance of building a brand’s reputation through customer reviews and interactions. Dilara believes that understanding and influencing the buyer’s decision-making process early on is key to successful marketing in the B2B SaaS space.

“Demand generation is the future of all the B2B SaaS companies… 86 percent [of buyers] already made their decision before filling the form.” 

Holistic Approach to Lead Generation and Client Success

Dilara shares an example of how she transformed a client’s lead and demand generation strategies. By adopting a holistic approach and closely collaborating with the sales team, she gained a comprehensive understanding of the lead sources and their quality. This collaborative strategy enabled her to make effective changes in the campaigns, leading to a substantial increase in Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and closed revenue opportunities.

“We really looked at that from the holistic approach… understanding where the leads are coming from…drove significant results in not only the number of MQs but also to the close revenue opportunities.”

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