The tl;dr? Quota attainment is down, sales cycles are longer, pipeline generation is harder, churn is up and budgets are getting cut.
Doesn't sound great, eh?
Everstage and RevOps Co-op surveyed 100+ SaaS companies to determine the impact of the economic downturn on their business, and highlight strategies that can be used to weather the storm. Here’s what the survey told us.
Per our survey, more than two-thirds of companies did not hit their targets during H1 in 2022, and this only got worse as 2022 came to a close.
Nearly 80% of them also responded that they faced challenges in achieving their goals, clearly pointing to a downturn in the market, where most companies are not able to bring in as much money as they’d hoped to.
Even among those who did hit their targets, a significant portion reported significant difficulties in doing so.
In an economic downturn, most companies make purchases on a need-basis, and there are more stringent approval processes for them as well. This has resulted in a significant shortfall for certain channels, especially cold, outbound campaigns.
Meanwhile, paid ads seem to be the least impacted source of pipeline, and it would be prudent for companies to consider this channel. Despite this fact, it seems that marketing budgets are the first place that companies are going when it comes to budget cuts.
While it may seem obvious, most companies face a loss in revenue during these difficult times. One way to manage this revenue impact is to implement budget cuts, which involve reducing or eliminating certain expenses in order to save money.
Budget cuts are often necessary during a downturn in order to maintain financial stability and avoid financial crises.
Per our survey, 64% of companies responded saying they had a budget cut. Out of these, 80% of respondents saw their marketing budgets cut, which seems at odds with the fact that paid ads as a channel seems the least impacted by the economic downturn.
In addition, 67% of them also saw their software budgets cut during the year.
Includes a detailed summary of the survey questions and responses, as well as the analysis.
