About SmartBear

With tools and services to deliver quality at any step of the process, SmartBear enables engineering and development teams around the world to build better software and applications.

Problem

Jennifer Lowenthal, the Director of ProductMarketing at SmartBear, knows the importance of win-loss analysis and using it to optimize her audience-centric strategies. “We had some data and insights from what was in Salesforce, but we needed more robust insights to truly be audience-centric in our programs.”

Solution

Jennifer Lowenthal led the evaluation to find a win-loss analysis vendor. After searching for vendors, they made a shortlist to evaluate further. During the evaluation, the SmartBear team needed a solution that would fit their budget, had a good balance of a consultative touch with technology, and an effective technology platform to deliver the program data. It was also important for SmartBear to break down natural silos across the organization and ensure there was access to the platform and data across the company.

SmartBear chose Clozd for their win-loss initiative. Lowenthal was impressed with the business acumen brought by the Clozd team as well as the overall solution fit for SmartBear’s needs. The SmartBear team decided to run a pilot win-loss analysis program with Clozd. After sourcing a list of decision-makers from won and lost deals, the SmartBear team had Clozd start with 30 interviews spread out over two products.

The idea of offloading win-loss analysis to a team that was really easy to work with is great. Clozd does a fantastic job making sure the program moves along without becoming overbearing.”
Jennifer Lowenthal | Director of Product Marketing at SmartBear

Result

Clozd had the win-loss pilot program with buyer interviews up and running within a very short time frame. “I was very impressed with the ease of standing this up. Working with Clozd has been very seamless. Our consultant took the program and ran with it. We went from sending a list of decision-makers to actual win-loss insights really quickly,” said Lowenthal.

SmartBear’s win-loss program has given them insights and actions to take in multiple areas of the business and their go-to-market strategy. The feedback helped them with pricing, sales process, competitive intelligence, messaging, and more.

“Scaling this across many different product groups has been great. Getting unbiased feedback on why we were winning and losing has been invaluable. For example, I was able to validate a hypothesis I had about our pricing. We’ve also been able to reinforce things we thought we were doing well and make corrections in areas we didn’t realize we had a problem—like sales discovery and demos. Another surprise benefit of using Clozd was the competitive insights we gathered. We were able to get more details on how our product and pricing compared to competitors,” said Lowenthal.

SmartBear used the program to test several hypotheses they had about their product. One of these assumptions was that the market was shifting and, with that shift, they were running into a new buyer type. SmartBear hypothesized that this buyer type cared about a specific feature in the product more than their traditional buyer. They felt that their messaging was not keeping up with the market shift.

As feedback started coming in, they began compiling and analyzing the data. It turns out the problem was worse than they thought. One of the buyer interviews came back, and the buyer said they didn’t chooseSmartBear because they did not have the feature in question. This was frustrating because not only did they have the feature, but it was a strength of their product. Their hunch was validated, and they now had a clear customer perspective showing them what changes needed to be made.

“It was great to have the customer perspectives validate the market changes and my hypothesis. We could have told the sales team, ‘Let’s make this change because this is our hunch.’ It was much more effective to take actual customer quotes to the sales team to provide more evidence these changes should be made,” said Lowenthal.

SmartBear took that information and sat down with the solutions engineering team. With the feedback, they made adjustments to the sales discovery process and the sales demo. The insight and action taken made an impact on win rate. Lowenthal stated, “We started to see our win rate increase when this new buyer type was at the table. We also became more competitive against the primary competitor that the new buyer type preferred in head-to-head deals.”

Working with Clozd made me a better product marketer. We were able to better understand how to talk to a new buyer persona and adjust to our shifting market.”It has been great working with Clozd. The insights have been fantastic. We’ve been able to take action and implement changes. Everyone at Clozd is easy to work with, and I’ll continue to advocate for running a win-loss program with Clozd.”
Jennifer Lowenthal | Director of Product Marketing at SmartBear

Going forward

Since the pilot program, SmartBear has continued to invest in their win-loss program with Clozd to understand and optimize their strategies. They anticipate working with Clozd further to understand why they win and lose even better.

It has been great working with Clozd. The insights have been fantastic. We’ve been able to take action and implement changes. Everyone at Clozd is easy to work with, and I’ll continue to advocate for running a win-loss program with Clozd.”
Jennifer Lowenthal