What Makes SaaS Marketing Unique And How To Do It Well

Software as a Service (SaaS) marketing encompasses a specific niche in the eCommerce market, but a pretty large niche. According to surveys, 80% of businesses use at least one SaaS product, and 73% predict nearly all of their most-used services will be SaaS by the end of this year.

That being said, this multi-billion dollar industry operates on a unique model, and as a result, requires a unique marketing approach.

A SaaS business host software and make them available to users through the internet, often via a subscription fee.

This is why traditional marketing tips are not always applicable to SaaS marketing: there is no physical product to showcase, the service is often constantly changing and updating, or it is highly specialized to suit a handful of companies.

Even the few users who fully appreciate the usefulness of the software don’t necessarily “own” the product.

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It’s due to all of these unique challenges that a specific breed of SaaS marketing has emerged. Some of these tips will seem counter intuitive to some marketers, but they are all designed to highlight the strengths of SaaS.

More Than Free Samples

If you can conjure up any examples of SaaS products, the first thing you’ll likely notice is that they’re all free, at least for a time.

Free trials are the lifeblood of SaaS, as it gives users the chance to try out the software, get hooked and convince them to continue onto the full subscription.

Compare this to traditional marketing: most companies wouldn’t dream of giving out complete access to their product for free.

That is the difference between direct ownership and SaaS, one relies on the specific instance of sale while the other is a long game that relies on protracted investment and engagement.

Make It Quick

Another thing that sets apart SaaS from regular products is the speed of sales. In B2C SaaS interactions, the time between a customer discovering your service and signing up for a free trial is often a matter of hours.

This is one of the advantages of the free trial: it encourages your customers to engage quickly because there is practically no barrier to entry. Often customers will look to SaaS products because they solve a particular need that has suddenly arisen, rather than a long decision process.

Seeing as 89% of SaaS businesses depend on new customer acquisition for growth, capitalizing on this sudden need is essential.

This means the way you make sales has to facilitate this speed of entry. A SaaS customer will usually make a purchase decision not long after visiting your product’s landing page.

Compare this to product marketing, which could mean days or weeks of research and deliberation, allowing for a more wide-net internet presence.

For SaaS landing pages it is more important than ever to sell your product succinctly, after which try to put as few barriers as possible between your landing page and your checkout page.

Stand Out, But Not With Price

As the SaaS market is expanding os rapidly, you can be pretty sure that, whatever your product offers, there will be competitors out there offering similar services.

It begs the question: how do you stand out in such a crowded market? The first inclination might be to undercut on price.

It’s a common tactic from traditional product marketing; offering the same product for less; and while some statistics show a 1% price reduction boosts sales by 11%, it’s not always a sustainable tactic in the SaaS game.

Due to the iterative and constantly updating nature of SaaS, you might be able to offer the cheapest option for some time but eventually, another company can come in and undercut you, dragging the price down for the whole market.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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If you base your offer on pricing then suddenly you don’t have a leg to stand on. Much better is to advertise the quality of your features first, something that takes a lot more work to beat.

The Way Forward

This is only the beginning of what makes SaaS marketing, what gets your customers in the door. The hard part is continuing to engage them in your service, and that’s all down to the quality of your product.

Put the quality of your software first and the marketing will follow.

6 Simple But Powerful Ways To Lower SaaS Customer Churn

To reduce customer churn is effectively one of the smartest development hacks in the present day.

Given that getting new clients is much more costly than holding the current ones, reducing client churn is one objective which should, and does, give restless evenings to entrepreneurs.

Procuring new clients requires a huge effort – right from the underlying contact to getting it done.

If securing costs make the a lot of your marketing budget, organizations are left with fewer resources for improving relations with existing clients and estimating consumer satisfaction – making them bound to churn.

What Is The Customer Churn?

Client churn is the rate at which your current clients quit working with you.

On account of software as a service organization, it is the rate at which they cancel their membership to your service.

Agitate averts SaaS organizations from taking care of securing costs and creating a positive capital and, tragically, is straightforwardly corresponding to the number of clients a business obtains.

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Churn pursues negative exponential dissemination which is the direct inverse of healthy exponential development.

In this manner, a short client lifetime value directly affects income while likewise preventing viral development.

The key to a steady development is verifying a strong and loyal client base that always adds to the MRR by a) effectively working with your product for quite a while and b) through referrals.

So, what are the ways to prevent your SaaS customers from churning? Here are the 6 simple but powerful ways to lower SaaS customer churn

Avoid Common UX Issues That Impact Churn

Smooth client experience is essentially associated with a decent product that meets the desires of the client.

That is the reason product management assumes such a vital job in client maintenance. Every product release should be an ideal release of the present version of the item.

Despite the fact that the product guide is limitless and the product will never be finished, clients hope to associate with a cleaned and well-functioning product.

Product managers need to acknowledge bargains at each progression yet each discharge, regardless of whether lacking potential key features, needs to work flawlessly and meet all the prerequisites that can guarantee client achievement.

An underlying bad impression is extremely difficult to recoup from, and clients don’t generally rely on your guarantees.

It’s alright to impart what’s coming beside keep clients intrigued and engaged with your product, however they’ll eventually pass judgment on you by what they see, not what they hear.

Changing Over Trial Users Into Customers

Client achievement isn’t just an office. Client achievement is the larger methodology of a whole organization, from promoting to deals, product management, and operations.

Client achievement is a procedure that starts with the absolute first interaction with a potential client.

From promotional activities to instructive content, maintenance is a solid part of a client-driven methodology that focuses on cooperating towards a similar objective.

Each touch-point leaves a lasting mark that at last influences maintenance.

Each progression in the client journey represents a unique chance to help clients to remember the estimation of your solution.

When a client dismisses the center points of interest, they quit engaging with your product. The most basic stages are:

  • On-boarding 
  • Preliminary to paid change 
  • Starting 90 days 
  • Renewal   
  • Concentrate on a Great On-boarding 

On-boarding new clients imply rapidly meeting a few targets including demonstrating the capacities of your solution, persuading clients regarding the value of your product.

And promptly directing them through the interface and through the most remarkable procedures to ensure that everything is appropriately set up to work splendidly.

A well-planned on-boarding process must intend to meet and conceivably even surpass your client’s desires by controlling them to arrive at a speedy success as quickly as possible.

The way you locally available your clients indelibly affects maintenance.

Leading clients to see first outcomes immediately and dissatisfaction implies making an incredible initial impression that will set the state of mind for the whole client journey.

Moment Usability

Another issue associated with UX is associated with ease of use. Speed is everything! We’re accustomed to collaborating with new applications that enable us to quickly accomplish our objectives.

Consider Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, Uber… clients anticipate moment access and ease of use. In any case, for these platforms, the task is generally simple, since their item is explicitly intended to achieve one single task.

The issue is far increasingly perplexing for SaaS applications that regularly present a lot more elevated levels of complexity.

Regardless of what number of modules, menus, and features your product has: clients hope to be in a split second ready to set up their workplace and rapidly accomplish critical outcomes.

Any deferral between the sign-up platform and the primary outcomes drastically expands the likelihood that a client churn.

A friction-less client experience implies that the client can promptly work the application they’re trying without feeling lost or baffled.

Commitment And Activation To Fight Churn

In the wake of on-boarding your clients in your foundation, it’s an ideal opportunity to stay in contact with them to ensure that they return back to your service as quickly as possible and proceed with their client achievement journey.

Emails, studies, and registration calls are a portion of the alternatives that can help support activation.

If clients experienced a charming on-boarding portrayed by an exciting UX, they’re bound to continue engaging with your product.

If you set up a solid client achievement program, you can choose to go for an exceptionally high-contact approach and really connect with the customer to discover what their particular objectives and necessities are and to design a guide to assist them with coordinating your solution in their ecosystem and set explicit targets.

Making a legitimate and straightforward association with the client includes organizing their experience and supporting them along the whole journey with data, information, and updates.

Building an individual relationship is the most straightforward approach to ensure achievement and advance advocacy.

Studies are valuable tools that SaaS organizations need to use to find out about their client and can likewise be utilized to discover how they like to impart.

Checking Behavior And Be Proactive

Clients who are going to churn send a wide range of sign. Client achievement solutions, for example, Natero, for instance, are designed to screen your client’s health status and send explicit alarms.

Clients don’t as a rule quite connecting with your solution all of the abrupt.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

If you see a drop in commitment, you can anticipate stir and mediate with re-initiation messages, limits, or extraordinary offers, for example, opening explicit highlights for nothing, or including new clients.

Stay In Contact With Your Customers During The Famous Critical Phase

Most of the clients churn in the initial three months. Organizations like Hubspot, Andolasoft used to offer an exceptional client success program to help clients during the whole course of the initial 90 days described by consecutive registrations.

Requesting feedback about your product and the general understanding during this period is a key segment of a long term relationship.

What’s more, obviously, alluring limits for yearly memberships can be welcoming and gainful for both, you, and your client.

If a client submits from the earliest starting point, they’re bound to put the time in comprehension and utilizing your solution for the fullest to get an appropriate ROI.