Land and expand strategy for B2B sales teams

What is a land and expand strategy in sales?

Land and expand is a sales strategy focused on initially securing a smaller deal with a new customer (i.e., the “land” phase) and then gradually increasing the scope and value of the relationship over time (i.e., the “expand” phase). This approach starts with identifying an entry point that meets an immediate need or solves a specific problem for a customer.

Once the initial purchase is made and the new customer experiences the benefits of the product or service, the sales team works to build trust and demonstrate additional value, paving the way for upselling and cross-selling opportunities down the line. Such opportunities can include introducing complementary products, increasing seat count, expanding the usage to other departments, or upgrading to a premium offering.

While account executives are usually tasked with continuing the sales side of the relationship even after the initial close, they usually don’t have to do it alone. 

Oftentimes, customer service and customer experience teams — which establish relationships with customers during implementation and beyond — can do a lot of the heavy lifting. Ensuring that the customer success team knows about the land and expand sales strategy and provides a tailored and exceptional onboarding experience can make or break this process. If the customer doesn’t feel like the initial product or service sold to them matches their expectations and desires, it will be hard to sell them additional products.

Sales teams use the land and expand strategy because it leverages an already-established relationship and customer satisfaction to drive more sales, often leading to long-term partnerships and increased revenue. Using this strategy, sales teams can prove value incrementally, reducing the perceived risk for the customer and increasing the chances the business relationship grows organically.

It's on the AE to continue the relationship post-sale, but CSM teams play a critical role in ensuring that the sales team can execute the planned land and expand strategy. 

Pros and cons of utilizing a land and expand strategy

While incorporating a land and expand strategy can supercharge your sales efforts, it’s not without its challenges. In this section, we examine the pros and cons of this strategy to give you a better idea of how it works in the real world.

Pros of land and expand strategy

The main reason sales teams use the land and expand strategy is because it makes upselling and cross-selling easier compared to having to acquire new customers. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, it can cost anywhere between 5 to 25 times more to sell to a new customer versus an existing one. 

That’s because — once trust and customer satisfaction are established with the initial purchase — customers are more open to exploring additional products and services with a business they already have a strong opinion on and relationship with. 

What’s more, the land and expand strategy also reduces churn and increases retention by continuously adding value and addressing evolving needs of the customer. On top of this, the land and expand strategy strengthens relationships over the long term, which leads to customer loyalty, since customers are more likely to stick with vendors they trust and have a positive history with. 

Add it all up, and the land and expand strategy can ultimately drive substantial sustained revenue growth and a healthier bottom line far into your company’s future. 

Cons of land and expand strategy

While the land and expand strategy can help businesses close more sales, there are some potential drawbacks to keep in mind. 

For starters, this strategy requires deep alignment between product, marketing, sales, and customer support teams to ensure seamless execution, consistent messaging, and personalized touches after the initial onboarding. Once the initial sale has closed, it requires a seamless implementation and a customer success team that’s standing by to ensure the customer is using the product to the fullest and sees immediate value.

At the same time, it requires marketing operations to effectively manage outreach discussing other products and services. For example, the marketing operations team may want to develop a drip campaign for a certain product line that pushes onboarded customers into learning about additional products and services. 

If teams are not properly prepared, this approach can become messy, leading to disjointed efforts, miscommunication, missed opportunities, fragmented customer experiences, and ultimately a loss in potential additional revenue from existing customers. 

Without a cohesive strategy, companies may struggle to scale effectively and fail to realize the full potential of their customer relationships, which could potentially harm customer satisfaction and retention. 

But don’t worry: Any size team at any size company can implement a land and expand strategy if they think strategically and follow the steps below. 

How to implement a B2B land and expand strategy

At this point, the land and expand strategy probably sounds a bit enticing. But you might be wondering how you can actually go about landing and expanding an account. Let’s take a look.

Land and expand strategy preparation checklist 

To prepare to successfully execute a land and expand strategy within your organization, follow this checklist to ensure every angle is covered and nothing slips through the cracks:

• Product alignment. First things first: Ensure your offering can be easily introduced on a small scale with clear paths for expansion. For example, this might mean having modular features that can be added on or premium offerings that can grow with a customer’s needs.
• Team alignment. Coordinate between sales, marketing, product, and customer support to maintain consistent messaging across touchpoints. To do this, hold cross-departmental meetings on a regular basis and maintain clear and open communication channels.
• Target identification. Identify initial entry points and high-potential expansion opportunities within target accounts to focus efforts effectively. While you’re at it, use data analytics and market research to pinpoint opportunities and adjust your approach accordingly.
• Onboarding. Develop a streamlined onboarding process that quickly demonstrates value to new customers and secures their initial buy-in. Do everything you can to simplify the user experience and provide comprehensive training resources to ensure customers realize benefits immediately.
• Customer feedback loop. To continuously improve your offerings, come up with ways to collect and ask for customer feedback. Such methods can include regular surveys, feedback forms, and direct communication channels. You can even ask them “what other features or tools would be useful to you?” in these feedback sessions and either use it as an opportunity to introduce them to a feature they didn’t know about or the product team can use these learnings to ideate on new features that can be upsold later on!
• Training and resources. To ensure reps can handle both initial sales and expansion efforts, make sure they’re trained and have access to proper resources. For the best results, provide ongoing education and access to up-to-date materials to keep teams informed.
• Performance metrics. By tracking key performance indicators, you can monitor success, measure progress, and identify areas for improvement. Regularly reviewing these metrics can help you ensure your strategy is on track. (Curious which metrics you should monitor? More on that in a bit.)
• Marketing operations. Supporting ongoing engagement and communication with customers requires relatively robust marketing operations capabilities. Invest resources to develop targeted campaigns and content that keep customers informed and engaged about additional product offerings at every step.

Team, tech, and targets: Needs for implementing land and expand strategy

For your land and expand efforts to succeed, you need to have the right people and tools in place, and you also need to target the best accounts.

Sales and marketing teams designed for land and expand strategies

Building sales, marketing, and customer success teams for land and expand strategies starts with selecting employees with strong collaboration skills and a customer-centric mindset. 

Ensure both teams are aligned on goals and metrics, and implement regular cross-functional meetings to maintain consistent messaging. Do your best to train your team thoroughly on your products and associated expansion capabilities, as well as how to use data analytics to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Above all else, make sure every interaction employees have with customers adds value and builds trust, thereby deepening the relationship.

Technology to help you get more from each account

It’s much easier to succeed at landing and expanding an account when you have the right tools in place. 

For example, you can use LeadIQ to track team growth and connect with new or different team members, helping your relationship with a target account blossom over time. For example, if their marketing team uses your product today but you believe their sales team could also benefit from it, you could start the conversation by reaching out to other team members. 

Even better, you can connect LeadIQ with the other sales tools you use every day — like Gong, Outreach, Salesloft, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Groove — to bake even more efficiency, accuracy, and integrity into your land and expand workflows. 

Target accounts with specific upsell and cross-sell opportunities

Instead of spraying and praying, target specific accounts with specific upsell and cross-sell opportunities by analyzing customer data to identify potential needs and gaps in your existing customer base. Your efforts are best spent focusing on accounts with high potential for expansion and adjusting your approach so it highlights additional products or services that address each account’s unique challenges. 

To connect with customers, personalize your outreach and make it a habit to demonstrate added value of new solutions regularly. By strategically targeting accounts likely to be interested and have the budget to expand, you can maximize revenue, strengthen customer relationships, and lay the foundation for a productive long-term business relationship.

Land and expand sales plays your team can use today

Curious how your team can test a land and expand strategy today? Here are five sales plays to try out with this type of strategy. 

Pilot program offering

Land new customers by offering a limited-time pilot program or free trial to demonstrate the value of your offering on a small scale. Ensure the pilot addresses a specific pain point to build trust and satisfaction. Once the pilot or trial is over, you can see how the experience was for them and then upsell them to a more advanced version of your product that has more features or add-ons they didn’t even know about in the pilot! 

Regular check-ins

A good relationship shouldn’t end once a contract has been signed. By scheduling regular check-ins with customers, gathering feedback, and addressing concerns, you can identify needs, pain points, and opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. Presenting personalized solutions that align with feedback and changing requirements is an excellent way to build trust and strengthen your relationships.

Keep in mind this task shouldn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of customer success. SDRs and AEs who may have initially pitched and closed the deal should continue checking in to keep their relationships top of mind.

Comprehensive onboarding and training

First impressions matter. Developing a robust onboarding process that includes comprehensive training and dedicated support is a great way to ensure customers have a strong experience with your offerings out of the gate and are able to use your products effectively. Be sure to highlight advanced features and additional products during training sessions to spark interest in expanded offerings.

Cross-departmental engagement

Engaging with a new department of an existing customer can be another great way to begin the process of expanding an account. Utilize the initial success of the organization’s investment in your products and demonstrate how the customer can replicate that success across different functions or areas of their business. To drive increased adoption, personalize your approach to the specific needs and challenges of each department. If an organization is largely siloed, this can be great for you as maybe one small department in the US has adopted your product and is benefiting from it - and now you can sell to their international teams or other departments!

Co-marketing initiatives

To make your customer feel valued, include them in marketing-related activities that benefit both your company and theirs. For example, you can invite them to your next webinar to give them a chance to showcase their thought leadership. You can also work together on co-branded blog posts, give them speaking slots at events, and promote their organizational accomplishments on social media. It’s an easy way to show you’re committed to nurturing the relationship and in this process you will inevitably talk about your other product offerings.

Value-driven follow-ups

To maintain open lines of communication, consistently engage customers with personalized follow-ups that highlight ongoing value, new features, and items in the roadmap. Share relevant case studies, insights into industry trends, product updates, and thought leadership pieces that align with each customer’s goals to show that you’re staying on the forefront of what’s possible in your industry. Each of these touchpoints can be a springboard toward expansion opportunities.

How to measure your land and expand strategy success

To understand whether your land and expand strategies are working, you need to measure the success of your efforts and their impact on revenue growth and customer retention. By tracking key performance indicators, you can identify areas for improvement, optimize your approach, and ensure that your team’s efforts are driving the desired outcomes.

Land and expand metrics to track

Overall, it should be relatively obvious after three to six months if your land and expand strategy is working. You should have more sales revenue attached to existing customers, have faster close times on those deals as you’ve already built trust, and an increased ACV. 

Here are some of the key metrics you’ll want to track as you continue fine-tuning your land and expand strategy:

• Average revenue per user (ARPU) refers to the average revenue generated per paying user, excluding free or non-paying users. It’s determined by dividing the total revenue by the number of paying users.
  
• Average account revenue assesses the average revenue generated from each account. It’s calculated by dividing total revenue by the number of customer accounts.
  
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV) estimates the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account over the entire relationship. It includes average purchase value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan.
• ‍Customer churn rate measures the percentage of customers who stop using a product or service during a certain period of time. It’s calculated by dividing the number of customers lost by the total number of customers at the start of a period then multiplying by 100.
• Net Promoter Score gauges customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking customers how likely they are to recommend a product or service to others. To find your NPS score, subtract the percentage of detractors (those who grade your offerings 0 to 6 on 10-point scale) from the percentage of promoters (those who rate it 9 or 10). 

When will you start landing and expanding accounts?

If you’re looking to increase revenue in 2024 and beyond, incorporating a land and expand strategy into your prospecting workflows can be a great way to onboard, retain, and grow new customer accounts.

To get the best results from your land and expand strategy you need the right tools. Find out how LeadIQ’s data hub can help you optimize your land and expand efforts while engaging customers and prospects on a deeper, more personal level by requesting a demo today.