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Jonathan Bland
Co-Founder @ Omni Lab | Paid Media for B2B SaaS brands
Professional Background
Jonathan Bland boasts over 15 years of extensive experience within the fast-paced world of venture capital-backed SaaS companies. Throughout his illustrious career, he has played pivotal roles in four renowned SaaS startups, consulting with over 100 businesses to help them accelerate their growth. Notably, Jonathan successfully guided one of his clients through an acquisition and facilitated another's journey into unicorn status, celebrating milestones that generated millions in net new revenue.
Throughout his career, Jonathan has not only witnessed the evolution of buyer behavior but has also experienced first-hand the trials of entrepreneurship, including the challenges faced by his own SaaS venture. This invaluable experience has equiped him with a wealth of knowledge on common pitfalls to avoid, making him exceptionally qualified to advise others in the field.
Jonathan recognizes that the buyer's journey has significantly transformed over the years, with buyers today possessing increased power and choice. Despite this evolution, many SaaS companies continue to implement outdated lead generation strategies, leading to inflated customer acquisition costs and missing revenue targets. Jonathan's expertise lies in advocating for a buyer-centric approach, which aligns marketing strategies with the modern buyer's preferences, ultimately driving more effective demand generation.
This understanding culminated in the founding of Omni Lab Consulting, where he and his team specialize in facilitating growth for Series A to C SaaS startups.
Education and Achievements
Jonathan's educational foundation is compelling, with an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Studies from IE Business School—a renowned institution that empowers future business leaders with the skills to innovate and drive change.
Prior to this, he studied various disciplines at James Madison University, including Sports Management, Marketing, Management, Accounting, and Economics. This diverse educational background has provided Jonathan with a well-rounded understanding of business operations and marketing dynamics, equipping him to tackle the multifaceted challenges within the SaaS industry effectively.
Throughout his career, Jonathan has held various prestigious roles, including:
- Co-Founder of Omni Lab Consulting: Here, he utilizes his expertise to help SaaS companies accelerate growth and optimize their marketing strategies.
- Senior Director of Sales & Partnerships at Jellyfish: Jonathan leveraged his keen insights into sales dynamics to drive revenue and strengthen partnerships.
- Regional Director of Sales at Stitch Labs: In this role, he fostered sales initiatives that elevated the company's market position.
- Head of Sales, East at Teralytics: Jonathan focused on expanding the business's client base, contributing significantly to its growth trajectory.
- Head of Sales & Marketing at XeoMatrix: Jonathan directed both sales and marketing efforts, helping the company gain a competitive edge.
- Senior Account Executive and Senior Business Development Manager at MicroStrategy: His tenure here was marked with achievements in key account development and strategic partnerships.
- Account Representative at Carahsoft Technology Corp.: Jonathan's early career experience laid the groundwork for his understanding of the technology sector.
- Founder & CEO at Smashwizard: Jonathan led this venture, showcasing his entrepreneurial spirit and capability to innovate.
These roles have collectively honed Jonathan's skills in sales, marketing, and partnership management, making him a sought-after consultant in the SaaS landscape.
Notable Achievements
Jonathan's expertise in buyer-centric demand generation has yielded impressive results for the SaaS companies he has advised. Some highlights of his accomplishments include:
- Achieving Unicorn Status: Assisted a client in reaching unicorn status within just 10 months, demonstrating Jonathan's ability to drive rapid growth.
- Substantial Pipeline Growth: Helped one SaaS company experience a remarkable 372% growth in their sales pipeline, along with an extraordinary lead to opportunity conversion rate of 266%.
- Dramatic Revenue Increases: Facilitated a staggering 1,300% increase in revenue from Q3 to Q4 for a SaaS business, showcasing the effectiveness of his strategic initiatives.
- Consistent Revenue Growth: Enabled one company to achieve a consistent 20% quarterly revenue growth, underscoring the sustainable impact of Jonathan's buyer-centric approach.
As he continues to lead Omni Lab Consulting, Jonathan remains committed to helping SaaS startups thrive in a competitive marketplace. By focusing on aligning marketing efforts with the modern buyer's journey, Jonathan empowers businesses to create and capture demand effectively.
Conclusion
Jonathan Bland is not just a seasoned prof
Highlights
You can bid on the software category or what people want to "DO" with your product. The cost $$$ difference will surprise you. 👇
Let's use Turtl as an example...they fall into the category called "content creation platform," so you would naturally want to spend money on that keyword.
However, if I google "content creation platform" right now. I get ads for:
- Clearvoice
- Hootsuite
None of the above are competitors of Turtl, yet they are bidding on the same category.
Software categories have gotten complicated, with so many SaaS brands crossing between various categories at the same time.
One way to address this is to focus on what people want to "DO" with your product.
One of the jobs Turtl performs is to make PDFs interactive.
So instead of:
1.) "content creation platform"
You might focus on keywords like:
2.) "interactive PDF"
As you can see below, a "content creation platform" is about 54% more expensive than an "interactive PDF."
Before you get excited, any good marketer knows that it isn't just about what you pay per click, but how that translates into pipeline.
However, after running many campaigns focused on the jobs-to-be-done framework, I can tell you that for many brands, these keywords translate to downstream results.
While bidding on "content creation platform" isn't wrong, you don't want to exclude your end-user searches (especially in PLG motions).
TL;DR High-intent category keywords can make sense, but consider your end user searches, especially when targeting end users.
Chris Carpenter Hope you don't mind the shoutout, ❤️ ya'll! :)
#demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas
Every good paid media strategy includes awareness, retargeting, and expansion.
In the awareness stage, your goal is to maximize reach and exposure to as many people in your ICP. Focus on answering these questions:
1.) What do you do? 2.) What problem do you solve?
Your aim is to associate your brand with key buying triggers or category entry points so when they do come in-market they think of your brand.
At some point, they will engage with your campaign via a click or view. Or they may go around your ad and go to your website directly (more common than not)
👉 This is where retargeting comes into play. 👈
Retargeting serves two purposes: staying at the top of one's mind (to fight the forgetting curve) and converting warm traffic. Focus on answering these questions:
1.) Who else uses it? 2.) What's the ROI? 3.) How does it work? 4.) Does it integrate with my systems? 5.) Why now? 6.) Add other content based on {questions} your buyers might have
After they have made it into your CRM via ads or indirectly, it's about accelerating existing deals.
You need to expand your targeting to the rest of the buying committee and focus content on answering objections. Some of those questions will be similar to retargeting, but personalize them based on questions buyers have.
TL;DR When running a demand gen strategy with paid ads remember that it's not just about capturing demand, it's about building awareness over the long term.
Caveats:
- Audience Size: Depending on your audience size, some of the above may not make sense for you
- Channel: Not all channels have targeting like LinkedIn, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't spend on those channels; if some of your audience is there, you should be there.
- Goal: It depends on your goal and focus; some might want to index more on acquisition vs. others on expansion.
#demandgeneration #b2bmarketing #saas
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.